The concept of the political fixer is something I find unnerving, and the people in that role are generally creepy. Consider Roy Cohn, a terrible person who was Joseph McCarthy’s chief counsel during the House Committee hearings to week out Communists. It seems to take a certain kind of person to gather and retain great amounts of information, and to know how to best manipulate others with that data.
Ray Milland is such a figure in 1949’s Alias Nick Beal. He knows a great many things, even odd little details, such as a bottle of rum the bartender at a particular joint has never seen under the counter of the place he’s worked for decades. Milland also knows exactly how much is in the bank account of Thomas Mitchell, even down to the penny. This is how he happens to demand a check for $4,586.11 should Mitchell no longer need his services as a fixer. I love the insistence upon the eleven cents.
Geraldine Wall, as Mitchell’s wife, encourages her husband to part ways with this mysterious, and clearly Machiavellian, figure. And Milland is worse than she thinks, as he is downright Mephistophelian.
Yes, this is another spin on the old Faust storyline, except it is wrapped in the trappings of noir. Those are well-suited for the story, as effective for updating the tale as the expressionist lighting was for All That Money Can Buy (a.k.a. The Devil and Daniel Webster) eight years earlier. In fact, the persistent, dense fog at the dockside location where Milland conducts most of his business is the element which serves the story better than any previous incarnation I have witnessed of this oft-told tale.
When we first see Mitchell, he is a solid and upstanding citizen. He is seemingly free of vices, and even runs a club akin to a YMCA for boys in a low-income area. And yet, this District Attorney is troubled, as he is unable to prosecute the gangsters who are running an extortion racket. He has tried unsuccessfully to find their accounting ledgers.
Please excuse me this aside, but I love how, in movies of this vintage, organized crime figures were always into meticulous record keeping. I mean, were they making sure they accurately tracked their expenses and income for tax purposes? Then again, that is how the Feds snagged Capone.
Anyhoo, Mitchell receives a cryptic summons to go to a certain seedy dockside bar that night where he might meet somebody who can help him in his quest. That summons came from Milland, who already knows so much about the D.A. that he has ordered in advance a ginger ale for the man. I like how that is a hair unnerving. Similarly, Milland has the unnerving habit of appearing suddenly and then being cagey about where he had just come from, answering a question about one such appearance with “out there”.
I would be reluctant to follow this man to a second location, and yet that is what Mitchell does, and he finds the mysterious ledgers. That is astonishing, all the more so because we’ll later learn from Douglas Spencer that he personally torched those books well before then.
This night begins Mitchell’s slide down the slippery slope of relaxed morals. He may verbally speculate about the necessity of a warrant, but that doesn’t stop him from running off with the ledgers. With these, he is able to secure that conviction.
His success puts him on the path to the governor’s mansion. We already know he will get elected, as the first scene in the movie has him entering that mansion for the first time. Rarely has a man looked so miserable while at the pinnacle of his career. Most of the remainder of the runtime will be in flashback leading back up to this moment.
Milland doesn’t just corrupt the man’s scruples regarding government and the legal process, but he will also throw a wrench in the man’s happy marriage. This arrives in the form of Audrey Totter, a barfly and obvious prostitute whom Milland coerces into ringleading the daily operations of Mitchell’s campaign. The leverage he has over her is she accidentally killed a man in an act that even the strictest of judges would have to declare was manslaughter.
One of the best scenes in a film with many memorable moments is between Milland and Trotter in the apartment where he has put her up. He has her memorize lines to say to Mitchell and he prompts her with what the man might say, and Milland’s lines are exactly what Mitchell will end up saying. The look of dawning horror on her face during the consequent conversation with Mitchell is priceless, as she realizes Milland is no mortal man. Having essentially gone through the exactly same scenario twice consecutively, it’s like she’s having the worst case of deja vu imaginable.
The performances are solid all around, even from the minor characters. Spencer doesn’t get much to do, though I always enjoy seeing the guy who, in The Thing from Another World, said the famous closing line of “keep watching the skies!” George Macready gets a rare opportunity to play something other than a villain, as he is a preacher this time. I like a recurring bit where he tries to recall where he has seen Milland before. Consider this exchange between the men: “Did anybody ever paint your portrait?” “Yesss…Rembrandt in 1655.” I also liked seeing Theresa Harris, though in the typical domestic role. When she’s in something, I’m always hoping she’ll get some of the dialogue and character nuances she had in I Walked with a Zombie. Coincidentally, that was a Val Lewton production, and I kept thinking of the man’s movies while watching this, as the atmosphere is so thick it is fair to say it is fog that eats like a meal.
I always hate it when critics talk in terms I’m about to use, but the dock and the seedy bar near the end of it are characters on their own. The bar is modelled on San Francisco’s legendary First and Last Chance Saloon and, like that establishment, nothing seems to be at a right angle to anything else. The liquid in drinks atop the bar actually have a sloped surface because the counter is that off-level. Another interesting set is Totter’s apartment, which is dominated by Daliesque murals on the walls of the living room and bedroom. I’m irritated I am unable to find who did those, as it sure as hell wasn’t Dali.
Alias Nick Beal is a fascinating picture. I was expecting noir but got a great deal more than what that genre typically offers. What really makes the film is Milland maximizing the potential of a role that has traditionally served actors well. He is obviously having fun, but his demeanor is more of a restrained menace than the rather cartoonish John Huston in All That Money Can Buy. Still, he gets some great lines, such as this, after hearing a man with the Salvation Army declare he has defeated the devil, pinning his shoulders to the ground: “I wonder if he knows it’s two falls out of three.”
Dir: John Farrow (fun fact: father of Mia!)
Starring Ray Milland, Audrey Totter, Thomas Mitchell
Watched on Kino Lorber blu-ray