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17 out of 19 people found the following review useful: A classic of the film noir…, 20 July 2005 Author: ironside (robertfrangie@hotmail.com) from Mexico
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
Both Lancaster and Douglas, who co-starred in a number of films over the next two decades, were famous for tough exteriors hiding sensitive natures… Lizabeth Scott, who appeared in films with one or the other, though never again with both together, was less versatile…Like Lauren Bacall and Ella Raines (other actresses in the Veronica Lake mold), her career revolved on the archetypal vamp foundations: a bone, a rag, a hank of hair, and a voice that sounded as if it had been buried somewhere deep and was trying to claw its way out… The film's plot had ex-convict Lancaster seeking revenge on nightclub owner Douglas who had cheated him, while Miss Scott was a singer whose song 'Don't Call It Love' pretty well stated her case as one who felt misunderstood and left out… The physical similarities of the three made the roles interchangeable and the plot hard to follow – which perhaps is why it has become a classic of the film noir…
13 out of 18 people found the following review useful: A fine, underrated film-noir, 3 October 2001 Author: megastevet (esstee55@hotmail.com) from Garden Grove, CA
After waiting for years to see this fine film-noir, I finally did today. Two young hoodlums (Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas) are running illegal booze into another county during prohibition and get chased by the cops. The two separate after one of the cops is killed, and Douglas escapes, but Lancaster is caught and goes to jail. 14 years later, Lancaster is out and finds that Douglas has gone legit and is the owner of a major nightclub and doing quite well. Lancaster feels Douglas owes him something, and wants to become a full partner. Douglas then makes plans to eliminate him. Part of Douglas's plans include using his own mistress (Ms. Scott) to lead Lancaster on. A good thriller all around, predictable at times but very stylish, gritty and involving all the time. A "can't miss" for noir-fans.
8 out of 10 people found the following review useful: Two kings and a queen., 29 November 2002 Author: dbdumonteil
The screenplay and the directing may seem a bit hackneyed to some,but Lancaster's problems,trapped in the mystery of economics and club management are rather intriguing.The essential lies elsewhere:watching the Lancaster/Douglas team is enough to satisfy the cine buff;they are so good than even when they work with inferior material,they are still better than most of the rest. Douglas is icily suave,treating his old pal to a meal of canard à l'orange with vintage Champagne.But if looks could kill,his certainly would.Lancaster is a mistreated,thrown into jail (14 years!),cheated good guy ,but who will play fair game till the end.Between these two men ,there's of course a woman:unlike today's female parts,this one is not sacrificed .Lizabeth Scott's performance is first-class and on a par with the two male parts.Too bad her career should have ended so prematurely.She easily equals Laureen Bacall,she's even more human.It's strange how Douglas 's first parts were often villains (this movie,the loves of Martha Ivers) which culminated with Billy Wilder's highly superior "the big carnival".This movie proves that three good leads can give a banal plot substance.
8 out of 11 people found the following review useful: Enjoyable battle of wits between gangsters, 14 November 1999 Author: otter (otter_c@ix.netcom.com) from Mountain View, ca.
Burt Lancaster has been in prison since the days of Al Capone, and when released he sets out to claim his share of ill-gotten gains from his former partner, Kirk Douglas. Kirk is pleasant at first, lulling Burt with wine, gourmet food, and the company of his mistress Lizbeth Scott, but he has no intention of sharing anything. What starts out as a buddy relationship becomes a battle of wits and wills as the two fight for control of Kirk's nightclub, lots of money, and Lizbeth.This is no "Double Indemnity", but the two main characters are written and acted well enough to hold our interest. Douglas steals the film as the cleverer thug, the one who was smart enough to get away and go legit. His performance is lively and has touches of humor, particularly in the scene where he proves that the pen is mightier than the sword, or at least that legalese is mightier than the gun. Lancaster has a more violent, less sympathetic character, but has fun playing a brute who's forced to actually think for the first time in his life.Not a great film, but an enjoyable one. Interesting for the way it shows the changes in the criminal world over the course of a decade, from the brutality of the thirties to the emerging sophistication of the fifties.
