The Crooked Way

The Crooked Way is a 1949 blackandwhite film noir directed by Robert Florey. The film was based on a radio play No Blade Too Sharp and features John Payne, Sonny Tufts, Ellen Drew, and others. The film, with a similar plot a war hero loses his memory stateside to another film noir Somewhere in the Night, was shot by cameraman John Alton.

When the film was released the film critic for The New York Times wrote, The Crooked Way races along as a melodrama should and it has more than enough plot to keep its hardworking actors going from one dangerous situation to another. But there is so much pointless brutality in it that one may seriously question whether the movie people are wise to go on with the making of such pictures. The human family may not be perfect, but why subject it to socalled entertainment that is only fit for savage beasts. In the book 100 Film Noirs, Jim Hillier compares and contrasts the film to Somewhere in the Night. Hillier says that The Crooked Way benefited from its low budget by forcing the filmmakers to be more creative, which makes it the better film.

Source: Wikipedia