The Case Against Brooklyn

Noir fans who enjoyed the innovative direction of Paul Wendkos’ The Burglar (1957) will certainly appreciate his second film, The Case Against Brooklyn, an outstanding late noir that attracts little recognition probably because it lacks star talent. (Sadly, Wendkos was born too late to contribute significantly to the noir cycle, moving swiftly into television and Gidget films after this one.) The film is fast-paced, intriguing, finely crafted, and replete with noir visuals and tropes; the section during which a young policeman is shot dead in an alley and his killer is attacked, captured, and interrogated, then leaps through a windowpane to his death, is about as pitch-perfect as noir gets. To set the stage, corrupt Brooklyn cops are getting rich off the racketeers they’re supposed to be arresting, and rookie cop Pete Harris (Darren McGavin) is recruited for an undercover enterprise in which he’ll expose all the rotten apples by cozying up with the recently widowed Lil Polombo (Margaret Hayes), whose compromised garage owner husband recently committed suicide. The question becomes who is closing in on whom: will the criminals uncover Harris’ true identity before he’s able to secure enough evidence to convict? Emile Meyer plays a corrupt police captain who soon recognizes that he’s in too deep, and Peggy McCay plays Harris’ wife Jane, who will pay a price for reluctantly approving her husband’s new undercover life (a shocking incident will immediately conjure thoughts of Fitz Lang’s 1953 The Big Heat). Set almost entirely at night, the film displays Wendkos’ penchant for unorthodox camera angles (from inside a safe, facing a punching fist, through a bedframe) and skill at choreographing violence (the fistfights are brutal and well-done). It’s a thoroughly satisfying film that no noir lover should miss.