As my username might suggest I like just about all things Warner but my Film Nut soul has to accept that not everything that came out of Burbank during the Classic Days was great. "Out Of The Fog" is an example. Despite an A budget and a cast of normally terrific actors, a Director who had helmed some of my very favorite films and photographed by no less than James Wong Howe it falls flat. Just flat.
First, it is insanely stage-bound due to it's Broadway origins, very much like "Dead End" had been, though that film had much more interesting material and developed characters. It portrays , supposedly, life in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn. This is accomplished by a pier along side the water tank. A persistent fog seems to prevail over lovely Sheepshead Bay...which helps to disguise how stagy the entire production is. I'm not sure what came first, the fog or the title. It isn't helped by Howe electing to use a soft effect which blurs the whole thing. (OK, it may be the only print is needing restoration). The comparison to "Dead End" is magnified by the presence of Leo Gorcey.
Next we have John Garfield. I only know of two films in which he played a truly bad guy, this one and "He Ran All The Way" in which he is terrific. Here he gets to be a total Sociopath. Ripe for an Actor? Character development? A dark complex performance? Nope. He walks on, reads the lines (and plays to the back of the house like he is back on Broadway) and manages only to make some overcoats look good. Supposedly Bogart (who at the time was less of a star at Warner's than Ida Lupino OR Eddie Albert...which would change after "High Sierra" and "The Maltese Falcon) was to play the Gangster part and Ida Lupino pulled weight to get him off the picture. I think Bogie was lucky, his days playing thankless bad guy parts was about to be over. He dodged a bullet on this one.
And then we have Ms. Lupino, who I adore, the magnificent Thomas Mitchell and the always perfect John Qualen. Qualen gets a walk playing a Fisherman who would materialize in whole on an Airliner in "The High And The Mighty" 15 years later. Lupino is very obviously not happy to be here, and her English accent slips out quite a bit more than usual. And Thomas Mitchell is given such a drivel ridden script that even he can't overcome it. Kudos to George Tobias (as ever) who gets to do a monologue that belonged on Broadway and sinks here. He is great, it stinks.
Why did I give it a 6 instead of a five? I like overcoats.
First, it is insanely stage-bound due to it's Broadway origins, very much like "Dead End" had been, though that film had much more interesting material and developed characters. It portrays , supposedly, life in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn. This is accomplished by a pier along side the water tank. A persistent fog seems to prevail over lovely Sheepshead Bay...which helps to disguise how stagy the entire production is. I'm not sure what came first, the fog or the title. It isn't helped by Howe electing to use a soft effect which blurs the whole thing. (OK, it may be the only print is needing restoration). The comparison to "Dead End" is magnified by the presence of Leo Gorcey.
Next we have John Garfield. I only know of two films in which he played a truly bad guy, this one and "He Ran All The Way" in which he is terrific. Here he gets to be a total Sociopath. Ripe for an Actor? Character development? A dark complex performance? Nope. He walks on, reads the lines (and plays to the back of the house like he is back on Broadway) and manages only to make some overcoats look good. Supposedly Bogart (who at the time was less of a star at Warner's than Ida Lupino OR Eddie Albert...which would change after "High Sierra" and "The Maltese Falcon) was to play the Gangster part and Ida Lupino pulled weight to get him off the picture. I think Bogie was lucky, his days playing thankless bad guy parts was about to be over. He dodged a bullet on this one.
And then we have Ms. Lupino, who I adore, the magnificent Thomas Mitchell and the always perfect John Qualen. Qualen gets a walk playing a Fisherman who would materialize in whole on an Airliner in "The High And The Mighty" 15 years later. Lupino is very obviously not happy to be here, and her English accent slips out quite a bit more than usual. And Thomas Mitchell is given such a drivel ridden script that even he can't overcome it. Kudos to George Tobias (as ever) who gets to do a monologue that belonged on Broadway and sinks here. He is great, it stinks.
Why did I give it a 6 instead of a five? I like overcoats.