Thanks to lighter, smaller film cameras developed during World War II, B-movie directors on a low budget often took their productions into the streets of Los Angeles (and elsewhere), adding a kinetic and exhilarating realism unavailable on the back lot. So-called films noir, particularly the documentary-style police procedurals, were especially enhanced by location shooting. I can name several films--"Crime Wave," "Kiss Me Deadly," "Angel's Flight" and this one, "Cry Danger," among others--that would have been far less interesting if the producers had kept them studio-bound. "Cry Danger" was shot at two locations on Bunker Hill, one at the corner of Third and Olive (the Amigos Club, where William Conrad had an upstairs office) and the other at the New Grand Hotel complex on the northwest corner of Third and Grand (where Conrad tricked Dick Powell into winning a bet with hot money from the robbery that had sent him to prison). But the most atmospheric scenes were shot several blocks away, at the top of Hill Place north of Sunset Boulevard in what is now a Chinatown neighborhood, where Powell moved into the Clover Trailer Park. (To see film stills matched with 2010 photos, check out www.electricearl.com/bh.) I recently (April 2010) saw the restored film version of "Cry Danger" at the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood (where, incidentally, Rhonda Fleming and Richard Erdman were on hand to talk about the movie), and I can attest that the location scenes drew audible breaths and exclamations from the audience. Don't get me wrong; "Cry Danger" has great dialog and interesting characters, but without that wonderful personality called postwar Los Angeles it would have been much less of a movie.
Review of Cry Danger
