SmugKitZine Tied for the best movie I have ever seen

Tacticalin An absolute waste of money

AutCuddly Great movie! If you want to be entertained and have a few good laughs, see this movie. The music is also very good,

Darin One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

ingemar-4 Raymond Burr is most famous as the invincible Perry Mason, but in Rear Window we saw him as the villain. In this movie, he has a much bigger villain part, as Rick, and makes much more impression as such. His towering presence is well used, and we hear him presenting his evil plan in a very elegant manner, packaging his plan in the most perfect "nice" expressions.Burr makes my favorite quote from the movie, landed with perfect timing:"He was screaming he wanted out. When a man screams, I don't like it. Especially a friend. He might scream loud enough for the D.A. to hear. I don't want to hurt the D.A's ears.... He's sensitive."On top of this, we have the overall gray and "noir" mood of the picture, about a man with very bad odds (Joe Sullivan/O'Keefe), and two women, one of them his loyal accomplice Pat (Claire Trevor), who is also narrator of the story, and Ann (Marsha Hunt) who is forced to join them. Joe's feelings for the two is the constant worry of Pat, hopelessly in love with Joe. All three do their parts well.A weakness of the movie, showing its age, is that the action scenes are pretty primitive. We have to live with that for movies this old.

jarrodmcdonald-1 It's interesting how none of the three lead characters in this picture are redeemable. This is about as noir as a person can get! And I think it's interesting how the sexual dynamics between Dennis O'Keefe and both women (played by Claire Trevor and Marsha Hunt) are continued throughout the story. His character is definitely not a one-woman man, and both gals seem to know it. Usually, if there is cheating in a movie of this era, regardless of the genre, one of the participants does not know, and does not find out about the unfaithfulness of their partner until two-thirds of the way into the story. But with RAW DEAL, all the cards are on the table right up front, and yet both women want to have an on-going relationship with him, and he clearly enjoys being able to be satisfied by each one at the same time, in different ways. It's a shocking revelation, and one wonders if a major studio would have attempted such material with an A-picture. Perhaps it's just as well, and all the more reason to appreciate a more independent film releasing corporation like Eagle-Lion and director Anthony Mann, who is willing to push the boundaries.

bob the moo Joe Sullivan is in jail having taken the rap for criminal Rick, who owes him $50,000 for it. Knowing he is looking to escape, Rick greases some wheels to help Joe's girlfriend Pat to organize an escape – all with the knowledge that once he is out he will be certainly caught in the resulting police dragnet and either killed or sent back to prison for even longer; either way he'll be out of Rick's hair.I have watched a few noirs recently and the last couple in particular were a lot slower than I would have liked, so part of the appeal of Raw Deal was the short running time, which suggested that it wouldn't be taking too long over anything. This didn't mean it would be good of course, but it was a sign I wouldn't have the problems I'd had with the last few. As it turned out, although not as engaging as I had hoped, this is a solidly enjoyable crime thriller with a tough edge and a good pace to it that means the toughness has an urgency to it. The plot does have love interest within it but rather than be the distraction it can be, it provides a duality to the character of Joe since the two women he is traveling with sort of represent either side of his character and the battle between them.O'Keefe does a good job in the lead, tough but not inhuman and is likable. Burr is not quite as good as the villain but I think this is more to do with me than him since I always struggle to see him outside of the Perry Mason roles. Both Hunt and Trevor play their roles well and there is a nice tension between them throughout the film. Direction is good – it is fluid and makes the most of each scene, never once being stagey or stiff as some of the recent films from the period I have seen have been.Overall Raw Deal is not a brilliant film but it is a very effective one. It is short, punchy and has an enjoyably tough edge to all of it. The duality of the lead character is well played out and the violence is nicely stated.

seymourblack-1 "Raw Deal" is primarily a low budget crime drama but thanks to the inclusion of some interesting characters, excellent performances and sensational cinematography has also become recognised as a very memorable high quality film noir thriller. The whole movie is heavily steeped in an atmosphere which is bleak and fatalistic and the action takes place in an environment which looks perpetually dark and threatening.The look of the movie is attributable to the fine work of cinematographer John Alton whose single source lighting and heavily shadowed interiors create a claustrophobic ambiance which is symbolic of the extremely limited amount of freedom which can be enjoyed by the story's central character and his two travelling companions as they try to evade a massive police dragnet. The use of interesting camera angles, deep focus photography and swirling areas of fog also contribute strongly to the generally unsettling and rather ominous mood of the piece.Whilst serving a prison sentence for a crime he didn't commit, Joe Sullivan (Dennis O'Keefe) is visited by two women. Ann Martin (Marsha Hunt) is a legal assistant who tells him that with good behaviour he could possibly get released in 2 or 3 years time and his girlfriend Pat Regan (Claire Trevor) informs him that arrangements have been made for him to escape. The escape plan had been devised by gang boss Rick Coyle (Raymond Burr) who owes Joe $50,000 from a crime that they'd previously carried out together. Rick has calculated that Joe's chances of surviving an attempted breakout are minute and so confidently expects to be able to avoid having to part with Joe's money.Joe escapes and Pat drives the getaway car but they soon have to abandon the vehicle because of a large number of bullet holes in the fuel tank. They then go on to Ann's apartment where they kidnap her and use her car to continue their journey to meet Rick and collect Joe's money before heading for freedom in South America. This unusual threesome successfully evades the police and an attack by one of Rick's henchmen before Joe and Rick finally meet and a violent confrontation follows.Joe's resourcefulness enabled him to successfully negotiate the perils of being on the run but he was also preoccupied by the complications which developed in relation to his feelings for Pat and Ann. Pat was loyal and totally supportive but was also very much a part of the difficult lifestyle that he'd always known. When Ann and he became attracted to each other, she seemed to embody the possibility of a different and better life in the future. This situation led to some tensions as Pat became jealous and eventually resigned to Joe ending up in Ann's arms.Dennis O'Keefe and Marsha Hunt are both very good in their roles and Claire Trevor poignantly portrays the profound emotional pain suffered by Pat as she realises that Joe has never told her that he loves her and then also sees him steadily becoming more and more attracted to Ann. Raymond Burr is outstanding as Rick who is a vile and sadistic psychopath with a penchant for pyromania.The score by Paul Sawtell features the spooky sound of a theremin and this together with the tone of Claire Trevor's narration brilliantly reinforces the grim atmosphere of this film which doesn't end well for any of the main characters. Appropriately, from the visual standpoint, this movie is probably one of the blackest ever made.