Alan Ladd always looks annoyed in movies. 1955’s Hell on Frisco Bay is no exception. At the beginning, the ex-cop is just now being released from San Quentin after doing time for manslaughter. I guess I would also be cranky if I was convicted for a crime I didn’t commit. But I like to think he’s irked because he left long before Johnny Cash would perform there.
He’s a complete dick to wife Joanne Dru, who is there to greet him at the gate. She even tried to visit this bitter man while he was in stir, and he refused to see her for three years. If I was him, I would have been happy to see any woman on visiting day. He also didn’t write to her in all that time. This is a guy who can really carry a grudge against the wrong people, especially since it will turn out she has been faithful to him. She only started a relationship with another after those three years passed since he told her to get out of his life. And this is our hero.
At least he is a bit warmer to William Demarest, a friend and fellow cop who is still with the department. A cop Ladd hasn’t met before is Peter Hansen, who happens to be in the exact position from which Ladd was relieved when he went to jail. Hansen stops by Ladd’s apartment just to harass him.
It is no surprise he’s is on the payroll of gangster Edward G. Robinson. This is new regime, with the city under new crime management since Ladd went in. There is even an interesting scene where Ladd visits former kingpin Nestor Paiva and they reminisce about old times, in a way. This new enterprise is largely control of fishing in the area. It is quite a little empire Robison has built up.
His second-in-command is Paul Stewart, an intelligent and rather shy man who is especially sensitive about the huge scar on his left cheek. I was wondering why he didn’t just wipe it off, forgetting that the patently fake makeup is supposed to be real in the world of the film. Robinson is forever busting the man’s chops (and, remember, one of which is scarred) about Stewart’s commitment to religion. In some of the script’s most audacious dialogue, he even asks why his right-hand man doesn’t pray to him, since he was the one who greased the wheels to get Stewart released from prison. Thought that is some surprisingly blasphemous language for 1955, it also feels too arch and stagey. This isn’t how anybody in any reality talks.
Robison is also forever riding Stewart for the man’s romance with Faye Wray. The King Kong actress plays a former movie star here, described by Robinson as “must be 40 years old, that has-been.” I liked her character, especially when she takes Robinson to task for how she treats her man.
Somebody else Robinson won’t stop picking on has an interesting character arc, and that is his cousin (Perry Lopez). Robinson and wife Renata Vanni don’t have any children, so Lopez is a surrogate son. Lopez appears at first to be a sleazy thug, but it eventually turns out he is more vulnerable that I would have thought. He especially enjoys playing violin for his aunt.
A score by Max Steiner has a few interesting flourishes, most particular a bit of deliberately poorly played violin when Robinson talks at one point about Lopez’s ability with the instrument. Another way music features in the runtime is Dru’s nightclub act, in which she sings (or, more likely, mimes) “It Had to Be You”. Didn’t anybody realize the missed opportunity of possibly changing the lyrics to “It Had to Be Dru?”
Almost of the characters have interesting nuances except our leads. Robinson, who is usually so dependable, is given the most one-dimensional part I have seen him in so far. Ladd behaves like a bigger jerk that some of the criminals with whom he interacts. I found it hard to root for him when he does things like nearly drowns Lopez in a restaurant bathroom sink.
I found myself eventually just waiting for Hell on Frisco Bay to end. As reprehensible as Robinson’s character may be, Ladd is also so unlikable as to have me indifferent as to whether he succeeds.
Dir: Frank Tuttle
Starring Alan Ladd, Edward G. Robinson, Joanne Dru
Watched on Warner Archive blu-ray