The Long Wait

Another solid entry in the amnesia subcategory, Victor Saville’s The Long Wait is the only film noir based on a Mickey Spillane novel that doesn’t feature private eye Mike Hammer. Instead, we get the endlessly watchable Anthony Quinn as Johnny McBride, a hitchhiker whose memory (and, conveniently, fingerprints) is erased in a fiery car crash in which the driver’s killed. McBride begins an odyssey of identity, ultimately returning to his hometown to learn that he’s suspected of murdering a district attorney, among other crimes; as in most Spillane stories, he’s compelled to dig for the truth by harassing a series of women (played by Mary Ellen Kay, Dolores Donlon, Shirley Patterson, and a thoroughly modern Peggie Castle), any of whom could be his surgically altered girlfriend Vera. But it seems old contacts are reluctant to help him regain his memory, largely because those who do end up dead. Gene Evans plays slimy mob boss Servo (“Servo owns everything, absolutely everything in this town, Johnny”), who’s on a mission to destroy McBride while the real DA murderer remains at large but in plain sight. After the somewhat corny duet that plays over the opening credits, Saville (who also directed another Spillane adaptation, 1957’s My Gun is Quick) creates a perfect noir sequence that introduces Johnny and depicts his accident and hospital recovery without dialogue. Entertaining even when weird and overwrought, the film’s light budget may slightly weaken performance consistency but not the visual impact, which especially shines in the final act when a bound and gagged McBride and Venus (Castle) writhe on the floor of a large, vacant backroom under an omniscient spotlight, half nightmare, half camp.