4 out of 4 people found the following review useful: Out of the past, 2 January 2008 Author: jotix100 from New York
The friendship of Frankie Madison and Noll "Dink" Turner was solid during the prohibition era of the country. They had a good scheme going until Frankie is caught with the goods he is bringing to their speakeasy in Manhattan. Madison has to serve fourteen years for the crime. When he is released from prison, Dave , a mutual friend who now works for Turner is sent to meet the ex-con and help him settle down.Frankie, who wants to be paid for the time he spent in jail, has a lot to square away with his former friend. Madison is taken aback when he goes to pay a visit to Dink's new club. Not only is it posh, it caters to a high class crowd! In the club he meets two ladies, one the headliner, Kay Lawrence, who is involved with Turner, and Mrs. Richarson, a high society type. Turner wants to use Kay to pump information from Madison, but he soon discovers the duplicity, but in reality, the singer's heart is not into betraying Frankie, who she seems to have taken a liking to. On the other hand, Mrs. Richardson can't get her hands on this new arrival the way she has gotten away with Dink.Dink feels threatened by Madison's arrival into the scene. When they have an argument about the money owed to Frankie, Dink has a plan to get rid of his friend. Dave, the accountant, who has been called to explain to Madison the intricacies of the corporation that owns the club, sees what Dink is trying to do. Frankie Madison gets a chance to get what is due to him. He also gets to keep the gorgeous Kay! "I Walk Alone", directed by Byron Haskin, is a good example of those films that came out after WWII. It's worth a look because of the marvelous cast assembled to appear in it. "I Walk Alone" marks the first time Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas appeared together in movies. Although the top billing is given to Wendell Corey, he has little to do in it. The husky-voiced Lizabeth Scott plays the sultry Kay Lawrence with her usual flair. She is beautifully dressed by Edith Head.Victor Young's musical score and Leo Tover's cinematography contribute to the overall success of this movie.
3 out of 4 people found the following review useful: Whatever happened to those great criminals and thugs of the 1920s?, 17 December 2005 Author: theowinthrop from United States
I like I WALK ALONE. It is an interesting example of film noir, but it also has curious slants of it's own. It is also one of the first pairings of Kirk Douglas and Burt Lancaster in film. Douglas and Lancaster were so well balanced in their movies that they were interchangeable. While in most of them they were allies or buddies (THE DEVIL'S DESCIPLE, GUNFIGHT AT O.K. CORRAL, TOUGH GUYS) they could alternate as the villain against each other. It's hard to find a pair of actors who did this as well or at all. Matthau and Lemmon usually were in comedies (although they both could be at loggerheads on some ethical points or past history). Grant and Ralph Bellamy are normally love rivals (Bellamy being hopelessly outclassed). Crosby and Fitzgerald are usually in a battle of the generations, and a confrontation of two street smart types. And so it goes in other male pairings.SPOILERS AHEAD: Here, Kirk is the villain - he got away with a large stolen cash prize in a crime back in the 1920s/early 1930s. His partner Burt got caught, and was sent to prison for 14 years (actually rather lucky for him - a cop was killed). Burt is now out of prison, and he discovers that Kirk is quite a social success. He took the money and used it to build a gang, but he was smart enough to use his profits to get a legitimate sheen to his image: he's a successful "nightclub" owner with many wealthy friends and customers. One of the best moments early in the film is when Lancaster sees newspapers and magazines that show Douglas swanning with the swells (even wearing top hat and overcoat in a rotogravure shot). Not quite like the good old Dillinger days, or even Al Capone.Other films had touched upon the "legitimization" of mob money as time passed. In THE ROARING TWENTIES, while Jimmy Cagney is building up his hooch empire he invests the money in a legitimate taxi company (an early example of money laundering), only to lose everything when the stock market crashes. Ironically, his untrustworthy second-in-command (Humphrey Bogart) never diversifies but keeps to the illegal activities. He not only survives the crash, but he profits by it (taking over Cagney's property - though he contemptuously leaves him one taxicab). But even he tries to pick up a better public image - you see him practicing his putting in his office at one point.Lancaster confronts Douglas in his nightclub, only to be brought into the modern world of organized crime. All Lancaster really wants is his half of the original money. But as Douglas' accountant, Wendell Corey, says they can't just give him the cash as it has been invested throughout Douglas's financial empire. Lancaster is left without cash, and led a chase as well by Douglas using Lizbeth Scott as femme fatale bait. He ends up getting beaten (by Mike Mazurki). But he remains determined to beat Douglas and get his share.He does in a manner that today would not pass muster. He entraps Douglas by pretending to have him at the end of a loaded gun, forcing Douglas to make a confession before the police. Douglas, naturally frightened, does admit information that only the criminal involved in the crime would have known, but at the end, he sneers at Lancaster saying that the confession was gotten under duress. But then Lancaster shows his gun was empty. Civil libertarians today would denounce this trick, saying the confession was tainted. In 1948 it was perfectly legal.
