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24 out of 24 people found the following review useful: A little known,undervalued gem of British film-noir-THE British Gangster film., 21 September 1999 Author: Howl-2 from Sheffield, England
Alberto Cavalcanti's THEY MADE ME A FUGITIVE is, to my tastes, the great British Gangster movie and a contender for great Film-Noir as well. At the time of release it was probably overshadowed by BRIGHTON ROCK and THE THIRD MAN, both similar in look and attitude, but what sets FUGITIVE apart is its uncompromisingly bleak realism and pessimistic amorality.Trevor Howard plays the part of a former R.A.F. pilot who is struggling to survive in the austere post-war era of rationing and comparative boredom of peacetime life.He offers his services to a Black Market racketeer, Narcy, a foppish but lethal character who deals in contraband under cover of his legitimate funeral business.Narcy and his gang are characters who just didn't appear in British films until GET CARTER came along.They are portrayed as the typical film 'cockney sparrows' of the time but with a difference-they carry flick-knives,knuckle-dusters and even guns.They listen in to the police on a huge radio set. At one point they are seen to knock out a British bobby.-you'd have to be born and raised in Britain in the forties or fifties to realise how what a shock that would have caused at the time of the film's release.Trevor Howard's character,though,is thoroughly bad in a different way.He is a hero gone wrong,a good chap who lets the side down.When he's in a fight to the death with Michael Brennan he resorts to dirty fighting (very un-British at the time) and even head-butts Brennan.As Howard is creeping into the funeral parlour for the final confrontation with Narcy and his thugs we see a sign with the words ITS LATER THAN YOU THINK,which I believe resurfaced in Herlihy's MIDNIGHT COWBOY.In conclusion I would like to propose that THEY MADE ME A FUGITIVE should be considered,along with Brighton Rock,Get Carter etc as a prime example of social realism in film.
14 out of 14 people found the following review useful: It's More Influential Than You Think, 24 May 2004 Author: Fred (thurberdrawing@yahoo.com) from Long Island, USA
I borrowed the Kino Video release of this from my public library today. I'd never heard of it before and, having just watched it, I can say I'm really amazed this is not a famous movie in the United States. I'm not sure if it's very well-known in England or not. Like another landmark British movie, BLOW-UP, THEY MADE ME A FUGITIVE is directed by a foreigner. There is more attention to sound and camera-work than I've noticed in most British movies from the end of the war until about 1956 or so. Warner Brothers gets a huge credit at the start, and I'm wondering if that studio merely distributed it in the United States or if British audiences also saw "Warner Brothers" in huge letters on the screen. It has a lot in common with the Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall movies of the forties, and the screenwriter, Noel Langley, had worked in Hollywood on several movies, notably THE WIZARD OF OZ. So, it's British, but it has American and continental style. I mention Bogart. I should also mention Richard Widmark. Clem and Narcy easily could have been played by those two actors with no change in approach. There's a rooftop scene later echoed in TO CATCH A THIEF and the words "It's Later Than You Think" keep appearing, and I've seen at least two later movies which make use of that. It's scarier than the American gangster movies of the late forties.Also, the title begs comparison to the 1939 Warner Brothers picture THEY MADE ME A CRIMINAL and an early-thirties one called I AM A FUGITIVE FROM A CHAIN GANG. A typical American gangster movie from the thirties had a World War One vet who sells bootleg liquor during the Great Depression and THEY MADE ME A FUGITIVE makes the protagonist a World War Two vet dealing in rationed items such as cigarettes and liquor. There seems to have been a conscious effort, in the making of this movie, to capture the audience American gangster movies had had in Britain. Perhaps there was an effort to get an American audience, too. See it for good acting, wonderful production and, most importantly, unexpected realism. If it's clichéd, it's put together so well as to seem fresh almost sixty years after it was made. And seeing Peter Bull cheered me up.
