The People Against O'Hara

The stamp of noir master John Alton and his camera is all over the opening sequence of John Sturges’ blandly titled The People Against O’Hara, in which a few strangers converge on a corner bar just in time to witness a shooting on a stoop across the street and the killer’s car speeding away, golden light appearing in neighboring windows by awoken residents, a woman howling by the body, a small crowd slowly forming on the slick, wet streets gleaming beneath the streetlamps. An elegantly crafted noir with one man’s lonely struggle at its center, the film stars Spencer Tracy as James Curtayne, a dispirited attorney whose former career as a cunning prosecutor gave way to too much stress and alcoholism, his legal livelihood now relegated to straightforward civil cases. A widower who lives with his overprotective daughter Ginny (Diana Lynn), Curtayne is one day approached by a desperate older couple from his old neighborhood whose son Johnny (James Arness) has been accused of the opening murder. Despite knowing it will be an uphill battle given circumstantial evidence (both the car and weapon are traced back to Johnny) and witness testimony (a young thug named Korvac fingers the poor kid), Curtayne agrees to take the case, but the pressure will ultimately lead him not only back to the bottle but into a kind of moral abyss in which he’ll resort to lawbreaking and possible disbarment. The case takes several twists, revealing a new set of suspects and culminating in a shower of bullets down by the docks. Pat O’Brien plays Detective Vincent Ricks, and John Hodiak plays District Attorney Louis Barra, both of whom have a soft spot for Curtayne (“What you can’t figure out is why you have so much respect for him”) and try to give him a hand. Alton’s noir lighting simmers throughout but boils over again in the final act beginning when Curtayne takes his perch as a sitting duck in a house of shadows.