D.O.A.

a film by Rudolph Maté

“A picture as excitingly different as its title!”, said the theatrical release poster for D.O.A.

To me, this 1949 film noir was as exciting as a long joke told after you heard its punchline. But, apparently, it’s a “classic of the genre”, complete with all the clichés of the genre: femmes fatales, mobsters, nighttime driving, etc. etc. The movie has spawned at least six remakes and a musical, so probably I miss something. Or it could be that D.O.A. fell into public domain too early — to be precise, in 1978, due to a silly filing error — an easy prey for idea-starved Hollywood producers.

Edmond O’Brien stars as Frank Bigelow, a pretty dull accountant who, upon learning that he’s mortally poisoned, transforms himself into a hard-boiled detective. Halfway through I got confused with more and more characters and kind of lost interest because, well, the man was gonna die anyway. The jazz band at The Fisherman is good, shame that our accountant doesn’t appreciate live music.

The movie has its share of comic moments, most of them are unintentionally so. Like the one where Frank barges into a second hospital in search of a second opinion:

Frank: Doctor, I want you to examine me for luminous poison.
Doctor: Come right in here. (A few moments later.) Yeah, you’ve got it all right.

The doctor is so cocksure because he shows a test tube that glows in the dark. Great. (It’s puzzling why we don’t have a remake yet where Frank is an ex-KGB agent and “luminous poison” is identified as polonium-210.) Be careful what you drink.

Con las horas contadas closed the cycle Los márgenes de Hollywood en la postguerra.