3 out of 5 people found the following review useful: Clever Screenplay for Three Stars, 5 February 2007 Author: prometheeus from Concord, California United States
I just saw this film two nights ago at the San Francisco Film Noir Festival. This was a beautiful movie filled with subtle shades of noir. The underrated Lizbeth Scott has the best performance in this rarely seen drama. There's great snappy dialog. Kirk Douglas is the perfect villain of this clever movie. It is so easy to see his son Michael's face on him. Burt was fun to watch as usual in giving his best to this intriguing screenplay. What was interesting to see unfold (in this almost 60 year old film) was how challenging the crime corporations are in pinpointing the vastness of what exactly they own. How they get around the skimming of the profits. As well as stating that they only "get" a minimal amount of the percentages ~ by the books. There was a lot of thought that went into this film and the three stars gave it their best. Pure quality.
I WALK ALONE (Byron Haskin, 1948) **1/2, 13 September 2009 Author: MARIO GAUCI (marrod@melita.com) from Naxxar, Malta
Three of the stars from DESERT FURY (1947) – Burt Lancaster, Lizabeth Scott and Wendell Corey – were reunited in another, marginally superior noir that is most notable today for marking the first of seven screen pairings between Lancaster and Kirk Douglas. Although it was still very early in their careers, they had already become typecast as, respectively, the jilted, ex-con hero and the suave, slimy villain and this film has them reprising those characterizations – albeit less effectively than their prototype seen earlier in THE KILLERS (1946) and OUT OF THE PAST (1947); the same goes for Scott and Corey who both share a divided loyalty towards the two male leads. I WALK ALONE can also be said to have kick-started the directorial career of former technician Byron Haskin which lasted for twenty versatile years; unfortunately, that fact is borne out by the surprising lack of pace (which makes the film seem longer than its 98-minute running-time) and a rather weak climactic confrontation. Even so, the film is most interesting in the way it depicts the change in crime syndication (from streetwise toughness in the bootlegging Depression days to business acumen in the capitalist post-WWII era) that occurred during the fourteen years Lancaster spent behind bars: this is highlighted in a sharply amusing sequence when accountant Corey wrecks Lancaster's dream of owning half of Douglas' business empire (as they had verbally agreed on all those years before) by disclosing in "double-talk" the complex legal relationship that exists between the various companies owned by Douglas!
Good, 21 June 2009 Author: Alex da Silva from United Kingdom
Frankie (Burt Lancaster) is released after 14 years in prison and is met by old friend Dave (Wendell Corey) who sets him up with a place to stay. He senses that Dave is uneasy with him and discovers that he is working for his old partner in crime, Noll (Kirk Douglas), who is now running a successful nightclub. Frankie visits the club and Noll is curious to find out what he wants. He instructs his mistress Kay (Lizabeth Scott), who is a singer at the club, to pump Frankie for information over a dinner. It is soon clear to Frankie that everyone around him is under the influence of Noll and so confronts him with a demand of a half share in the business. Noll refuses and Frankie plans to take what he believes is rightfully his - they agreed to split things 50-50 if either of them went to prison. It is interesting to see the two different characters pitted against each other, ie, Frankie (straight forward and uneducated) vs Noll (deceitful and intelligent). Kay switches allegiance when she hears of Noll's intention to marry Mrs Richardson (Kristine Miller) and Dave also has 2nd thoughts about Noll....The film is well-acted but Lizabeth Scott seems slightly out of place as a world-weary nightclub singer. She's too young to be believable as someone who has been "around the block", and I also found her voice slightly irritating. Another let-down is in the script with the actors speaking each other's names to the point of irritation - we don't need to hear "Frankie..." followed by "Frankie...." and then a couple of minutes later "Frankie...." ... we know he's called Frankie!
6 out of 14 people found the following review useful: Beautifully filmed, but downhill from there..., 23 February 2001 Author: bobc-5 from Annandale, VA
"I Walk Alone" is a wonderful example of film-noir cinematography. The high contrast, stark lighting, and interesting angles of film-noir are used very artistically and tastefully without ever calling undue attention to itself. Unfortunately, the movie goes downhill from there. As one would expect, Kirk Douglas and Burt Lancaster manage to be somewhat entertaining, but they are greatly hampered by a lackluster and painfully predictable script, perfunctory direction, and a leading lady who isn't capable of creating the type of tension and chemistry which her role requires.
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