Film

Movie theaters, reviews and showtimes in New York, plus articles, trailers and more
 

The Brasher Doubloon (1946)

Director: John Brahm

Average user rating
No reviews

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

Usually shrugged aside as a negligible Chandler adaptation, but Brahm has other fish to fry. The tone is set by the opening shot of an old dark house as Philip Marlowe's offscreen voice complains about the wind blowing eternally off the Mojave. That wind continues throughout, stirring the mood of malaise as swaying branches set shadows flickering in dim-lit rooms where the heroine is being slowly driven mad. The opening interview, with the marvellously malevolent Florence Bates easily outgunning General Sternwood in flesh-crawling unease, challenges The Big Sleep on its own ground. The middle stretches, with Kortner outstanding in the Lorre role, produce as vivid a set of grotesques as The Maltese Falcon. But what keeps the last third afloat owes less to Chandler or Hammett than to the sense of brooding Gothic melodrama in which Brahm specialised. Forget Philip Marlowe, enjoy a fine companion piece to The Lodger, Guest in the House, Hanover Square and The Locket.

Author: TM 0000-00-00 00:00:00

Time Out Film Guide

  • Print this page
  • Send to a friend

What do you think?
Post your review now

clear rating
Min 1 star. Zero stars will be treated as unrated.

*mandatory fields


Cast & crew

Director: John Brahm

Producer: Robert Bassler

Cast: George Montgomery, Nancy Guild, Florence Bates, Fritz Kortner, Conrad Janis, Roy Roberts, Marvin Miller, Houseley Stevenson full cast

Genre(s): Film Noir

Duration: 72 mins


Features

Making a name for himself

Making a name for himself

Sin Nombre's Cary Joji Fukunaga learned his lessons well.

To the letter

Forty years later, Costa-Gavras's Z still brims with fury.

Mind over matter

David Cronenberg reflects on a most bizarre body: his own corpus of work.

Fool's gold

Can an Oscar win lead to a cursed career? Here are five stories of postaward professional meltdowns.

We are the championed

Terrorists and teens abound in this year's "Film Comment Selects."

A history of violence

Matteo Garrone's kaleidoscopic Gomorrah wallops you with Italy's crime crisis.

True romantic

James Gray exchanges urban amorality for amour in Two Lovers.

Playing in the dark

MoMA salutes pianist Stuart Oderman's 50 years as the one-man sound of silents.

Junk bonds

Cast and crew recall the making of the classic NYC drug drama The Panic in Needle Park.