A Dangerous Profession (1949)

★ 5.6 1h 19m IMDb

Drama Crime Mystery

A cop-turned-bail bondsman gets involved in a murder investigation involving a former flame.

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Cast

George Raft as Vince Kane Died 1980 · Los Angeles, California, USA George Raft (born George Ranft; September 26, 1901 – November 24, 1980) was an American film actor and dancer identified with portrayals of gangsters in crime melodramas of the 1930s and 1940s. A styl...

Ella Raines as Lucy Brackett Died 1988 · Snoqualmie Falls, Washington State, USA Ella Wallace Raines (August 6, 1920 – May 30, 1988) was an American film and television actress active from the early 1940s through the mid-1950s. Described as "sultry" and "mysterious", the green-eye...

Pat O'Brien as Joe Farley Died 1983 · Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA Pat O'Brien (born William Joseph Patrick O'Brien) was an American stage, screen, radio, and television actor. He was a star during the first several years of his film career, the height of his popular...

Bill Williams as Claude Brackett Died 1992 · Brooklyn, New York, USA William Herman Katt (born Herman August Wilhelm Katt; May 15, 1915 – September 21, 1992), known as Bill Williams, was an American television and film actor. He is best known for his starring role in t...

Jim Backus as Police Lt. Nick Ferrone / Narrator (voice) Died 1989 · Cleveland, Ohio, USA Jim Backus (1913–1989) was a radio, television, film, and voice actor. Among his most famous credits are The Alan Young Radio Show, I Married Joan, Gilligan's Island, and Rebel Without a Cause. He al...

Director Ted Tetzlaff

Cast George Raft, Ella Raines, Pat O'Brien, Bill Williams, Jim Backus, Roland Winters, Betty Underwood, Robert Gist, David Bauer, Harry Brown

John Chard 6/10 May 28, 2014

Penal Code - 1096

A Dangerous Profession is directed by Ted Tetzlaff and written by Warren Duff and Martin Rackin. It stars George Raft, Ella Raines, Pat O'Brien, Bill Williams and Jim Backus. Music is by Frederick Hollander and cinematography by Robert De Grasse.

The scene is set, it's Los Angeles and Police Lt. Nick Ferrone (Backus) explains to us with stentorian narration about the whiles of bail bond brokers. This story is concerned with one in particular, Vince Kane (Raft), a one time policeman who followed the lure of the coin into a partnership of a bail bonds operation. It's all going swimmingly well, he's making lots of cash, has gals eating out of his hand, but when a pretty face from his past turns up requesting a favour? Vince suddenly finds himself in a quagmire of murder, deceit and emotional discord.

What cop ever reformed?

Shall we cut to the chase here? This is not a "great" film, though I do believe that it's very under seen and therefore the meagre internet ratings it has - and the lack of reviews for it - don't quite tell the whole story.

There's nothing particularly striking about the visual aspects here, De Grasse's photography occasionally falls in line with what film noir fans consider standard procedure, which has led a few critics to question the film's film noir status. This is all about Vince Kane and how he is thrust into a murky new world by a slinky femme, it may be a whodunit in essence, but the Vince and Lucy Brackett (Raines) axis is most assuredly noir.

You phony Gumshoe!

Action is in short supply, leaving much of the piece in talky territory. There's a few zinger lines of dialogue in the mix, but mostly it's screen writing 101. Yet in spite of the mixed qualities on offer here, it's a film that Raft fans are sure to enjoy, because he's very much great value as the stoic but emotionally troubled Vince. In fact O'Brien turns in one of his better performances and Raines is pleasingly sultry, meaning the cast perform well up to scratch, even if the screenplay does them few favours.

A mixed bag for sure, and hardly essential for fans of such cinematic fare, but there's just enough from the cast to make this one above average. 6/10