In a small Virginia town, Danny Hawkins, played by Dane Clark (
Last Rites), has spent his entire life being ridiculed and harassed for the sins of his father, who was hung for murder when he was an infant. One fateful night in the swampy woods near a dance hall, the adult Danny is confronted by his most adversarial bully, Jerry, played by Lloyd Bridges (
Airplane!), and accidentally kills the man during the ensuing fight. In the days that follow, he strives to win the love of the longtime object of his affection, Gilly, played by Gail Russell (
The Uninvited), who had previously been courted by Jerry, but is overwhelmed with guilt, self-loathing, and paranoia. Believing that he possesses the same “bad blood” of his father and that he is destined for the same fate, he finds solace in his hidden relationship with Gilly and in his friendship with Mose, played by Rex Ingram (
The Thief of Bagdad), with whom he confides as the two of them work with Mose's hunting dogs. When Jerry's body is found in the swamp, and the local police orchestrate an extensive manhunt for the culprit, however, Danny feels the walls closing in all around him.
The 1948 film noir,
Moonrise, which was directed by the legendary Frank Borzage (
A Farewell to Arms), mixes Southern Gothic atmospherics with crime drama tension to great result, due much in part to innovative camerawork that constantly immerses the viewer in visual metaphors. Despite the potential for splendid location scenery in the swampy setting, almost every still frame presents a claustrophobic closeness with the characters, as if to show that our antihero is trapped from all sides, both by his own mind and by external forces. One of the most effective sequences in the film, where Danny climbs a tree during a hunt to shake a raccoon off of a limb, brilliantly demonstrates the notion that he will ultimately end up chased and cornered in the same way. A later Ferris wheel scene at a local fair is graced by some of the most interesting cinematography that I have seen in a classic-era noir feature.
Clark hits all of the right notes in the lead role as someone who seems constantly on the verge of letting his anger overtake his senses. Russell, in turn, conveys the perfect blend of unease and reassuring warmness as her character gradually lets her guard down and falls in love with Danny. A distinct aura of doomed love hangs over these two characters, and one amazing scene, where they enjoy a quiet dialogue moment inside an abandoned mansion, predicts an iconic story development in the 1955 film,
Rebel Without a Cause. The legendary actress, Ethel Barrymore (
The Spiral Staircase), is only on the screen for a brief turn, but she lends an undeniable power to the narrative.
Moonrise toys around with the standard
“This will not end well.” aesthetic that defined 1940s and 1950s film noir, but nonetheless remains a standout in the genre because of the myriad of ways that it delves into the tormented psyche of its protagonist. Even when the camera eye releases us from uncomfortable closeness and delivers emotional catharsis in the form of a rare wide shot, we're still climbing out of the dark corners of Danny Hawkins's mind.
This Criterion Blu-ray shines with a wondrous high definition of a black-and-white feature, complete with beautifully filmic rural noir images that stand well alongside the boat sequences in another label title,
The Night of the Hunter. A leaflet essay and a supplementary conversation between Hervé Dumont and Peter Cowie are the only extras, but they both do a superb job of summing up the finer points of this long-overdue release.
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Moonrise (1948)
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