Noir Diary # 17: Framed (Richard Wallace, 1947)

 

The very definition of an efficient, tightly plotted b-noir, 1947’s ‘Framed’ begins with a perfect visual metaphor for what’s to follow, as protagonist Mike Lambert (Glenn Ford) literally crashes into the small town in which the action takes place behind the wheel of an out-of-control truck with no functioning brakes.

The platonic ideal of a doomed film noir patsy, Lambert is an unkempt, down-on-his-luck drifter (an unemployed mining engineer, so he claims), who accepted the driving gig offered to him by an unscrupulous trucking company purely as a means to get himself to the next town along the trail. After painfully extracting his fee from said trucking firm’s local rep, he deposits it directly into the hat of the argumentative man whose fender he damaged in the process of bringing his death-trap of a vehicle to a halt, and heads straight for the nearest bar to see if he can scare up some credit.

Within the insalubrious environs of the La Paloma Cafe, we soon come to understand how Lambert has ended up in such dire straits. Clearly he’s one of those guys whose thirst for liquor is matched only by his inability to handle its effects, and, after a few shots of rot-gut, we find him trying to hock his gold watch to the barkeep for stake money to join the 24/7 crap game taking place upstairs, only to be saved from further humiliation when the crooked local fuzz waltz in to pick him up on a spurious dangerous driving charge finagled by the trucking company.

In spite of this world championship level display of loserdom however, archly mannered waitress Paula (Janis Carter) appears inexplicably enamoured of the new arrival; so much so that it is she who steps in to cover the fine Lambert is ordered to pay after a jerry-rigged court appearance, before also shelling out to provide the hotel room in which he sleeps off the effects of his subsequent drinking binge.

Anyone thinking that Paula’s efforts might be motivated by philanthropy, pity or good old fashioned lust however would be well advised to consult this movie’s title. Before you know it, our hero’s new guardian angel has quit her job at the bar, and is on the phone to arrange a meet-up with the smarmy vice-president of the local bank (Steve Price, played by Barry Sullivan), letting him know that she’s found exactly the right guy for their purposes. Same height as Price, same build, and no annoying friends or family to get in the way. Oddly, they’re not too concerned about his facial features… I wonder why?

Before we get the full dope on the ugly fate our hero is being measured up for however, ‘Framed’ takes an unexpected detour into B. Traven territory, as Lambert - suddenly determined to try to make something of himself - heads for the local Assaying Office. For the benefit of readers not based in the South-Western U.S.A. in the early 20th century, this was apparently a place to which would-be mining prospectors could bring samples of stuff they’d dug up, to get its mineral content analysed, and happily, Lambert’s visit happens to coincide with that of a garrulous fellow (Jeff Cunningham, played by Edgar Buchanan) who has just received confirmation that he’s struck a life-changing haul of silver up in them-there-hills.

Better still, when Lambert offers his services as an engineer for the forthcoming mining operation, Cunningham recognises him as the guy who paid him back for damage to his car the previous afternoon, clapping him on the shoulders and declaring him an HONEST MAN. So, hands are shaken, a partnership is born, and the new best buddies retire to nearby café (one which actually serves food, unlike the La Paloma) for a slap-up breakfast and some serious mining talk.

The only snag is, to finance the outfit, Cunningham will need to get a loan from the local bank, but don’t worry, it’s such a sure thing that…. ah. You see where this going. Forewarned by Paula, vice-president Steve turns Cunningham down flat, leaving the disgruntled prospector with no choice but to leave town to drum up some dough elsewhere, leaving Lambert to cool his heels… and to head straight back into the arms of one of the most robotically psychotic femme fatales ‘50s noir had to offer. Some guy just can’t get a break, huh?

Ben Maddow’s script for ‘Framed’ may not be high art, but it’s certainly high craft. A frustrated poet and documentarian before he turned to screenwriting to make a buck, Maddow cheerily lifts a few ideas from then-recent hits (Double Indemnity, ‘The Treasure of the Sierra Madre’, and the previous year’s ‘Gilda’, also starring Ford), but he nonetheless gives us one of those great, watertight yarns in which every detail pays off, every character trait serves a purpose, and in which the overriding theme of the piece remains consistent, without ever getting heavy-handed about it.

In the synopsis above, I’ve casually referred to Mike Lambert as the film’s ‘hero’, and, despite his chronic lack of gumption, that descriptor remains more accurate than was often the case in the realm of noir. For all his faults, Lambert is indeed a scrupulously honest man, trying to ply an honest trade, only to find the combined forces of state and capital (the police and judiciary, banks, employers, the idle rich, even disgruntled suburbanites in one case) lined up against him, working in cahoots to keep him penniless, homeless, and preferably consigned to a wooden casket ASAP, all as part of their venal, corrupt daily routine.