13 out of 13 people found the following review useful: THEY MADE ME A FUGITIVE (Alberto Cavalcanti, 1947) ***1/2, 17 November 2006 Author: MARIO GAUCI (marrod@melita.com) from Naxxar, Malta
This is a relatively rare example of a British film noir, but one which can hold its own alongside the more celebrated American variety. Director Cavalcanti's background in documentaries certainly served him in good stead here, bringing complete authenticity to the situations and settings. Still, thanks to Otto Heller's outstanding camera-work and lighting, he manages a number of strikingly cinematic visuals (for instance, the scene where heroine Sally Gray is beaten up by chief villain Griffith Jones).It features a splendid cast, all of whom deliver excellent performances: Trevor Howard is an unusual hero-type but totally credible; lovely leading lady Sally Gray may come off a bit too good to be true (she initially commits herself to the framed Howard merely because her gangster boyfriend has jilted her for the latter's own fiancée!) but she elicits all the petite sex appeal of a Veronica Lake (meanwhile her love/hate banter with Howard evokes memories of the Robert Donat/Madeleine Carroll pairing from Hitchcock's THE 39 STEPS [1935]); Griffith Jones is a suave yet ruthless leader of a black-market ring (but who gets his just desserts in particularly gruesome fashion); Mary Merrall is Jones' elderly associate, whose level-headedness and experience keeps the violent gangster in check; a young Ballard Berkeley is a sympathetic Scotland Yard man, but who doesn't think twice about using Howard as bait to capture the entire gang; Peter Bull turns up for a bit as a police informer.The general gloominess (a mainstay of thrillers emanating from the post-war era) is leavened somewhat by its constant flurry of hard-boiled dialogue courtesy of screenwriter Noel Langley. The terrific climax is set inside the gang's 'business' office - a funeral parlor, amusingly named "The Valhalla Undertaking Co.". Still, perhaps my favorite scene in the entire film is Howard's surreal encounter with the zombie-like Vida Hope - in whose household he stumbles while on the run; she turns out to be deranged, and even tries to talk our hero into murdering her alcoholic husband (Maurice Denham)! As is typical of old films released on DVD by Kino, the quality of the print and transfer leave a lot to be desired - but one has to be grateful still, because otherwise gems such as this one would remain unavailable indefinitely...
12 out of 14 people found the following review useful: A good film, when put in context, 5 August 2003 Author: James Freeman from Cambridge, England
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
Sadly, Leslie Howard Adams seems to know more about the history of the appearance of 'dope' in films than he actually does about the context of this post-war noir of 1947. In actual fact, it isn't marijuana which makes a brief (and arguably not that important) appearance in this film, but what appears to be 'snow' - cocaine. Furthermore, the gang which the protagonist Clem Morgan joins is involved in more than just peddling drugs, yet their activities are more mundane than Adams suggests: these are not London drug barons, but black marketeers, engaged in supplying what were then, in the post-war days of continued shortages and rationing, luxury goods: cigarettes (boxes of Gold Flake make a conspicuous appearance), alcohol, and even prime cuts of meat.In addition, the significance of Clem Morgan's behaviour is more complex than Adams suggests. Many people in Britain at the time felt that the war, though the outcome was of course to be celebrated, had somehow changed society - the country was not as it was in the twenties and thirties (indeed, this is a sentiment expressed at some point during this film). The petty criminality of an ex-serviceman such as Morgan could then be interpreted both as surprising, in one who fought to defend his country, yet permissible: in the present day, with cross-Channel 'booze-cruisers', smuggling is still seen as a harmless crime which doesn't hurt anyone, and one could argue (as people invariably did and do) that he was merely aiming to reduce the shortages while making a tidy profit. Even the lorry driver with whom Morgan hitches a lift following his escape from prison offers to sell him some petrol coupons (coupons had to be presented at the point of sale in order to make the transaction legal - an effective way of rationing, which created an alternative market in ration allowances, with coupons being exchanged for other coupons (e.g. coupons for bread, butter, sugar, sweets, petrol, milk, etc) or money). However, the fine line is crossed when Morgan sees drugs being handled; he represents very much the old-fashioned petty criminal who refused to become involved in the drugs trade, before gangs of foreign criminals (from, for example, the Caribbean, and parts of America and Asia) moved in during the sixties and seventies.