It's been a great month, but a challenger for worst noir emerges. Certainly the worst of the month, but I'm not sure it's bad enough to challenge
Suddenly for the overall title. I'll have to think about it.
The Woman on Pier 13 (1949) - 4/10 Commies! Commies everywhere! They're in the unions and in management too and their only goal is to disrupt, destroy and kill. Reasons? They don't need no stinkin reasons. They do as the party says and if not they get killed. But what interest does the party have in subverting the wishes of their socialist brethren in the unions? Bah, you and your silly questions. They're commies and they're evil and as such do evil things. Everyone knows this. You're not a commie are you? CINECAST! this stupid clumsy contrived propaganda and all the caricatures in it.
There actually may be a decent film underneath all the crap, though certainly not a great one, but it's impossible for me to get past all the scaremongering. If they wanted to make an anti-communist film the least they could have done is attack actual communist ideas. Instead they have a Communist party whose only motivation is "the docks must be shut down on such a date." The workers and management coming to reasonable understanding that everyone wants, nah not what the party wants. As far as the film is concerned communists make ridiculous demands just for the thrill of creating chaos. The idea was probably that in doing so you gain the sympathy of the 'good socialists' and drive them away from the party, but there's so little subtlety here I can't imagine any sane person, even in 1949, buying that. A film driven by such blind seething hatred can't be good, and no amount of cool death scenes, about the only thing notable in this otherwise contrived mess, will make it worthwhile. Actually, Robert Ryan is pretty good too, but even he can't overcome the material.
Ironic trivia from Imdb "RKO head Howard Hughes used the film to get rid of a lot of writers, directors and actors. If you refused to work in this project, you got fired from the studio."