I Walk Alone (1947)

I Walk Alone was directed by Byron Haskin for Paramount. Haskin made only one other Noir, the vastly superior Too Late for Tears. Large parts of I Walk Alone take place exclusively in one venue, a nightclub, showing the film's beginnings as a stage play. 

I Walk Alone is a solid entry into the Noir canon, but no more. The movie’s appeal lies mainly in its star power. Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas and Lizabeth Scott are fun to watch, and the film is worth seeing mostly as the first on-screen pairing of legendary duo Lancaster and Douglas. Seeing those two fight it out with the gloves off is a pleasant way to spend 90 minutes. There’s always a ferocious intensity and flamboyance about both actors, it’s the battle of the snarling alpha males. 

Plus we get Liz Scott in snazzy costumes.

Unfortunately, there is too much pondering going on here, the film would have benefited from a much tighter script. The soundtrack too is often overly intrusive and overwhelms the action at times.

The picture follows the well-worn storyline of two friends who are friends no longer due to a little thing called money. Frankie Madison (Burt Lancaster) and Noll “Dink” Turner (Kirk Douglas) had a successful bootlegging business going during prohibition, running illegal booze across the Canadian border. One night the police is waiting for them. Dink hightails it, Frankie is caught and has to take the rap. He’s sent up for 14 year while Dink hits it big and opens a swanky nightclub in New York City. Dink is raking in big money. After Frankie’s release he visits Dink with the intention of collecting his half of the nightclub’s profits, as was agreed upon years earlier with a verbal fifty-fifty agreement. An overly optimistic belief maybe. Dink has no intention of honoring their understanding and uses his mistress Kay (Lizabeth Scott) to bamboozle Frankie. When Dink on top of that kills Frankies’s old friend Dave who wanted out of the racket, Frankie is out for revenge.

Frankie’s and Dink’s partnership must always have been an unequal one.

Douglas was the brains behind the operation, clever, devious, sly and always one step ahead of everybody. He’s a snake charmer with plenty of charisma that makes people think he’s a nice guy. A fatal error in judgment.

Lancaster’s Frankie is a blunt instrument, he was the muscle in the organization. He’s a volatile brute who knows how to use his fists but not his head. He was born in a tough neighborhood and can handle himself though he’s like an bull in a china shop when out of his natural habitat.

What is of real interest here is the portrayal of Frankie as a career criminal. This is not a man trying desperately to go straight after his stint in jail, instead we have a man who is simply determined to claim what he believes to be his, by any means possible. He has no compunction about returning to a life of crime as long as he gets his due. He does have his own brand of integrity though, even if it’s just honor amongst thieves.

But while Frankie was inside, the world had changed and with it had crime. Crime had gone corporate, it was strictly Big Business now, organized, semi-legit and faceless. Back in the days Frankie and Dink ruled things by force, but now Dink deals with banks, lawyers, dummy corporations, legal technicalities and loopholes in the system.

In the best scene of the movie the audience gets a little history lesson on the ins and outs of modern-day racketeering. It’s completely unexpected and unlike anything you see in 40s Noir. A clash of eras.

Frankie busts into Dink’s office with a bunch of gorillas to force him to hand over his share. Frankie only remembers the strong-arm methods of Prohibition times, for him a loaded gun is an unbeatable argument. He has to learn the harsh lesson that he can’t simply pick up life where he left off. He’s still the same guy as on the day he went to prison, but the world has moved on. Every one of Frankie’s threats is answered with double-edged business talk. Frankie’s force is no match for that.

It’s a shocking, funny and oddly educational scene all in one when Frankie finally has to realize that violence gets him nowhere with Dink, and his humiliation is almost painful to watch.

After this disaster Frankie is forced to use his brain for the first time in his life.

Lizabeth Scott is good in her role as torch singer Kay Lawrence. Not a great actress by any means, given the right role she was a very effective one. Here she plays yet another good-bad girl, a tarnished angel, and her performance is sincere and warm. She’s the bargaining chip in the fight between two men, torn in her conflicted loyalty between both of them. Dink wants her to be the femme fatale who hooks and ensnares Frankie, but Kay isn’t having any. She’s had enough of this life.

You really can’t go wrong with a Lancaster/Douglas picture but it could have been so much better. Despite a great cast, good dialogue and nice cinematography, that last final spark that elevates a film from good to great is missing. Not a wasted opportunity by any means, but certainly no classic either.