Flamingo Road (1949)

Flamingo Road
Directed by Michael Curtiz
Written by Robert Wilder and Edmund H. North from a play by Robert and Sally Wilder
1949/USA
Michael Curtiz Productions/Warner Bros.
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Sheriff Titus Semple: Now me, I never forget anything.

Lane Bellamy: You know sheriff; we had an elephant in our carnival with a memory like that. He went after a keeper that he’d held a grudge against for almost 15 years. Had to be shot. You just wouldn’t believe how much trouble it is to dispose of a dead elephant.[/box]

I never know what I’m going to get with Joan Crawford.  This one was pretty good, due largely to her supporting players, the director, and the visuals.

Lane Bellamy (Crawford) is a hooch-coochy dancer with a carnival.  When the show flees its latest bill collector, Lane decides to stay put and figure out something else to do with her life.  She meets Deputy Sheriff Field Carlisle (Zachary Scott) when he comes to serve a writ on the show.  They quickly bond and he finds her a job as a waitress in the local diner/saloon.

Fielding is the protege of corrupt king-maker Sheriff Titus Semple (Sydney Greenstreet). He wants to put the weak Field up as a candidate for the State Senate.  The first thing he needs to help his boy’s credentials is a wedding to a respectable local “name”.  He picks out a girl that has been stuck on Field for quite awhile and orders him to marry her.  Semple takes an instant dislike to the defiant Lane.  When she refuses to leave town he has her arrested for soliciting and thrown in jail for 30 days.

Nothing is going to deter our feisty heroine, however, and she gets a job in a “road house” owned by a lady who takes orders from nobody.  This happens to be where the local bigwigs hang out and make their nefarious deals.  Lane is asked to look after their ring leader Dan Reynolds.  He falls in love with her and they marry.  She proves to be a devoted wife even as she is still obviously smarting from her rejection by Field.

The rest of the film follows Semple’s evil machinations and attempts to “break” Dan, Field, and of course Lane, whom he continues to hate.  With Gladys George as the roadhouse owner.

This is a solid little film noir.  I always like Scott and Greenstreet and they are both very good here.  Scott is less weaselly and more pathetic than usual and Greenstreet does a pretty good job with a vaguely Southern accent and a character that is a bit out of the box for him.  The film looks good as well.

Trailer