# They Made Me a Fugitive (1947)

### reviewed by
Dennis Schwartz

THEY MADE ME A FUGITIVE (director: Alberto Cavalcanti; screenwriter: from novel by Jackson Budd "A Convict Has Escaped"/ Noel Langley; cinematographer: Otto Heller; cast: Sally Gray (Sally), Trevor Howard (Clem Morgan), Griffith Jones (Narcy), René Ray (Cora), Michael Brennan (Jim ), Eve Ashley (Ellen), Ballard Berkeley (Inspector Rockliffe), Jack McNaughton (Soapy), Bill O'Connor (Billie), Charles Farrell (Curley), Vida Hope (Mrs. Fenshawe), 1947-UK)

    Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz

A postwar British noir film; revenge being the theme. Clem Morgan (Trevor Howard) was an RAF pilot during the war, but is now disenchanted. He drunkenly chooses to join a criminal gang of black marketeers, encouraged to do so by his girlfriend Ellen (Ashley).

When he discovers his boss, Narcy (Griffith Jones), is dealing in drugs, he tells him he wants out. The vicious gang leader, hating the amateur crook and pining for his woman, decides to frame Clem for murder. He has gang member Soapy (McNaughton) run over a cop during one of their escapades, and they crash the car into a lamppost while knocking out Clem. They escape into a waiting car and Clem is convicted of manslaughter, and will serve a 15- year sentence in Dartmoor prison.

He receives a prison visit from Sally (Sally Gray), a chorus girl and the former girlfriend of Narcy. The jealous woman tells Clem that Narcy dumped her for his girlfriend Ellen. She also says that she knows he could get Soapy, the driver of the getaway car he was in, to corroborate his innocence. Soon afterwards, Clem escapes from the prison. While on the run, he enters a household and the housewife gives him clothes and food and a gun. She tells him the gun is for him to kill her drunken husband; she says one more murder wouldn't make a difference to him. He refuses, but when he leaves the gun behind, she has his fingerprints on the gun, and thereby she kills her husband. The newspaper headlines proclaim that the escaped convict has killed another and they increase their manhunt.

He hitches a ride from a lorry and jumps the driver, thereby driving the lorry through the roadblock and reaching London. Inspector Rockliffe (Ballard Berkeley) suspects that Sally is in danger from Narcy for squealing to Clem, and tries to take her down to the station for her own protection. But when he leaves her with a cop, Narcy's gang overtakes the cop and they take her back to their hideout.

Soapy and his girlfriend Cora (Ray) go into hiding, fearing Narcy will kill Soapy since he is a witness to the frame-up. Narcy sends the knife-wielding Jim (Brennan) after him. Meanwhile, Clem is determined to get revenge and tracks Narcy and to the gang's hideout. He has a fight with Narcy on the roof, amid the gigantic letters R.I.P., which are brightly reflecting from the moon's beams bouncing onto the roof, as the two struggle for life and death. There will be no happy Hollywood type of ending here.

The film was mildly diverting, suffering from a weak storyline and Trevor Howard as the lead actor. He is too regal an actor to play a noir protagonist. What was gritty about the film, was the quick-cut editing, the magnificent black and white photography, and the keen direction. The film had a certain amount of distress coming forth from it characters and lots of brutal scenes, adding much suspense to the routine story. But the British films are no match to the Americans when it comes to noir, this one being no exception.

    REVIEWED ON 2/24/2000       GRADE: C

Dennis Schwartz: "Ozus' World Movie Reviews"

    http://www.sover.net/~ozus

    ozus@sover.net

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