The Woman on Pier 13 (1949)

User Rating:

5.7/10   

Director:

Robert Stevenson

Writers:

Robert Hardy Andrews (writer)
George W. George (story)

Release Date:

21 December 1951 (Japan)

Genre:

Film-Noir

Tagline:

High Voltage Melodrama!

Plot:

Successful, newly married Brad Collins once belonged to the Communist Party of the USA, and now the Party will stop at nothing to use him.

Plot Keywords:

Party | Shipping Company | Red Scare | Sabotage | Beautiful Woman

Cast

Laraine Day	...	Nan Lowry Collins
Robert Ryan	...	Brad Collins aka Frank Johnson
John Agar	...	Don Lowry
Thomas Gomez	...	Vanning
Janis Carter	...	Christine Norman
Richard Rober	...	Jim Travers
William Talman	...	Bailey, younger henchman
Paul E. Burns	...	J.T. Arnold, older henchman
Paul Guilfoyle	...	Ralston, drowning victim
G. Pat Collins	...	Charlie Dover, corrupt organizer
Fred Graham	...	Grip Wilson
Harry Cheshire	...	J. Francis Cornwall
Jack Stoney	...	Garth
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Bess Flowers	...	Secretary (scenes deleted)

Also Known As:

I Married a Communist (USA) (pre-release title)
The Woman on Pier 13 (UK)

Runtime:

73 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Sound System)

Certification:

Iceland:12 | Sweden:(Banned)

Filming Locations:

San Francisco, California, USA

Company:

RKO Radio Pictures

Trivia:

According to Daniel Mainwaring, author of the beloved noir "Out of the Past," RKO head Howard Hughes used the film "I Married a Communist" to get rid of a lot of writers, directors and actors. If you refused to work in this project, you got fired from the studio.

Great for Robert Ryan fans !

A film for Robert Ryan fans, for this shows how handsome he was. Fit and virile, and before smoking began to take its toll. He was 40 yrs old by the time he made this film. He got the chance to be something of a hero for a change. He does some pretty good acting, for him, and romantics everywhere will love the way he desperately tries to save his wife in dramatic scenes. This movie pushes home the paranoia of anti-communist views as it was in the 50's. People scoff at the fear of communism in todays climate, but things were different then. People have forgotten how men died because of communist spies. British soldiers and some Americans and Polish too, died at the hands of communist spies such as Guy Burgess, Kim Philby and Anthony Blunt. They mainly operated from Whitehall, London, and spilled secrets to Russian Communists in the 40's during the war. They leaked details of planned operations that got back to the Russians. When they started being discovered by the British and American Intelligence they fled to live in Russia and they died in the 70's. However, this film expresses a fear and nothing more than that of dark forces at work among men. Essentially a "B" movie but certainly adequate and worth a look for Robert Ryan alone, and probably as a history lesson for movie makers.