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Raw Deal | 
| Director: Anthony Mann
Actors: Whit Bissell, Raymond Burr, Cliff Clark, Curt Conway, Richard Fraser
Studio: Mca (Universal)
Category: DVD
List Price: CDN$ 12.95
Buy New: CDN$ 4.32
You Save: CDN$ 8.63 (67%)
New (12) from CDN$ 4.32
Rating:  1 reviews
Sales Rank: 23160
Format: Black & White, Ntsc
Language: English (Original Language)
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.4 x 0.6
MPN: LVD52136
UPC: 796019797818
EAN: 0796019797818
ASIN: B000KJTGEC
Theatrical Release Date: May 26, 1948
Release Date: May 22, 2007
Availability: Usually ships within 1 - 2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
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| Editorial Reviews:
From Amazon.com
After the success of T-Men, ambitious poverty-row studio Eagle-Lion reunited director Anthony Mann with cinematographer John Alton and beefy star Dennis O'Keefe for this change of pace, a haunting revenge noir about an escaped criminal, his loyal girlfriend (Claire Trevor), and a lovely legal aide (Marsha Hunt) he drags along as a hostage... or perhaps something more. Raymond Burr is the sleazy, sadistic gangster who double-crossed O'Keefe; in the film's most memorable scene he lashes out at a clumsy party girl by tossing a tureen of flaming cherries jubilee on the hapless woman (the scene may well have inspired Fritz Lang in The Big Heat). Trevor narrates in a cold, deliberate, yet hauntingly effective tone, which matches the foggy mist that envelopes the characters from the initial escape (a brilliant exercise in minimalism), through the getaway down a wooded coastal highway, to the finale on the San Francisco docks. Mann provides his usual undercurrent of brutal violence (a fight in a taxidermy showroom in which the antlers of a mounted buck become a lethal weapon), but the film is pervaded by a sense of doomed romanticism not seen in Mann's films before or since, and the volatile romantic triangle adds a further edge to the moody tension. Rife with B movie dialogue, the film may come off stilted and campy to some viewers, but taken on its own stylized conventions it's a minor masterpiece of low-budget film noir. --Sean Axmaker
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| Customer Reviews:
Brilliantly Redefines Noire -- Mann at his best October 15, 2001
Owen Coughlan (Montreal, Quebec Canada)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Anthony Mann's films -- whether they are Noire, War Film, Western, or Costume Epic -- are all about one thing: characters doomed to self-destruction. In that light "Raw Deal" is probably his best, because here *everyone* is going down.O'Keefe escapes from prison, bent on collecting his dough from Crime Boss Raymond Burr, and leaving the country. But on the way he becomes trapped between the woman who broke him out, and the beautiful parole officer they kidnapped. Meanwhile the sadistic pyromaniac Burr has sent killer John Ireland to make sure O'Keefe meets a sticky end. "Raw Deal" starts as an exercise in classic film-noire style: tough-guy dialogue, gun-play, and simple low-key sets. Forunately (and unlike most directors), Mann is aware that these are just *noire motifs*. So rather than produce a cliche by playing *to* them, Mann (and his collaborators Alton and Sawtell) produces a masterpiece by playing *against* them. What would normally be a conventional revenge flick, becomes a complicated emotional journey, in the guise of an equally meandering -- occaisionally surreal -- road trip across post-war middle-America. John Alton photographs it beautifully (the Greg Toland of B-Movies): a fight in a bait-shop takes place under a grid of black fishing nets; a woman's face reflected in the face of a ships' clock (also under a net... hmmmm); a forest at night; an alleyway choked with fog -- all of it exquisitely illuminated (or NOT illuminated, depending on your lighting philosophy). And instead of the standard -- Dum-Da-Dum-Dum Dragnet score, composer Paul Sawtel (the Bernard Herrman of B-Movies) gives it a quivering, supernatural flavour -- with a Theramin. The cast is perfect, particularly Ireland whose moral ambivalence can't conceal his distain for Burr and respect for O'Keefe. And Whit Bissel does a run throught in one of the films more surreal moments. As i said before, the characters in a Mann film are always trapped by their own weaknesses. This is a standard B-movie/noir device, usually explained to the audience by a cynical Private-I with words like lust, betrayal, murder, etc. etc. What sets "Raw Deal" apart from the ordinary Noire fodder is that we don't just observe, we sympathise. In "Raw Deal" the trap isn't "greed" or "lust" -- it's loyalty, devotion, duty, and self sacrifice. Anthony Mann's characters are doomed by their virtues, not their vices. And they take us with them.
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