Movie Type: Psychological Thriller, Police Detective Film
Themes: Train Rides, Woman In Jeopardy, Witness Protection
Main Cast: Charles McGraw, Marie Windsor, Jacqueline White, Gordon Geberl, Queenie Leonard
Release Year: 1952
Country: US
Run Time: 71 minutes
MPAA Rating: NR
Plot
The Narrow Margin is generally considered a "model" B picture; some film buffs go farther than that, labelling this 1952 RKO suspenser as the best low-budget studio production ever made. Nail-hard detective Walter Brown (Charles McGraw) is assigned to protect gangster's widow Mrs. Neall (Marie Windsor) as she rides the train from Chicago to LA, en route to testifying at a grand jury. There's no love lost between the ill-tempered Neall and Brown, especially since Brown's partner (Don Beddoe) was killed by mobsters while shielding Neall from harm. On the train, Brown makes the acquaintance of a likeable woman (Jacqueline White) and her playful young son. He also comes in contact with a rather secretive fat man (Paul Maxey), who may well be a mob assassin. Not long before the train pulls into California, Brown is approached by small-time crook (Peter Brocco), who offers the detective a great deal of money if he'll permit Neall to be silenced. Brown appears to be tempted, but this is only a smokescreen to throw the crooks off the trail. The Narrow Margin was remade (and unnecessarily padded and attenuated) in 1990. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Review
Originally titled The Target, RKO's noir programmer The Narrow Margin (1952) was a hard-boiled masterpiece of gangland-flavored tough-guy dialogue and of economy in setting and pace. The plot contrivances, shootings, taut pace, and a major narrative twist in the third act helped it become an instant audience favorite and earn enough critical clout for an Oscar nomination as Best Original Screenplay. Practically a primer on how to produce a B-movie, it began its life as the lower half of a double bill with Tembo (1952), a laughable African safari adventure from star-director-producer Howard Hill, promoted as the "World's Greatest Archer." The son of famed cartoonist Max Fleischer (the creator of Popeye and Betty Boop), director Richard Fleischer reached the high water mark of his low budget career with The Narrow Margin. Having already won a Short Subject Oscar in 1948, the former newsreel editor's career took off on the popularity and reputation of the film, and he was soon directing glossy A-list projects like 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954), although he never completely gave up his affinity for crime melodrama. Critical respect for The Narrow Margin grew over the years until, at around the same time as a big-budget 1990 remake, a new print of the original was screened on the revival circuit. Without a bit of irony, The Narrow Margin was once again shown as half of a double bill, this time with the lurid classic Detour (1946), to which The Narrow Margin was often favorably compared (both films featured scripts co-written by Martin Goldsmith). With apologies to Howard Hill, most aficionados of lower-tier Hollywood noir consider The Narrow Margin one of the greatest B-movies ever made. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide
David Clarke - Kemp; Peter Virgo - Densel; Don Beddoe - Gus Forbes; Paul Maxey - Jennings; Donald Dillaway - Reporter; Don Haggerty - Detective Wilson; Harry Harvey - Train Conductor; Milt Kibbee - Tenant; Johnny Lee - Waiter; Will Lee - Newsstand Owner; Tony Merrill - Officer Allen; Howard Mitchell - Train Conductor; Franklin Parker - Telegraph Attendant; George Sawava - Reporter; Napoleon Whiting - Redcap; Ivan Browning; Michael Lally - Taxi Driver; Jasper Weldon - Porter
Credit
Albert S. D'Agostino - Art Director, Jack Okey - Art Director, Richard Fleischer - Director, Robert Swink - Editor, George E. Diskant - Cinematographer, Stanley Crea Rubin - Producer, Darrell Silvera - Set Designer, William L. Stevens - Set Designer, Earl Felton - Screenwriter, Martin G. Goldsmith - Screenwriter, Jack Leonard - Screenwriter
The story tells a cat-and-mouse stalk aboard a California-bound train. Walter Brown, a tough and conscientious detective, is assigned to safeguard a slain gangster's widow until she can testify before a Los Angeles grand jury. Keeping her alive keeps Brown busy.
Brown, on the way to meet her, expresses his contempt for Mrs. Neall to his longtime partner and friend Gus Forbes (Don Beddoe): "She's the sixty cent special. Cheap. Flashy. Strictly poison under the gravy."
Forbes is killed by the mob just after they pick up the woman. At the station, Brown discovers that he has been followed by gangsters Joseph Kemp (David Clarke) and the genteel Vincent Yost (Peter Brocco), who unsuccessfully tries to bribe him.
Brown's relationship with Mrs. Neall is caustic. She is cynical and flashy, constantly flirting with him while doubting his integrity and commitment to protecting her. Brown makes friends with an attractive passenger he meets by chance, Ann Sinclair (Jacqueline White), and her too-observant young son Tommy (Gordon Gebbert). However, Kemp spots them together and thinks that Sinclair is the target. When he confronts Kemp and gets into a fight with him, Brown learns of the mistake. He turns Kemp over to overweight railroad agent Sam Jennings (Paul Maxey) and hurries to warn Mrs. Sinclair.
However, she has a surprise for him - she is really Mrs. Neall. The other woman is a decoy named Sarah Meggs. Meanwhile, Jennings is knocked out by Kemp's more-dangerous associate Densel (Peter Virgo), the assassin who killed Brown's partner, and Kemp is freed.
The gangsters enter Brown's compartment and kill Meggs. Then Densel goes for Mrs. Neall. He is cornered in a locked compartment with her, with Brown outside. Brown uses the reflection from the window of a train on the next track to shoot Densel through the door, then enters the compartment and finishes him off. Kemp jumps off the stopped train, but is quickly arrested.
Film critic Blake Lucas makes the case that The Narrow Margin reflects the "noir view" of an unstable and deceiving moral reality."[2]
Critical reaction
The film is considered by critics and film historians to be a classic example of the film noir genre. It was well received at the time it was made, as a model "B" movie.
According to a review in The New York Times, "Using a small cast of comparative unknowns, headed by Charles McGraw, Marie Windsor and Jacqueline White, this inexpensive Stanley Rubin production for R. K. O. is almost a model of electric tension that, at least technically, nudges some of the screen's thriller milestones. Crisply performed and written and directed by Earl Felton and Richard Fleischer with tingling economy, this unpretentious offering should glue anyone to the edge of his seat and prove, once and for all, that a little can be made to count for a lot."[3]
Film critic Dennis Schwartz said, "A breathtakingly suspenseful low-budget crime thriller that is flawlessly directed ... The fast-paced pulpish taut story is filled with tense incidents and a well-executed twist ...[4]
The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 100% of critics gave the film a positive review, based on six reviews.[5]
^Silver, Alain, and Elizabeth Ward, eds. Film Noir: An Encyclopedic Reference to the American Style, film noir analysis by Blake Lucas, page 198, 3rd edition, 1992. Woodstock, New York: The Overlook Press, ISBN 0-87951-479-5.
^The New York Times, film review, May 5, 1952. Last accessed: January 22, 2008.
^Schwartz, Dennis. "Ozus' World Movie Reviews," January 22, 2005. Last accessed: November 23, 2009.
