“You don’t necessarily get what you want in life.” Sadly the script doesn’t flesh out her role to much and for fans looking for a Mitchum-Scott romance it’s bound to be a disappointment. Though the script doesn’t come out and say as much, it’s obvious that her character isn’t quite virtuous. While the film doesn’t quite end there for our two male leads and the men surrounding them it does until the closing seconds for Liz. “There’s your confession” she tells Mitchum in the films best scene. Playing off Scott, Ryan is magnificent here as he lets his anger get the best of him, shooting his mouth off into a confession giving Scott the satisfaction of knowing she’s tripped him up. She presses him on the fact that he’s not so tough and that his brother is always apologizing for him. Scott turns the tables on Ryan doing the goading herself. “Cheap little clip joint canary.” So says Robert Ryan to Liz during the final reel of the film when she confronts him for goading Hutton to be careful at what he’ll swear to. Her name on the marquee surely added box office appeal to the proceedings and from our vantage point looking back gives her the added names of Ryan and Mitchum to her co-star resume. Scott is admittedly underused in this film and her role as Irene Hayes really could have been assigned to any contract player. He’s smooth and slippery and Mitchum knows it. Ray Collins is wonderful here as the crooked judge in the syndicate’s pocket and he’s terrified of the psychotic Ryan.Ī young Robert Hutton hangs around Scott looking for a story and maybe more while William Conrad has the role of an officer we know is crooked but is always on the outside perimeter biding his time and keeping watch over Ryan’s movements with obvious orders from those above Ryan. Then there’s “The Mitch” himself who looks stoic and talks a good game where Ryan is concerned. William Talman plays a young officer that Mitchum has a great respect for and one who won’t be corrupted. The film shifts back and forth between various characters leaving little actual screen time for Liz. It’s at this point that she’ll lose her cool and claims she’ll blow the whistle on Ryan and company. She’ll have none of it till she realizes she’s been pegged for a scapegoat by Ryan and the judge in his pocket played by Ray Collins. This to Mitchum as he tries to convince Scott that Ryan and his kind are no good. When Brett King playing Ryan’s younger brother is arrested by William Talman, Scott tags along to the police station where the majority of the film will play itself out. In the interim we’ll get Scott on stage doing a nightclub number in her husky tones where she is employed as a headliner. It’s a minor scene for our icy blonde but she’ll be back to play the film’s biggest scene opposite Ryan towards the end. Ryan has no use for her and slaps his weak minded brother around. It’s at the twenty six minute mark when Ryan finds out his younger brother is engaged that we have Liz Scott entering camera range. With the underworld leaders changing to a more business like attitude, Ryan is considered a loose cannon. From the outset Ryan is playing the vicious gangster who kills, beats and maims those who stand in his way of control and power. Mitchum stars here as a precinct captain who won’t be bought by local politicians or his old childhood pal Robert Ryan. It was assigned to director John Cromwell though others like Nicholas Ray would have a hand in it before Hughes was satisfied enough to release it. It should come as no surprise that Robert Mitchum was enlisted once again for another RKO production that Hughes would toy with. Like many of Hughes films, the gestation period seemed to be in the forever category. When it came time to update the plot to the fifties, Hughes enlisted Sam Fuller to do a treatment which then got passed on to W.R. The Racket of 1951 is actually a remake of the 1928 film of the same title. When it comes to her appearance in the 1951 film The Racket she gets the honor of starring opposite not one but what I like to refer to as the two poster boys of the Noir catalogue. Van Heflin, Bogart, Dick Powell, Duryea, Lancaster and O’Brien. When one looks over her filmography of titles you’ll find she starred opposite a solid list of the male actors who dominated the shadowy world of gangsters and back alleys. Lizabeth Scott needs no special introduction when it comes to her association with the Noir genre. Previously this piece was kindly published by Karen of Shadows and Satin in her Noir newsletter The Dark Pages.
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