D.O.A. dvd movie.|
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List Price: $14.98 Features • Black & White • DVD-Video • NTSC In Theaters : 30 April, 1950 DVD Release : 08 February, 2000 |
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D.O.A. description A faceless figure marches down an endless hallway as dark, driving music underscores his doom. It's stocky, stalwart Edmond O'Brien, who plows through the police detective's office like he's got nothing to lose. "I want to report a murder," he demands, grim and sleepy-eyed. Who was killed? "I was." It's a brilliant opening to a memorable film noir classic. O'Brien is a CPA who flees his dull job and small California town for a wild weekend in San Francisco, only to be poisoned and doomed to certain death. With only days to live, his incredulity morphs into a searing drive to find his killers and stinging regrets for what might have been. O'Brien is a familiar noir face, but he usually plays figures of authority: a cop in White Heat; an investigator in The Killers. He's a little stiff here, but his blunt, unglamorous persona is perfect for the Everyman who is randomly visited by death. Rudolph Maté, a cinematographer turned director, moves from sun-bright day scenes to busy nighttime locations with few visual flourishes, but when he takes the camera into the streets of Los Angeles and San Francisco the film is energized with a gritty, restless vigor. It's one of the most relentlessly dark films noir ever made--taut, edgy, and low budget. Watch for the Bradbury building in the film's climax, made famous by its memorable use decades later in the sci-fi noir classic Blade Runner. --Sean Axmaker |
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| ♥♥♥♥♥ | The Difinitive Film Noir |
| This film is what Film Noir is all about. The plot is perfect; doomed
anti-hero faces fate, bad guys who are a step ahead of him at every turn, time running out and love just out of reach. Everyman, Frank Bigelow, finds himself a "dead man walking", with two days or about a week to live. The poisen that is killing him is as much a mystery as the twist of fate that has made him worth murdering. The opening makes this film a noir classic, Bigelow shows up at the homicide department to report his own murder and the story takes off from here, maintaining a torrid pace until the final scene. This is a dark, complex tale that manages to make you suspect every- one and know that there is a new twist around every corner. Each charactor we meet has a story to tell that is not quite true. Exquisite lighting, sound track and framing set the mood for the most part except for the bizarre wolf whistles that accompany the appearance of every beautiful woman he sees in San Francisco while he is out to have a wild time away from his girlfriend, Paula. This part of the soundtrack is an off the mark distraction opposed to an otherwise nearly perfect acoust- ic mirror for the action. The taught fast moving story line provides enough twists and turns to lose the viewer who does not pay close attention. Like most films of the genre, it relies heavily on dialogue to keep up the pace. D.O.A. adds plenty of action to move this nifty litle film a- long at a speed that make it's eighty-three minutes simply fly by. Lively performances by Edmond O'Brien, Pamela Britton and a brief but intense and spellbinding performance by Neville Brand push this Noir thriller into the must own, Noir Classique realm. It has a dark finis' that entertains us even though fate deals our anti-hero one bum hand after another. At last he sees love has been near at hand but time has run out. This is a "must have" for all real Noir fans. |
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