(With an outlook like this, it’s no surprise to learn that Maddow found himself blacklisted post-haste once the dark fog of HUAC descended upon Hollywood, his official screen credits drying up shortly after he earned an Oscar nomination for his similarly themed work on John Huston’s classic ‘The Asphalt Jungle’ (1950).)

The great ‘nearly man’ of 40s/50s household name leading men, Glenn Ford also does fine work here, dialling down the charisma he exuded to varying degrees in other roles to effectively portray a guy who is only one or two rungs up the ladder from the Elisha Cook Jrs of this world -- a stone loser, but one whose side-eye glances convey a sly, calculating self-awareness rather than mere blubbering self-pity, letting us know he’s possessed of just enough grit and smarts to overcome the forces rallied against him… if only he could stay away from the bottle, and the crap table - and most importantly, from Janis Carter.

Though she never scaled the same career heights as her co-star, Carter (whose other genre credits include ‘Night Editor’ (1946) and the notorious ‘The Woman on Pier 13’ aka ‘I Married a Communist’ (1949)) is equally memorable here, creating a character who ranks second only to Lizabeth Scott in ‘Too Late For Tears’ (1949) in noir’s pantheon of cold-blooded female predators.

When Sullivan’s character met her two years ago, Paula was modelling “someone else’s furs”; now she has to make do ugly, lace n’ polka-dot small town finery, but not for much longer. A dead-eyed, remorselessly amoral dame straight out of a philandering studio mogul’s worst nightmares, she’s clearly capable of leaving any of the men who dote upon her to perish in a flaming car wreck at a moment’s notice, just to gain an extra percentage point on the purloined dough which sits awaiting her in that numbered safe deposit box back in town.

There is kind of a performative, self-aware aspect to the behaviour of both lead characters in ‘Framed’ - a feeling that Mike and Paula simply complying with the expectations of their archetypes, if you will, unable to break free from the roles they’ve been assigned within Maddow’s rat-trap of a script. Some viewers might see as a weakness of the film, but personally I really enjoyed the weird, fateful quality it brought to proceedings.

Paula is so obviously ice cold and insincere in her interactions with Lambert and Price, it’s difficult to believe that either of them could believe her rote “I’m crazy about you / let’s run away together” jive for a second. Indeed, Lambert appears suspicious of her motives right from the get-go, but nonetheless, he still keeps trudging straight back to the horrible, chintzy bungalow she rents on the outskirts of town, accepting her stream of lies, rationalisations and half-hearted declarations of devotion with heavy-lidded resignation, like some cut price, off-brand version of Robert Mitchum’s storm-tossed fatalism in the same year’s ‘Out of the Past’.

Though ‘Framed’ has none of the high-falutin’ dreaminess we associate with such top tier noirs, Wallace’s direction is punchy and efficient in the best tradition of Columbia crime pictures, relying on fast cutting and simple visual storytelling to get its point across, whilst the film is further elevated by fine supporting performances from Sullivan, whose smarmy bank exec contains a finger of the same juice which would later fuel Fred McMurray’s character in Billy Wilder’s ‘The Apartment’ (1960), and Edgar Buchanan, who essentially plays the movie’s dishevelled, proletarian conscience, offering Lambert a fleeting glimpse of friendship, hard work and proper, American Dream-type redemption.

The work of Director of Photography Burnett Guffey was not generally as showy as that of his more celebrated competitors in the chiaroscuro racket, and with the best will in the world, this picture’s small town / daylight setting and familiarly drab Columbia interior sets offer little scope for expressionist grandeur.

Nonetheless though, Howe’s steady hand ensures that the movie always looks at least pretty good, employing the steady hand which led some wag to describe him as the “little black dress” of noir photographers to transcend the penny-pinching production design, using mirrors, blinds and jagged, asymmetric shapes to keep things interesting, whilst a few brief nocturnal street scenes evoke the kind of sleek, inky smooth menace he would go on to employ so beautifully on career highlights like ‘The Reckless Moment’ (1949) and ‘In a Lonely Place’ (1950). (1)

If anything in ‘Framed’ cuts against the grain of noir expectation, it’s probably the film’s ending, which - whilst straining here to avoid spoilers - does not proceed in the direction which the hard-boiled nihilist crowd might have wished, let’s put it that way. As much as such a conclusion sounds bad on paper however, in practice it’s handled here with an elegance and open-ended emotional ambiguity which actually works rather beautifully, leaving open the possibility that good ol’ Mike Lambert - now weighted down by an extra layer of cynicism and soul-sickening regret - might be back soon, trying hawk that damned gold watch in some seedy bar ‘round the corner from your place, next week, next year, or on into eternity.

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(1) I need to credit Imogen Sara Smith’s excellent audio commentary on the Indicator blu-ray release of ‘Framed’ for hepping me to that quote about Guffey, but I don’t remember who she attributed it to, and google hasn’t helped me put a name to it, so… answers on a postcard etc.