***Out In The 1950s Film Noir Night – Watch Out For No-Nonsense Cops-With The Narrow Margin In Mind

DVD Review

The Narrow Margin , starring Charles McGraw, Marie Windsor, Jacqueline White, 1952

Okay, let’s go through the drill. If you’re a cop and your partner gets killed by some scum hoodlum you’re supposed to do something about it, something serious and something final. It doesn’t matter tough cop or soft desk job cop, mean street cop or downtown swells cop, on the take or just happy to cadge and off-hand coffee and cruller as part of the day’s work you are supposed to do something about it. Hell, even private dicks know and honor that part of the drill. Just ask Sam Spade about how he did right by his partner, the fallen Miles Archer, when a dame tried to get all squirrelly on him. And so you know right from the get-go in this film, a black and white B-film noir, The Narrow Margin, that tough Detective Brown is going to go through hell and high water to avenge the death of his partner, no questions asked.

The reason that Brown’s fallen partner needs that avenging is that he fell afoul of the syndicate boys, and I don’t have to tell you what syndicate, when they were trying to waste a dame who wanted to “sing” before and L. A. grand jury, sing loud too. See this dame, this gangster s moll (okay, okay wife), Mrs. Neall, was ready to sing after her dear hubby ran afoul of the syndicate boys and she wanted to get some revenge of her own, and maybe some dough or protection too. The problem was this frail (sorry I got carried away in the crime noir night) was located in Chicago and so needed an escort out west. That is where Detective Brown and his partner came to the rescue. But the syndicate didn’t get to be the syndicate by letting stuff like snitching go unpunished so they go after her in their own way. And that is how our tough cop’s partner got wasted and why he would have many sleepless nights until he got square with his deceased partner.

Fortunately Mrs. Neall and the detective were able to get away from the gun fight alive and by various subterfuges were able to get on the train (yah, this is early 1950s stuff when they apparently were in no hurry to get star witnesses ferried across the country quickly)and head west. The beauty of this escort service though was that the guys after Mrs. Neall were clueless about what she looked like and so our detective was able to use that fact to his advantage. By the way this Mrs. Neall was nothing but poison, nothing but a frail (sorry, again) from the wrong side of the tracks, strictly from cheap street, although maybe good for a one-night stand under the sheets. The banter between the pair on this trip is classic tough guy- gun moll talk which has an oddly sexual tinged aspect thrown in with her alternatively trying to seduce Brown and throw him under the train (not literally, okay). I took her whole routine as her just working her way to the next safe harbor after the demise of the late Mr. Neall.

Well, needless to say Detective Brow get Mrs. Neall to L.A. although not without lots of drama on the train. Stuff that would make you glad to grab the nearest airplane flight despite the cost. Like I said before the syndicate didn’t get to be the syndicate by letting loose cannons roll around. So they moved heaven and earth, brought in a bevy of gunsels to finish up the job botched in Chi town. The drama of that pursuit (and the tough guy and gal patter) drives this one along its merry way. Oh yah, and a little twist in the story line involving a good looking woman, a blonde, that Detective Brown keeps bumping into on the train too.