Director: Felix E. Feist
Cast: Michael O’Shea, Virginia Grey, Charles McGraw, Julie Bishop
Have I Seen It Before: Never. I’m oddly proud of myself for making it out to the Noir Nights. It was the first day back at classes for the fall semester, and I made the calculus that I could afford to shirk classwork for a night to go to the movies, when I would normally only dream of doing when the decks were cleared. When it turned out to be a (if relatively short) double feature, I stayed put. My mother would be horrified. A late movie on a school night.
Did I Like It: Ebert would often say that no good film is ever long enough, and no bad film is ever short enough. However, at a 66 minute runtime, it’s sort of hard to get a read on whether The Threat is just a delightful piece of b-cornball, or a story which quickly (and appropriately) runs out of steam. It has square-jawed detectives, bombshells in over their heads, and grimy wise guys who are inevitably going to be in over their heads. It delivers precisely the bill of goods it promises.
And yet, I wonder if our own melodrama will only serve to inspire laughter in seventy or eighty years. The plot here hinges on something that (I’m not sure why I’m so concerned about spoiling it for you; it’s easy enough to find and insubstantial enough at its core) would now be used to move the plot along in a sitcom, and not a good one. There’s even a moment at the end where Det. Williams (O’Shea) and his wife (Bishop) get in on the joke, and the whole film—which really did involve quite a few people getting shot in the gut—ends in what is very nearly a freeze frame.