It is my professional opinion as a film scholar and critic that André De Toth's Slattery's Hurricane is not just a drama, but a full-blown film noir. First, almost the entire film is told in flashback as the protagonist, former World War II navy pilot Will Slattery (Richard Widmark), narrates and provides bitter, cynical commentary on his actions. Second, the film involves characters who have been left adrift psychologically after World War II. Having been unfairly passed over for recognition for heroic actions in the Pacific Theater, Slattery is angry and callous. He works as a pilot transporting "candy bars" for a corrupt tycoon. In reality, he is transporting illegal drugs. But he doesn't mind turning a blind eye to the whole thing. As Lynyrd Skynyrd once said, "Don't ask me no questions and I won't tell you no lies." So we have the self-reflexive narrative techniques of film noir and a brooding film noir protagonist. I've seen movies widely accepted as film noir that have fulfilled fewer criteria of the genre. Anyhow, the film charts Slattery's redemption as both a pilot and a man after he strikes up an affair with his friend's wife and becomes explicitly involved with the drug trade. The film is framed by Slattery heroically sacrificing himself to fly a navy plane into the heart of a hurricane so that local authorities can chart the storm's development and evacuate threatened areas. But the film's greatest weakness is that it ultimately cops out of punishing Slattery. Against impossible odds he survives his suicide mission, is forgiven for his involvement in the drug trade, and is accepted as a hero. So the ending isn't emblematic of film noir. But that shouldn't discount all of the other indicators.
6/10
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