Alias Nick Beal (1949) is a rare film noir that until recently was thought lost. Universal, though, has found the negative and a new print of this Faustian noir was show at Siff’s recent film noir festival. It is an excellent film that mixes mysterious cinematography, great acting and a good story to produce an atmospheric morality play with plenty of dark edges.
The film features Ray Milland as Nick Beal, the devil, who upon hearing a crusading DA say he’d give his soul to convict a big time criminal begins to tempt the DA. The DA is a good man only concerned with eradicating crime and helping kids with his foundation, but little by little Nick ingratiates himself in the DA’s life. First, he gives the DA the evidence he needs to convict the man even though he has to steal it. The theft is only the first step to loosing is soul. Along the way Nick arranges it so that the DA becomes Governor and has an affair with Audrey Totter. Totter’s character is a good woman who is seduced by the glamor Nick showers her with and the threat that Nick will tell the cops her where abouts, which scares her because she is wanted for something she didn’t do. Eventually, the DA, now the Governor, signs away his soul—not that he knows it. He only thinks he will go to the Isla de Almas Perdidas if he doesn’t keep Nick in the role of the Keeper of the State Seal. When Nick tries to collect on the bargin, the DA’s friend, a minister, accidently drops his bible on the contract. Nick, of course, can’t pick up the contract and so he cannot collect. The DA just barely escapes.
Ray Milland makes the movie work. His Nick is a malevelant man, always ready with an answer or money, cold, short tempered, and demanding. He doesn’t take no for an answer and seems to know everything. He almost seems to have the power to make one change their mind and what is worse, knows exactly what one is going to say. There is a particullarly brilliant scene where Nick tells Trotter how to convince the DA he should leave his wife. She is unconvinced it will work, but later he says exactly what Nick said he would. What makes the scene brilliant is the elment of commentary, as if the film makers were saying, this what they do in every film, of course it is going to work. Milland also gives Nick an unblinking stare and an expression that says he is ready to kill at a moment’s notice.When ever he enters a scene it becomes dark.
In true noir form, the DA battles between good and evil. His battle through most of the movie is one of little steps to damination. It isn’t so much the devil that makes him do it, but little compromises with his ideals. The DA, unfortunately, is a little too good, and his slide into darkness is a little too much. What makes it worse, though, is his sudden reversal. It is not his action, but divine intervention: the bible falls on the contract. Does this mean that to redemtion is a heavinly lottery that saves people from time to time? If the slide from good to bad was a little heavy handed, the sudden reversal undoes any responsibility one has to take. The DA had recanted the mistakes he had made, but he should have had to do more. The film, though, is more concernd with spiritual redemption and defeating the devil can only be done with the God’s help.
Despite the heavy handed morality play the film is solid. Every scene Milland is in is excellent and when he comes out of the havy fog that seems to permiate half the scenes he is the embodiment of evil. The cinemotography alone is worth watching. It is too bad the film isn’t available on DVD.
The more obscure the noir film, the more it adheres to the genre’s conventions and Night Editor is as obscure and as B as they get. As film noir it has the classic femme fatal and the good man gone wrong who must choose between keeping a secret that will ruin him and doing the right thing. A cop (William Gargan) and his married socialite lover (blond Janis Carter) witness a brutal murder while making out by the ocean. He tries to apprehend the murderer but is afraid he will ruin his marriage and career both of which he has been putting in jeopardy to have the affair. She doesn’t want him to tell the truth because it will ruin her too. Naturally, such inaction is never rewarded and the cops soon arrest another man and accuse him with the murder, eventually sentencing him to the chair. Gargan’s character is wracked with guilt and tries to figure out how to do the right thing while keeping out of trouble. Of course that is impossible because the basic premise of a noir is the conflict between doing the right thing and saving yourself. What makes his problem worse is his lover, now ex-lover, doesn’t want to go to the police. Instead, she has taken up with the killer and is now protecting him, partly as revenge because he left her and partly because she is intoxicated by the murder, and partly because she thinks the victim deserved it. Although she turns fatal quite quickly, she is the true fatal: cold, ruthless, selfish, and sexy. The cop gets more and more irritable until his partner, a wise and kindly German, gets him to tell him the truth. The cop realizes he has evidence that will corroborate his story so they go to his ex-lover’s home to confront her. He finds her alone in the kitchen and after he has told her she has no way out she stabs him with an ice pick.
By The Firelight 