At the end of The Black Raven (1943) I felt a little torn. This struck me as what might be called a “factory movie”, made purely for profit as quickly as possible, much in the same way as the famous Casablanca (1942). You might expect a standard plot, and you’d be wrong. It has stereotypes, it has bad production values (or a bad print), it has elements of noir, yet none of them really define it.
Amos Bradford runs a hotel & safehouse for criminals on New York’s Canadian border, with the help of a put-upon assistant. One stormy night, his erstwhile partner, having finally escaped jail, appears at his hotel, gun at the ready for revenge, as Bradford, aka The Raven, may have connived at his capture and conviction. Bradford and his assistant are fortunate to overwhelm the man and tie him up.
But the storm has worsened, bridges are washing out, and people are beginning to wash up at the hotel: a displaced gangster, a bank cashier with an unlikely amount of money, young Lee Winfield with her fiancee, Robert, looking to get married in Canada; and the politically connected Tim Winfield, Lee’s father, who dislikes Robert and wishes to prevent the marriage.
And then the Sheriff shows up, just in time to find Tim Winfield’s body and accuse Robert of the murder. Bradford has been dealing with a series of problems, from the former partner, now escaped from the bonds Bradford applied, to an aggressive gangster, a high maintenance bank cashier, and now bodies.
Even for a criminal safehouse keeper, it’s a bit much.
The odd part was that I sympathized with this criminal. He takes the part of Robert, accused of murder by a slack-minded Sheriff, manages a few cheap auditory shots at the Sheriff, and in the end solves the murder.
And because I enjoyed his efforts, it was quite bemusing that Bradford pays for his success with his life.
One might argue The Black Raven belongs in the category of noir, yet I find myself resisting the notion. Perhaps I found Bradford too sympathetic to fit into a canon featuring anti-heroes and supporting characters who illustrate the folly of principles and traits that essentially glorify greed and self-interest. Or perhaps the failure to linger over grisly fates didn’t convince me that this was noir.
All that said, in places The Black Raven was literally noir – the scenes in the dark of the basement were literally black, with little to go on. A budget problem? An aesthetic decision? Someone asleep at the switch? It certainly made it difficult to understand what might be going on down there.
Here it is – slightly out of focus.
