I am puzzled at the positive reviews this film has received. It seems pointless and incoherent.
The characters are absurd. The attempt at subplotting is pointless since it has nothing to do with the main film. It isn't like the subplotting of, say, *Giant* or *Peyton Place*. The characters have no relation to any coherent theme in the film.
It adds up to a lot of noise. There's something about lacking a medal for heroism when the viewer knows that by the end of the film the child will respect his father. Sylvia Sidney is cast as purse thief with no relationship to the main film. But worst of all is the absurdly drawn Tommy Noonan character, who may go down in history as the only Peeping Tom who continues to peep even when he knows he's being watched and who confesses to a woman that he peeped in her window. As if that is not bad enough, she takes it all without apparent concern and quips that she's learned to pull down her shades. Thus not only is Noonan's character an absurd portrait of a Peeping Tom, his victim is an equally absurd portrait of such woman.
Seriously, is there a Peeping Tom in the history of the world (and there must be hundreds of thousands who (1) peep in broad daylight, (2) peep at night in front of witness who sees him peeping, and (3) turns out to be a good-natured harmless guy who confesses his peeping activity?
Maybe I'm harping too much on this; but it reflects the total lack of writing skills in this film. The title itself is a misnomer. Frankly I found nothing "violent" about it at all; surely nothing like a Clint Eastwood Dirty Harry film or before that Lancaster's Brute Force, Lang's The Big Heat, and of course Walsh's White Heat, or before that Wellman's Public Enemy.
If anything the movie virtually put me to sleep with aimless footage, uninteresting characters, irrelevant subplots, and a pedestrian caper sequence.
I did, however, like Richard Egan's performance, but also Victor Mature, who gave one of his finest performances in the film. Lee Marvin was a one-dimensional character, and like with the Noonan character, makes me think the writer had little skill drawing characters.
This brings up an interesting issue among revisionist film critics who seem to find undiscovered masterpieces in previously neglected films. Offhand I cannot think of another film where each character and subplot seems to bear no relation to the other characters and subplots in the film. Compare the masterful writing of *It's a Wonderful Life*. So many subplots and each is relevant to the other characters and to the theme of the whole.
The characters are absurd. The attempt at subplotting is pointless since it has nothing to do with the main film. It isn't like the subplotting of, say, *Giant* or *Peyton Place*. The characters have no relation to any coherent theme in the film.
It adds up to a lot of noise. There's something about lacking a medal for heroism when the viewer knows that by the end of the film the child will respect his father. Sylvia Sidney is cast as purse thief with no relationship to the main film. But worst of all is the absurdly drawn Tommy Noonan character, who may go down in history as the only Peeping Tom who continues to peep even when he knows he's being watched and who confesses to a woman that he peeped in her window. As if that is not bad enough, she takes it all without apparent concern and quips that she's learned to pull down her shades. Thus not only is Noonan's character an absurd portrait of a Peeping Tom, his victim is an equally absurd portrait of such woman.
Seriously, is there a Peeping Tom in the history of the world (and there must be hundreds of thousands who (1) peep in broad daylight, (2) peep at night in front of witness who sees him peeping, and (3) turns out to be a good-natured harmless guy who confesses his peeping activity?
Maybe I'm harping too much on this; but it reflects the total lack of writing skills in this film. The title itself is a misnomer. Frankly I found nothing "violent" about it at all; surely nothing like a Clint Eastwood Dirty Harry film or before that Lancaster's Brute Force, Lang's The Big Heat, and of course Walsh's White Heat, or before that Wellman's Public Enemy.
If anything the movie virtually put me to sleep with aimless footage, uninteresting characters, irrelevant subplots, and a pedestrian caper sequence.
I did, however, like Richard Egan's performance, but also Victor Mature, who gave one of his finest performances in the film. Lee Marvin was a one-dimensional character, and like with the Noonan character, makes me think the writer had little skill drawing characters.
This brings up an interesting issue among revisionist film critics who seem to find undiscovered masterpieces in previously neglected films. Offhand I cannot think of another film where each character and subplot seems to bear no relation to the other characters and subplots in the film. Compare the masterful writing of *It's a Wonderful Life*. So many subplots and each is relevant to the other characters and to the theme of the whole.