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All accountant Frank Bigelow (Edmond O'Brien) wants to do is go to San
Francisco to spend a week away from his fiancée Paula (Pamela Britton)
and have a few nights on the town, but after a night of heavy drinking, he
has to learn that someone has slipped a luminous poison into one of his
drinks, and that he is going to die in the next few days, there is no
cure.
Having nothing to lose, Frank is now hell-bent to find out who has done
this to him, and why (he doesn't know anyone in San Francisco to begin
with), but the only clue he has got is a certain Mr Philips who urgently
demanded his help - and Frank doesn't know any Mr Philips either ... and
not only that, it also turns out that Mr Philips has committed suicide on
exactly the same day Frank has been poisoned.
Still, Frank decides to pick up the clue, especially after he learns
about a certain illegal iridium shipment between Philips and a certain
Reynolds in which he was involved inasmuch as he notarized a bill of sale
- a bill of sale which would have relieved Philips of all the blame in the
illegal shipment ... which makes his suicide rather unlikely.
Frank goes after Reynolds, only to find out he was a notorious crook
but has died five months ago. Still, his employer Majak (Luther Adler), a
gangster of course, soon gets hold of Frank because Frank has been digging
a bit too deep in things that don't concern him at all, for which he has
to die ... even though he assures Frank he had nothing to do with
poisoning him in San Francisco, since (at least back then) Frank didn't
have the least bit of evidence against him ...
Somehow, Frank manages to escape Majak's psychopath-hitman Chester
(Neville Brand), and now he thinks he has everything figured out: It must
have been Philips' wife (Lynn Baggett) and his brother Stanley (Henry
Hart) who had their hands in the crooked iridium deal and who now want to
quiet Frank - but then Frank finds Stanley obviously suffering from the
same symptoms he did after his poisoning, and having excluded everyone
else, he figures the baddie must be Halliday (William Ching), who wasn't
only the second-in-command in Philips' company, he also had an affair with
Philips' wife, and who obviously did the iridium deal in Philips' stead,
later killed him in a fight and made it look like suicide, then poisoned
Frank to get rid of the last witness - which didn't quite work since Frank
is still alive, and in a showdown they come face to face with each other,
and ultiamtely Frank has to shoot Halliday ...
Frank can just survive long enough to make it to the next police
precinct and tell his story to the cops, then he dies, D.O.A. (Dead On
Arrival).
Simply put, a wonderful film noir.
Despite a slightly overconvoluted script with a few plottwists that
wouldn't stand up to thorough investigation, the film moves along at such
a swift pace and creates so much tension and suspense that the plot in
itself seems to work like a clockwork, and the whole setup for the story,
as unlikely as it may seem (it actually did happen in real life too), is
just wonderful and nothing short of irresistible because it's just so
wonderfully fatal and cynical - and therefore perfect for a film noir. Add
to this solid performances and a swift directing job and you've got a
masterpiece, nothing less.
Recommended.
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find D.O.A. at adultvideouniverse.com
