Colibel Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

Stevecorp Don't listen to the negative reviews

Beanbioca As Good As It Gets

Isbel A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

bobshearer711 Dick Powell's acting ability keeps this movie intense from beginning to end, just like in Murder My Sweet. There is a dialogue by the man he is in search near the end, a Vichy piece of slime that could have been written today about the fate or man. One of the most extremely memorable oratories ever. Chilling actually

AaronCapenBanner Edward Dmytryk directed this post-WWII thriller that stars Dick Powell as Canadian Flyer Laurence Gerard, who returns to France in order to find out who is responsible for the deaths of a resistance group, which included his new wife. The man thought responsible for collaborating with the Nazis is believed dead, but Laurence doesn't buy it, and so pursues the trail into Argentina, where he discovers that Nazism is far from dead, and he will do whatever is needed to defeat them, and avenge his wife. Good idea for a film is squandered because Powell's character is so lacking in intelligence, preferring to punch and knock down everybody he encounters, that you lose all interest in his journey.

seymourblack-1 "Cornered" is a bleak, bitter and brutal revenge thriller about a surly Canadian pilot who, at the end of World War 11, embarks on a manhunt which takes him from England to France Switzerland and eventually Buenos Aires. The plot is very convoluted, many of the relatively large number of characters look suspicious and the villain of the piece is difficult to trace (especially as no-one seems to know what he looks like). All of these elements together had the potential to make this a very confusing movie, but the fact that it isn't, is due to the skillful direction of Edward Dmytryk who brings crispness and clarity to the action as well as a good deal of suspense.After completing his military service at the end of World War 11, Lieutenant Laurence Gerard (Dick Powell) discovers that his French wife, Celeste (who he'd only been married to for 20 days), had been executed on the orders of a Nazi collaborator called Marcel Jarnac (Luther Adler). Jarnac, as an official of the Vichy government, had been responsible for the executions of numerous French patriots but had been declared dead. On learning how his wife had died, Gerard swears to hunt down and kill Jarnac. He doesn't buy the story about his death, especially as Jarnac's a man who nobody anywhere seems to be able to identify.Following reports that Jarnac had been trapped in a house somewhere near Marseilles; Gerard visits the site and discovers documents that enable him to pursue his investigations further and he finds that Madame Madeleine Jarnac (Micheline Cheirel) has a residence in Buenos Aires. When he arrives at Buenos Aires airport, he's met by an obese man called Melchior Incza (Walter Slezak) who claims to be a tour guide and surprisingly seems to know who Gerard is. Despite Gerard's initial hostility, Incza proves to be useful as he is able to introduce him to Madame Jarnac and her circle of friends.Gerard's investigations become increasingly difficult as he finds it impossible to know who to trust, Madame Jarnac's unpredictable nature and the circumstances of her marriage limit severely the amount of help that she can provide and the presence of Nazi supporters and a group of characters, who are allegedly trying to bring them to justice, only complicate matters further. Despite this, Gerard perseveres until he eventually tracks down his quarry.Dick Powell's performance is significant in the context of his career because, after initially being known as a song-and-dance man who appeared in light comedies, it reaffirmed his ability to be convincing in hardboiled roles. As Gerard, he's consistently grim, angry and abrasive and the type of guy who's so driven that he habitually takes rash actions without thinking too deeply about what he's doing. The supporting cast provide rather uneven contributions but Walter Slezak does stand out as the larger-than-life Incza who's extremely crooked and untrustworthy but also adds some much appreciated colour to the proceedings."Cornered" is strong on intrigue and atmosphere and the cinematography is wonderful. It's also very intense and contains a couple of particularly brutal episodes which are surprising to see in a film which was made in the 1940s.

Neil Doyle Directed in crisp, no nonsense direction by Edward Dmytryk with plenty of tough dialog and ambiguous bad guys, CORNERED gave Dick Powell a chance to play the kind of tight-lipped role that would have been offered to Alan Ladd if this RKO film had been made at Paramount.In Ladd's laconic style, Powell is a Canadian flier seeking to find the identity of the man who was behind the killing of his wife in France toward the end of WWII. He goes on his mission while making serious blunders about the innocence or guilt of everyone he encounters along the way. Nevertheless, despite the fact that he can't trust villainous Walter Slezak who befriends him, he does manage to nail the culprit in time for a satisfying conclusion. Luther Adler is fine in what is essentially a bit role in the story's final scene.It's competent but hardly inspiring or original. It passes the time as a film noir of moderate interest with a good tough guy performance from Powell, who kept reminding me of the sort of anti-hero Alan Ladd was in his early films at Paramount such as "This Gun for Hire" and "The Glass Key." But "Cornered" is not quite as effective as those Ladd films.