6 /10 1 Votes
Directed by Joseph Lerner Narrated by Dean Jagger Director Joseph Lerner Music director Gail Kubik | 6.1/10 IMDb Screenplay by Berne Giler Music by Gail Kubik Screenplay Berne Giler | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Produced by Irving Lerner
Joseph Lerner Starring Dean Jagger
John Carradine
Lottie Elwen
Rene Paul Initial release 27 May 1949 (New York City) Producers Joseph Lerner, Irving Lerner Cast Dean Jagger, John Carradine, Lottie Elwen, Harry Landers, Edith Atwater Similar Dean Jagger movies, Film noir | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
C-Man is a 1949 American quasi-semidocumentary crime film noir directed by Joseph Lerner featuring Dean Jagger, John Carradine, Lottie Elwen and Rene Paul. Gail Kubik based his Pulitzer Prize winning Symphony Concertante on his score for C-Man.
Contents
Plot
U.S. Customs Department Agent Cliff Holden's (Dean Jagger) childhood best friend and boss is murdered while chasing down jewel thieves. He's assigned to find the murderers and solve the case. He flies to Europe in order to catch the return flight in order to catch suspect Matty Royal (Rene Paul).
Cast
Critical response
The film critic for the New York Times, panned the film when it was first released, writing, "According to yesterday's newcomer at the Rialto, C-Man, the Treasury Department's typical customs agent is a suave, amiable sleuth who takes knives, pistols and slugging in stride and roguishly admits that it's all in a day's work. Well and good, but we'll wager that most C-Men are a lot smarter than Dean Jagger ... Miss Elwen and newcomer Harry Landers, a juvenile Richard Widmark, try hard, but most of the actors perk up only at the prospect of another chase. And in view of the material they had to work with, the Treasury Department will probably forgive them."
Recently, film critic Dennis Schwartz gave the film a mixed review. He wrote, "A lively crime fighting programmer featuring a Custom Agent tracking down a jewel thief and a murderer. It was good on the action part, but there was not much brain-work put into the story and no feel for the characters. It was a routine B-film done on a modest budget in a quasi-documentary style and in a flat black-and-white tone, with nothing much to recommend it except for its atmospheric treatment of New York City and by using authentic locations ... The film didn't make much sense, but it was watchable."