Out In The 1940s Crime Noir Night- A Pre-Miranda Nightmare- Dana Andrew’s “Boomerang”- A Review

Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the crime noir Boomerang.

DVD Review

Boomerang, starring Dana Andrews, Jane Wyatt, Lee J. Cobb, Ed Begley, directed by Elia Kazan, 1947

Most crime noir is NOT a lesson in plebeian civil virtue, good republican police procedure, or wavy grey area moral dilemmas. The best crime noir is where, sure, the bad guys has it coming and by fair means or foul the good guys, cops, privates dicks, or just guys and gals caught in the middle of something, made sure they got it, got in spades, right up to the chair. No quarter given, none taken and we, the audience we, were happy with the result, or at least were not going waste good mother-washed and ironed handkerchiefs over their fate. Or, alternatively, alternatively, best crime noir, that is, occurred when some femme fatale, good or bad, and, we, the male part of the we audience anyway, were not all that choosey which as long as she was fetching, wrapped up a guy so bad he couldn’t think straight, and led him, maybe led him right up to that aforementioned chair. Gladly, or half gladly anyway.

In the film under review, Boomerang, neither of these conditions exists yet this is still an interesting crime noir despite its sometimes cloying moral certitudes and raw virtuous civics lesson overhang. Moreover, watching this thing in a post-Miranda (1964) world made this reviewer finally realize what the fuss was all about when the Warren Court brought the wild west boys cop justice under a little control. A little I said, so don’t make too much of it. Let’s just get to the plot and you can figure out why, okay.

As the film opens a man of the cloth, a padre, gets dead-aim stone-cold killer shot out in the mean 1940s Middle America Connecticut streets by a someone, some guy. Back then, and maybe today too, this gangster-style or psycho-driven execution rated big 24/7 news and howls of protest, especially since the padre was on the way to neighborhood sainthood. So like any high profile murder case the cops and the DA are pressing, and being pressed, and pressed hard to find this killer who is still walking free to maybe do murder and mayhem again.

And here is where the Miranda part comes in. The cops, the newly anointed town reform civil leaders, the recently thrown-out corrupt city leaders, the newspapers, and the DA’s office are all crying for vengeance and a quick solution to the murder (and their PR problems). The cops, the pre-Miranda cops, led by Lee J. Cobb, are more than happy to oblige them when after a massive manhunt they turn up one drifter, grifter, down at the heels guy, played by Arthur Kennedy, as the fall guy. The frame is on, on big time. Of course, he is the fall guy after a little off-hand by the book, the unwritten book, rough stuff down sans lawyer at the precinct house and some very tricky footwork around the evidence bin, the human witness and murder weapon evidence bin. They have poor Brother Kennedy screaming “uncle” before long and he is tailor-made for the big house, and the chair. Open and shut.

But hold on a minute, a very long minute, the DA, played by Dana Andrews, has second thought qualms about this railroad job and despite every possible corrupt effort to derail him from the compliant judge, to the cops, to some newspaper guys, to those virtuous civic-minded city fathers, he is after all a truth-seeker. He plods on supported only by wifey, played by Jane Wyatt, who knowing her man, sticks by him through thick and thin. Natch. But, jesus, justice in this case was a close thing, and only came off because our DA boy actually listened up that day they had the ethics class in law school. So you see what I mean about this being an okay film even with no drop-dead bad guys, or drop-dead beautiful femme fatales.

Note behind the camera: Looking at the credits here you will note at least two names that deserve special mention, the director Elia Kazan and the actor Lee J. Cobb. No, not for their well-known cinematic efforts then, or later (films such as On The Waterfront, Viva Zapata, Death Of A Salesman, etc. between them), but for their less that stellar (I am being kind here considering we are dealing with classic “finks” and stoolies.”) performances before various congressional committees in high 1950s cold war, red scare times “dropping dimes, (hell, quarters and half dollars)” on their communist fellows (mostly one-time pinkish fellow-travelers but the effect was the same) in the entertainment industry. Obviously these two guys didn’t “get” the point in Boomerang after all. The hell with them.