I’m the girlfriend not mentioned in this review! Help me!
Jigsaw (1949) is a salutary tale of corruption and crime in the big city. Crusading reporter and columnist Charles Riggs fixates on the apparent suicide of a small-time printer, writing about it and the man’s links to white supremacist literature.
Then Riggs turns up dead.
Riggs was prominent enough that his murder may merit a special investigation. Assistant District Attorney Howard Malloy happened to know Riggs, and is investigating his death when he runs across a banner for The Crusaders, matching one of the effects of Riggs. Investigating, he discovers it is run by The Angel, a man who helps people in need.
If, perhaps, for a price.
That’s how The Angel operates, and right before Malloy’s eyes Angel makes a phone call, suggesting to someone unknown that Malloy might make a fine special prosecutor. But events become tangled when Malloy runs across Barbara Whitfield, singer and mob dolly, who also seeks to compromise Malloy. Then it’s onward to a party hosted by Mrs. Hartley, whose late husband was a judge, leaving her in a social position of some prominence, and now the suspects in Riggs’ murder are coming thick and fast. Can he even keep track of them? Is the fool really a fool?
And, ticking in the background, is the velvet fist that is The Crusaders, the nationalist smile on the bully boys’ face, xenophobia and power-lust rampant. It functions as a reminder that xenophobia is always a lever for forcing people to do what they shouldn’t.
Which makes the unplanned theft of Crusader plans a real problem for someone, and they respond in the only way they know how.
Tightly plotted, Jigsaw suffers from its black and white characters: either they’re good or they’re bad, with no in-between. It would have benefited from Malloy assessing the offerings of corruption, feeling the temptations of a comfortable, mob-supported position. This lack makes Jigsaw, for all that it was well put together, unmemorable, as I, having seen it only a few days ago, had to look it up to remember the plot. It’s the tension between Easy Street and moral imperatives which brings us memorable characters and stories, particularly those which presage societal changes. That lack made it another B-List movie, which is too bad.
But it was a fun way to while away an hour.
