cult film freak: REST IN PEACE TO RHONDA FLEMING FROM THE NOIR 'CRY DANGER'

William Powell & Rhonda Fleming 1951 Rates: ***1/2

The recently-departed Queen of Technicolor Rhonda Fleming also reigned in a few B&W Film Noirs, like the famous OUT OF THE PAST... and the obscure CRY DANGER starring Dick Powell as a pardoned convict who, five years earlier, was falsely accused of stealing a load of still-missing cash...

And the first twist involves Richard Erdman as a limping war hero, providing Powell's Rocky a false alibi, with a motive — making him an endearing sidekick but one that spouts too much exposition, filling Powell and the audience in on what could've panned-out more creatively otherwise...

Like the fact Rocky's still-incarcerated partner's pretty/perfect wife is even crazier about Rocky, and here's where an intensely dedicated, immensely worried (if somewhat underused) Rhonda Fleming enters, living in a trailer park where the boys — having hatched a comeback plan — temporarily reside. Meanwhile chief villain William Conrad scowls behind his big bookie desk, and Rocky threatens him endlessly while being endlessly dogged by a determined cop: Which all sounds pretty complicated, as Noirs usually involve a mazy plotline, or two. But what works here are the simplistic and (even back then) nostalgic 1930's Gangster-era shoot-outs within a sparse aesthetic — and yet, peppered with so many nifty, convenient one-liners, CRY DANGER is often too clever and self-aware for its own good.