Pre-Mason Raymond Burr 4/6

Note: September 21, 1957 was the date of the first episode of the classic Perry Mason TV series. Let's mark that happy day this week by celebrating Raymond Burr’s many scary performances in film noir. Burr started his career in the late 1940s in bit parts. In Fighting Father Dunne (1948) he appears as an attorney in trial montage. Blink and you’ll miss him. But soon after Burr built up quite a reputation playing villains. His psychopathic private detective in Pitfall is a must-see.

Abandoned
1949 / 1:19
Tagline: “NO NAME FOR HER BABY...only a PRICE!”
[internet archive]

The introductory voice-over solemnly intones this is a true-to-life story that could be happening in our own cities as we speak. The movie describes how heartless scumbags promise the moon to young single expectant mothers. And then deliver nothing to the mother as they traffick the newborn baby to “nice people” who want to add that finishing touch to their middle-class lifestyle. The problem is that their purchase of a bundle of joy enriches a criminal enterprise that is run by racketeers who will kill mothers and babies – anybody - if they find it expedient.

The strongest point of this movie is simply its telling about the sorry system of illegal baby brokering. It’s a helluva story of how a black market thrived at a time when oversight was so loose that only about half of adopted children in the USA were placed through legitimate agencies.

I am not so credulous a ninny that I learn history through noir movies, but I’m willing to conclude that 1) baby selling must be bad because libertarians think it is good, and 2) this movie was on target in its portrayal of the kind of stone-cold criminals that would run such networks.

Mrs. Donner (Marjorie Rambeau) hands out Bibles and makes cynical promises to scared girls who are not being told what they are getting into: a baby is being sold to people who want to seem “people of unquestioned character” but don’t want to do what “people of unquestioned character” do. They simply want to avoid the “rigamarole” of investigations and “the bothersome details of a legal adoption.” When the head man of the syndicate (Will Kuluva) finds out an underling is stepping out of his domain, he remarks, “Rumors around town are that I’m getting soft so I’m going to have to cut a couple of throats.”

Raymond Burr, the shady private detective, is getting out of this lane, and knows a pin-stripe suit can be very slimming. As PI Kerric, he manages to look aloof and arrogant even as he skulks behind bushes like a goblin when he follows the good guys Dennis O’Keefe and Gale Storm. But Burr finds that kidnapping and murder get him in over his head and he wistfully remarks, “I was just thinking how nice life used to be when I stuck to blackmail and petty larceny.”

Dennis O’Keefe plays a newspaper reporter who is helping Gale Storm find her sister who has disappeared in the big bad city. O’Keefe is really obnoxious at first. Gale feels distraught and out of sorts over her missing sister, but he’s putting his hands on her and flirting and talking glibly. But he softens a bit when she reports about her father “He didn't want us back home but he didn't want to leave us alone” – isn’t it just like a noir movie to hint incest is more common than most people would think? And O’Keefe practices cognitive behavioral therapy without a license when he suggests to beat anxiety “Why don't you stop thinking about it.”

Camera work is effective and some cuts are startling and effective. The climax has a certain amount of cop porn – stakeouts, crackling radio, car chases, yadda yadda – but it doesn’t overwhelm the tension surrounding the saving of Gale Storm and ultimate fate of the characters, all of whom are under pressure. The film, directed by Joseph M. Newman, is considered a solid example of film noir, blending crime thriller elements with social commentary on black-market adoptions.

As for the connection with the original Perry Mason TV series, Sid Tomack plays a clerk but he is not given a chance to crack wise. Appearing three times on the classic Perry Mason, Tomack was especially great in a satirical scene in TCOT Envious Editor. Jeanette Nolan played a Salvation Army major who took care of single expectant mothers. A wonderful character actress, she was keen on accents and an array of clothing and accessories. She appeared no fewer than six times on Perry Mason. She was the perp three times, a loyal secretary once, and a sorely-tried ordinary woman twice. 

Pre-Mason Raymond Burr
Please Murder Me (1956) [internet archive] [my review]
I Love Trouble (1948) [internet archive] [my review]
Sleep My Love (1948) [internet archive] [my review]
Ruthless (1948) [internet archive] [my review]
Pitfall (1948) [internet archive] [my review]
Walk a Crooked Mile (1948) [internet archive] [my review]
Raw Deal (1948) [internet archive] [my review]
Station West (1948) [my review]
Red Light (1949) [internet archive] [my review]
Abandoned (1949) [internet archive] [my review]