Short Cut to Hell (1957)

Short Cut to Hell (1957). 1h 29m | Passed

“Short Cut to Hell (1957)u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eA strained effort all around, including James Cagney giving a personal introduction standing next to an imposing movie camera, assuring us his two new leading actors were terrific, before we get a chance to see for ourselves. We can wonder about his motivations, but on the surface two things seem clear. One, heu0026#39;s trying to move from being an actor to being a director (he sort of says heu0026#39;s getting too old to act, interestingly). And two, heu0026#39;s going about it in a cheap and sort of safe way, as if Hollywood knew it wasnu0026#39;t going to go very far.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe result is pretty awful in enough ways to say you might just skip it. Iu0026#39;m a junkie for noir films, and u0026quot;This Gun for Hireu0026quot; is a true, early, formative classic from 1942. That one, with Alan Ladd in the lead, and Veronica Lake and Laird Cregar as support, is terrific in all the little ways that add up to something uniquely memorable, even in the hands of little known director Frank Tuttle. Now, fifteen years later, Cagney in his first and last directorial effort, remakes Tuttleu0026#39;s version. He sometimes matches it scene for scene (a few curious substitutions, like an air raid shelter instead of an empty railroad car) and actor for actor (the man taking Cregaru0026#39;s role seems to be vainly imitating him). And he leaves out a few of the key quirks that made the original more, well, original and disturbing (like Laddu0026#39;s relationship to cats). u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eOne stark difference is the different kind of female character Cagney casts, avoiding the sultry version of Veronica Lake for a very Doris Day kind of lead. And itu0026#39;s probably telling that these terrific new actors Cagney is using had very little in the way of careers after this. Cagney did act in a few more films, living until 1986.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eIf you have little patience, I think you might not make it through the first painful scene of a woman overacting her weariness in the motel hallway, but thatu0026#39;s not fair. It does have faster and more interesting moments. In general, the filming and lighting has brightened up, losing at least the noir visual quality, maybe keeping its tonal range in line for television rebroadcast (an important concern by the late 1950s). u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eIf you want to know the possibilities of the story at its best, start with Graham Greeneu0026#39;s 1936 book (A Gun for Sale) and then to the seminal 1942 movie. Short Cut to Hell is an asterisk at beset, a curiosity.”