Rent Railroaded! (1947)

A Knife in the Crust - Railroaded! review by CH

“I don't want to hear what you've got to say! You've got a lot of crust!” So declares Jane Randolph to a detective (Hugh Beaumont) as he steps in and tries to turn her when it becomes plain that her beauty salon is the front for the murderous gambling racket which is the mainspring of Railroaded! (1947).

The film's dialogue is as dark as its seventy-minute setting. Jonathon Green's matchless dictionaries of slang reveal that crust, in this sense of nerve, dates from 1900 American colleges. There is much crust to the film's characters as Jane Randolph joins those (including the police) who try to pin murder upon Sheila Ryan's brother, who, when accused of stealing $5000, is asked what he spent it on and replies in exasperation, “the first thousand on bubblegum and the rest on beer.”

Written by John Higgins from a story by Gertrude Walker (both had noir credentials), it was brought to the screen in fine style by director Anthony Mann. Manny Farber referred to Mann's “inhumanity to man, in which cold mortal intentness is the trademark effect... The films of this tin-can de Sade have a Germanic rigor, caterpillar intimacy, and an original dictionary of ways to punish the human body. Mann has done interesting work with scissors, a cigarette lighter, and steam, but his most bizarre effect takes place in a taxidermist's shop. By intricate manipulation of athletes' bodies, Mann tries to ram the eyes of his combatants on the horns of a stuffed deer stuck on the wall”.

None of this takes place in Railroaded! We find here, though, that beauty is certainly no defence against a loaded gun, but all that is capped by a brawl in which two women combatants out-do that celebrated instance of Destry Rides Again. It's small wonder that a smart apartment's sofa does not collapse with the final push.

Terrific stuff, and if it does not find a place among 1001 movies to see before you die, it should certainly be high in the list for that eternal cinema upon a cloud the other side of St. Peter's Gate. Better, though, to sneak it in this side of Paradise.

Routine B Movie - Railroaded! review by AS

The DVD print is poor and noisy. The film is routine and except for the look and feel I wouldn't class it as a film noir.

Noir on a Shoestring - Railroaded! review by griggs

Compact, grimy, and straight to the point — Railroaded! is a tough little noir that doesn’t waste a frame. Anthony Mann takes a pulpy story about a framed man on the run and turns it into a sweaty, claustrophobic exercise in tension. For a low-budget picture, it looks fantastic; every shadow feels alive, every room ready to choke on its own smoke.

The film runs on pure attitude — everyone sweats, snarls, and double-crosses their way through a plot so cynical it almost folds in on itself. You can already see Mann’s style taking shape: that mix of moral doom and visual precision he’d later perfect in his Westerns.

It’s rough around the edges, sure, but that’s part of its charm. Railroaded! moves fast, hits hard, and leaves just enough grit under your fingernails to remind you where it came from.