**Warning: I'm going to discuss some details of the film which may spoil the plot if you haven't seen it already**They Made Me A Fugitive is a fine example of post-war noir, very much continuing the trends and styles started in the thirties. However, there is much which might strike a modern-day audience as clichéd. At the start of the film, the gang is seen using an undertakers as a front for their activities, carrying the goods in coffins. There is the archetypal gangland matriarch, who sits around playing cards (it seems unlikely that she is intended as a metaphor for the Fates) and dispensing one-liners which would be cutting if they weren't so hackneyed. The gang is led by the egocentric Narcy (short for Narcissus), whose photos appear on numerous mantelpieces, and comes complete with dapper dress (admittedly, itself not a crime), as well as monogrammed handkerchief, cigarette holder, nail file, etc, etc. There are even the diametrically opposed gang members: the nervous, weak and temperamental Soapy, and the silent, bull-like murderer, Jim. The incident where Clem Morgan seeks sanctuary at a house while still on the run is so surreal as to be almost comic, especially because of the murderous wife played by Vida Hope, who speaks in a monotone with a vacant expression on her face, and demands (in a halting voice) that Clem must 'mur - der - my - hus - band!' Even the rooftop chase and struggle at the end between Clem and Narcy is on the verge of being ridiculous, as both men totter around, clinging onto the 'RIP' sign above the undertakers in an attempt to push the other to his death. As if the proximity of so many signs of death wasn't enough to tell the viewer what was about to happen, the audience is treated to several close up shots of a sign hanging inside the undertakers': 'It's later than you think'.Yet perhaps I should not be so critical. For a film made in 1947, this is very exciting. Certain elements may only seem clichéd because they have been overused by many films since, and a chase of one kind or another (often, as here, between the guilty man and the man seeking revenge) has almost become a stock part of just about every film across the spectrum, whether horror, thriller or even comedy. There are parts of this film which indeed were probably quite daring. Although the audience does not witness it in graphic detail, there are several instances of violence committed against women in the film: both Sally and Cora (the latter being Soapy's wife, the former, Narcy's ex-girlfriend who falls for Clem) are beaten up and abused by Narcy. Soapy is stabbed, and his body thrown off a quayside. One policeman is viciously attacked, while another is run down in the street. These are moments in the film which would provoke shock in a 1940s audience; no matter the disruption caused to society by the war, there was still a great feeling of horror at violent crime, something to which people today have become desensitized, and it cannot be denied that this film is a gripping portrayal (whether accurate or not) of underworld criminal activities in post-war Britain.
9 out of 9 people found the following review useful: Fantastic British post-war noir., 15 July 2008 Author: johne23-1 from London
Well, what have we got here?We've got a 1946/7 London - rainy, smog- and fog-ridden - swarming with sweaty, sadistic small-time black marketeers, hag-faced toothless harridan prostitutes, rat faced squealers, slimy grasses, heart-of-gold cashmere-wearing Judys, squalid, smoky dockside boozers, and bobbies in mackintoshes and capes (told you it was raining) getting run over and bashed over the coconut.Enter ex-RAF Clem Morgan (Trevor Howard). He wants a bit of action with a gang led by sharp, smoothie, sadistic, snooker-playing knuckle-duster wielding Narcy (Narcissus)(Griffith Jones) - but he baulks at their drug (sherbert!) dealing side. So he's framed into a cop murder - very heavy stuff in immediate post-war England. But this isn't The Blue Lamp - it's nearer Jules Dassin's famous Night and the City and precedes both.As well as a crackling script by Noel Langley we've got a runaway fugitive we know is innocent, more bobbies, more rain, and a head-butting, knife-throwing, rooftop-climbing finale.A great British noir sadly often overlooked. See it!
9 out of 9 people found the following review useful: Ripping Good, 25 March 2007 Author: Piafredux from United States
Fine cast, crackling dialogue, sure-handed direction, and some lovely camera work make 'They Made Me A Fugitive' a splendid viewing experience, but the film's ripping, breathless pacing most impressed me. From the outset I just felt immersed into a cesspool of criminal, through which the pacing just dunked me again and again, deeper and deeper into the depravity of the characters. The police seem to exist in another England - the one of "bright, sunlit uplands" - while the film shoves you and binds you amid hoodlums, spivs, black marketeers, and sadistic enforcers who inhabit a claustrophobic, treacherous underworld in which violence to body and soul lurks in every shadow.At the remove of six decades some of the dialogue and action seems clichéd (although - spoiler coming here - the sequence of the fall-from-power fate of the gang leader, Narcy, socked me in my gut: it's a clever, artful, uncompromising bit of camera work); but on the whole the film still punches and lands hard blows. And, oh boy, the one character, Narcy's chief muscle-enforcer, still chills me to the bone whenever, in deliberate or unbidden recall, he lurks in and lunges from the chiaroscuro brandishing his menacing, meaty bulk, punishment-keen fists, charmless, cold, piggish face, vicious, predatory eyes, and glinting knife blade. Gives me the creeps! See 'They Made Me A Fugitive' and be swept, panting, through ninety-six minutes that seem to be counted in thunderous heartbeats that, in the underworld of this tale, may - or may not - get to go on pounding behind the thin, warm, vulnerable flesh of your chest. This one's as good as noir ever got to be.
