Killers are Very Bad Men.

Last week I screened Anthony Mann's low-budget Raw Deal, one of the noir-est of noirs of the 1940s, and a mini expressionist masterpiece of shadow and psycho-drama.

It tells the story of an escaped convict who makes an ill-fated break for freedom in the company of his devoted girlfriend and another woman who gets dragged along as a semi-hostage.

This week's film was released six years later and stars Edward G. Robinson as... an escaped convict who makes an ill-fated break for freedom in the company of his devoted girlfriend and another woman who gets dragged along as a semi-hostage.

The two films may have a very similar premise, but that's more or less where the resemblance ends, and the contrast between Raw Deal and Black Tuesday provides a stark insight into just how much had changed in the American zeitgeist during those intervening years.

In Raw Deal, Joe (Dennis O'Keefe) is presented as a sympathetic character. We are never told exactly what he had done to wind up in prison, but it's strongly implied that he had received, well, a "raw deal". He has clearly "taken the rap" for Raymond Burr (who is very obviously a psychopath) and his desire to be free is shown as completely understandable.

But of course he's an escaped convict and we know that his story is never going to end happily, because those are the rules of the era. We can root for him, we can sympathise with him, we can have compassion for him. But he's the wrong-doer, and he is going to be punished by the end of the story. That is the Grand Tragedy of noir from this era, in a nutshell.

By 1954, the age of the "sympathetic law-breaker" was at an end. In Black Tuesday, Edward G. Robinson isn't just an escaped convict; he's a mass murderer who escapes from death row in the company of several other violent offenders, all due to be put to death (and quite right, is the implication). 

In Raw Deal, Joe and his "hostage" find themselves increasingly drawn to each other as she learns more about this very complex and troubled individual. 

Edward G. Robinson's character in Black Tuesday also escapes with several hostages (including a virtuous young woman and a Catholic Priest, natch) but there is no bonding, no mutual respect and no emotional connection, unless you count revulsion as an emotion.

As far as 1950s society is concerned, these are criminals who deserve to die, and even the Priest is happy to watch them fry. (Compare the priest in this film to the Nun in Appointment With Danger, by the way...)

All of this is not remotely intended to give the impression that Black Tuesday is merely a bloodthirsty apologia for the death penalty. On the contrary, it's a surprisingly unflinching examination of human nature in extreme situations.

Escaping with Edward G. Robinson is a very young Peter Graves (facing his own death sentence for killing a cop in the course of a robbery) and his character is rather more nuanced and (almost) sympathetic; as if he had somehow wandered in from an earlier film.

As with many other "noir" films of the era, Black Tuesday makes liberal use of real locations, and the very harsh black-and-white cinematography gives it a clinical atmosphere that feels almost hyper-real (compare it to the dreamlike expressionism of Raw Deal).

This is a prison-break movie for a more conservative era. An era when Government and law-enforcement were wielding increasingly blunt instruments in their efforts to crack down on dissent, and the "us-vs.-them" mentality was very much in the ascendance. 

It's also a very tautly constructed and beautifully crafted little thriller, directed by the Argentinean-born Hugo Fregonese and written by Sydney Boehm (who also wrote Union Station from a few weeks ago).

Raw Deal and Black Tuesday may deal with the same subject, but they approach that subject from opposite directions.

Black Tuesday is a reminder that 1950s noir can still side with law-enforcement, even when the criminals are front and centre.

We will screen Black Tuesday at 7.30 on Thursday, the 19th of June at the Victoria Park Baptist Church.