Act of Violence (1948) + Mystery Street (1950) [Double Feature]
A Films by Fred Zinnemann and John Sturges
DVD9 | ISO+MDS | NTSC 4:3 | Cover + DVD Scan | 01:22:05 + 01:32:42 | 7,57 Gb
Audio: English AC3 2.0 @ 192 Kbps + Commentary tracks | Subtitles: English SDH, French
Genre: Crime, Film-Noir
Act of Violence (1948) is the real film noir McCoy, albeit so meticulously directed by Fred Zinnemann in postwar-European style that it's virtually an art-film noir. Van Heflin plays a model small-town citizen suddenly confronted with a guilty WWII past, in the dark, limping, permanently trenchcoated figure of Robert Ryan. The film systematically dismantles the domestic security of Heflin's life till he's forced to flee his own home, which has become a trap, and escape into the nightworld of the big city. Mary Astor is superb as one of its few sympathetic denizens. Co-featured with Act of Violence is Mystery Street (1950), a hard-edged movie about a B-girl's murder and some of the proto-CSI techniques the police use to solve the crime. Directed by John Sturges, from a script by Richard Brooks and Sydney Boehm, the picture is enhanced by atmospheric Boston and Cape Cod settings and camerawork by Mr. Film Noir himself, John Alton.