7 out of 7 people found the following review useful: Of course those Brits can do noir, 18 February 2007 Author: AlanSquier from United States
The truth of the matter is that they did a bang-up job in emulating American noir and gangster type films. Why not, the American stuff was going great guns on that side of the pond.This was pretty heavy stuff for 1947. References to cocaine, brutality towards women, and such goodies are noticeable here. Also noticeable is the noir type anti-hero magnificently portrayed by Trevor Howard, and lots and I do mean lots of shadows.A rooftop scene was undoubtedly the prototype and inspiration for later movies such as To Catch A Thief.Don't confuse this with the earlier Hollywood movie, They Made Me A Criminal, which featured John Grfield and the Dead End Kids. There's no similarity between those two films.
4 out of 4 people found the following review useful: Gritty British noir, 8 September 2009 Author: blanche-2 from United States
Cavalcanti directed this excellent British film noir, "They Made Me a Fugitive," with the then new star, Trevor Howard, as well as Sally Gray, Griffith Jones, and Mary Merrall. Howard plays Clem Morgan, a war hero who joins a black market ring, headed by Narcy (Jones) that does business out of Narcy's funeral business, the contraband entering in coffins. Clem, however, draws the line when he sees them dealing in drugs. He winds up being framed for a killing of a bobby, deserted while he's unconscious in a car. The ex-girlfriend (Gray) of Narcy, the chief criminal, comes to see him in prison, sure he's not guilty. Clem escapes and goes on the run, and reconnects with Gray. She tries to find the witness who can clear him.Very ahead of its time in its graphic violence, which includes violence toward women. Also, the lead is not a hero, having turned to crime. The ending is also unexpected. My only complaint would be the hitting the audience over the head with the RIP letters on the roof, and also the phrase "It's later than you think," which was possibly the inspiration for its appearance in "Midnight Cowboy." The performances are very good, with Howard, Gray, and Griffith all in top form, and Merrall creates an interesting character. The camera-work is very good also, quite stunning.Highly recommended - it's nothing like you'd expect.
3 out of 3 people found the following review useful: Noir Sleeper, 9 September 2009 Author: dougdoepke from Claremont, USA
A British noir as good as the definitive ones being turned out in the States by such consensus masters as Mann, Dassin, and Lewis, to name three. And what about that great ending that still leaves me flabbergasted. Three cheers for a British cinema that apparently was able to operate without the albatross of a Production Code and still not wreck the nation's moral fiber. Needless to say, those final few minutes would never have been allowed Stateside where the scales of justice always triumphed, no matter how the world really works. Then too, consider the household Howard stumbles into by accident, where the zoned out housewife is only too eager to perforate her boozy hubby. One look at that demented visage and she's a lot scarier than any of the professionals. No wonder Howard flees back to the safety of London's underworld. This may also be the cheapest electricity bill on record since the brightest sound-stage bulb checks in at about 60 watts—they don't call it "noir" for nothing. And keep an ear cocked for some of the snappiest dialogue this side of Dashiel Hammett, especially from that old crone Aggie, who, I shudder to think, might actually be somebody's grandmother.Not that everything is roses. Some of the set-ups operate only at a stretch. For example, Howard's aim with a milk bottle should have him pitching for the Yankees. And he does it with such casual flair, you'd never guess his life is on the line. Nonetheless, the movie's a real sleeper and should have been exported to our shores a lot sooner. I expect, that daring finale would have inspired our own filmmakers to greater sneaky lengths in subverting the dead hand of Hollywood censorship.
3 out of 3 people found the following review useful: Finale extraordinaire, 3 November 2008 Author: dbdumonteil
An update of Mervyn Le Roy's "I'm a fugitive from a chain gang" ,it's the same old song of the soldier who has come home to find a country where he does not belong anymore.But the cast and the extraordinary final scenes -to rival the best of Howard Hawks ("Scarface shame of the nation" ) , Raoul Walsh ("white heat")or Jules Dassin ("Night and the city") - are worth the price of admission.The tragedy ends in a funeral parlor,where "death is always around the corner" (it's written on the walls) or on a roof where men fight around giant R.I.P. letters.The very name of the undertaker's building ("Walhalla")already indicates it's a pagan movie;the conclusion bears it out: a Christian movie would have had Narcy clear Clem's name .His "May you rot in Hell" is very rare in films noirs and can find equivalents only in the movies I mention above or in Paul Muni's final line ("I steal" ) in Le Roy's tragedy.
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