Gunman in the Streets

Director Frank Tuttle, to me better known for spilling the beans on Jules Dassin and other fellow Americans to the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), masterminded by Senator McCarthy, directs rather inconsistently this 1950 movie set in France, and with an obviously French atmosphere.

Inevitably, as happened to most baddies in French flicks of the time, Dane Clark pays the ultimate price for breaking from jail and committing all manner of crime - but, before then, he meets up with former lover Denise, superbly played by Simone Signoret, one of the truly greatest actresses ever to grace any screen and at the peak of her unique beauty in 1950, and he is selfish enough to want her to accompany him in his flight to another country.

The chiaroscuro photography renders the film obsessively dark, giving it a pessimistic mood, and the fact that the main leads believe in the stars and their tragic omens, does not portend well.

Neither does film's 90 minutes, which seem far longer.

Signoret and Clark save GUNMAN to some extent, but I doubt I will ever sit through it again.