Guilty Bystander

The primary appeal of Joseph Lerner’s Guilty Bystander is its oppressive atmosphere of low-budget depravity, which ensnares the cavalcade of desperate souls who populate the dark underbelly of New York City. Most desperate of all is Max Thursday (Zachary Scott), an alcoholic ex-cop who’s resorted to working as house detective for a sleazebag hotel owned by his friend Smitty (Mary Boland in her final film). When Thursday’s ex-wife Georgia (Faye Emerson) stops by in a panic because their son Jeff has been kidnapped, he shakes off his hangover and snaps into action. Using his old law enforcement connections and his own network of lowlifes, Thursday journeys into a world of thievery, smuggling, and murder, a journey that will end a little too close to home. Often playing the cad, Scott is highly effective here as a loser on the verge of a nervous breakdown, while character actor J. Edgar Bromberg blends pathos and pathology as Varkas, an almost cartoonish diamond smuggler with a debilitating heart condition. Some might find the plot a bit convoluted (close attention is recommended), but Lerner and his cinematographers rack up the wretchedness with lighting and compositions that emphasize emptiness, like Varkas’ abandoned building or Smitty’s dreary inn where the only life seems to come from the gambling den underneath the stairs.