Raw Deal (1948) followed by a dialogue with Serge Chauvin, moderated by Bernard Benoliel

Anthony Mann: Raw Deal (US 1948). Dennis O'Keefe (Joe Sullivan) and John Ireland (Fantail). Cinematography: John Alton. Photo: La Cinémathèque française.

Marché de brutes / Reptilen.

    Anthony Mann

    États-Unis / 1948 / 78 min / 35 mm / VOSTF

    d'après une histoire de Arnold B. Armstrong, Audrey Ashley

    Avec Dennis O'Keefe, Claire Trevor, John Ireland.

    Banned in Finland in 1949.

    Rétrospective Anthony Mann.

    La Cinémathèque française, Salle Henri Langlois, 51 Rue de Bercy, 75012 Paris. M° Bercy, Lignes 14, 6 ; Salle Jean Epstein, le 21 mars 2024.

La Cinémathèque française : " Juste après La Brigade du suicide, Anthony Mann réalise l'un de ses films les plus sombres. Avec une tension en clair-obscur (génial John Alton), la cavale d'un truand évadé de prison est perturbée par le triangle amoureux formé par le fugitif et les deux femmes qui l'accompagnent. Apogée du style noir, où les personnages ne cessent d'entrer et de sortir de l'ombre, tiraillés entre romance et vengeance. De la perversité lascive de la femme jalouse (Claire Trevor) à la violence spectaculaire du chef de gang (Raymond Burr), tout n'est qu'obsession, acharnement et cruauté, d'un pessimisme à toute épreuve et visuellement éblouissant. "

Dialogue avec Serge Chauvin

Animé par Bernard Benoliel

60 min

" Anthony Mann s'affirme d'abord comme un maître du film noir, puisant dans les contraintes de la série B une exigence d'expressivité maximale dans la composition, les angles de caméra, la profondeur de champ. À la Eagle-Lion, sa rencontre avec le chef opérateur John Alton lui permet d'affiner un style plastique qui « peint en lumière » et sculpte les ténèbres, où chaque plan est porté à incandescence. Les extérieurs réels en sont dramatisés, les décors de studio lestés d'un poids concret. Avant d'être appliqué au film historique et au western, ce ténébrisme matérialise dans Marché de brutes une réflexion morale sur la violence, et transmue le fait divers en tragédie. "

" Professeur à l'université de Nanterre, ancien critique aux Inrockuptibles et à la NRF, Serge Chauvin est spécialiste de littérature et de cinéma américains. Il a publié Les Trois vies des « Tueurs » : Siodmak, Siegel et la fiction (Rouge Profond, 2010) et de nombreuses traductions de fictions anglophones contemporaines (Colson Whitehead, Jonathan Coe, Richard Powers, Cormac McCarthy...). "  " Bernard Benoliel est directeur de l'action culturelle et éducative à la Cinémathèque française. "

AA: Anthony Mann's approach on the gangster story is vigorous. Raw Deal is a tale of a prison break, a desperate journey, a settling of accounts and a double chase. Both the police and the gangsters are after Joe Sullivan (Dennis O'Keefe).

Brilliance on a budget: Mann develops his visual approach in the crime genre together with maestro John Alton ("It's not what you light. It's what you don't light"). The mise-en-scène is charged, the composition in depth is eloquent, the frequent use of high angle shots is expressive of the "fatal journey". The trajectory: from San Quentin Prison to San Francisco harbour. Inspired by neorealism, Hollywood increased location shooting, and even here real locations provide a hold on reality in the dream play (see list of locations in the end). The Frisco fog is a meaningful visual element. The last showdown is a shadow play in the middle of a conflagration. There is a sense of a grand opera finale.

The storytelling is taut and elliptic. It moves forward briskly and energetically. The violence is brutal, and the opaque evil of the ganglord Rick (Raymond Burr) includes unspeakable sadism. A troublesome female is burned with a shot of flambé liquor. Rick also threatens to burn Ann beyond recognition.

Raw Deal is the saga of a trio on the run. Joe's girlfriend Pat is portrayed by Claire Trevor (1910-2000), always reliable in hard boiled roles. His assigned social worker Ann is played by Marsha Hunt (1917-2022), in her rare / only? visit to film noir land. Mann promotes female agency. Both Pat and Ann try to stop Joe's kamikaze rampage. Pat is heart-broken when she realizes Joe's affections for Ann. Joe then wants to do the right thing with Pat, but it is now too late for anything.

There is an offscreen narrator voice in Raw Deal, a female voice: that of Claire Trevor as Pat. The inner monologue adds a tender dimension of elegiac feeling to the brutal action adventure. And a haunting sense of an unfulfilled promise of an alternative life, full of love and longing instead of death.

The film is powered by a score by Paul Sawtell, enhancing suspense and action but also the dream mode by the use of the theremin, its eerie, indefinite modulations inviting us to oneiric dimensions of the unconscious.

A 35 mm print from the British Film Institute is a synonym for brilliant, but not this time. Low definition, low contrast, no black levels. It was possible to register John Alton's composition but not his "painting with light".

The after-film discussion with Serge Chauvin was excellent. One hour was announced, but it lasted 95 minutes, and we would have loved to stay for more.

I registered an actor resembling Jack Elam as an extra. He is not listed in IMDb or AFI Catalog online.

FILMING LOCATIONS ACCORDING TO THE IMDb:

San Quentin State Prison, San Quentin, California, USA

(prison exteriors, opening scenes)

Union 76 - 21216 Pacific Coast Highway, Malibu, California, USA

(gas station where Fantail spots Ann and follows her)

Paradise Cove - 28128 Pacific Coast Highway, Malibu, California, USA

(beach scene, after Ann saves Joe)

Westward Beach - Westward Beach Road, Malibu, California, USA

(where Ann and Pat trade cars)

Newhall, California, USA

(gas station car theft scene)