The lovely Sally Gray! Beautiful actresses of the 1940s mostly stayed beautiful in their films. Not this one. The lovely Miss Gray portrays a sultry chorus girl who will then be pummeled, slapped, then pummeled and slapped again. Psychos will prey on her. Her fate is only slightly better than the sultry Rene Ray, the clean cut buddy of the chorus girl. Miss Ray will also be tortured repeatedly. Today we have a brutal and misogynistic Film Noir film set in post-war London. It will be difficult to watch as even those sympathetic to the fate of the actresses will abuse them. Our feature today is 1947's "They Made Me a Fugitive" (aka "I Became a Criminal"), directed by Alberto Cavalcanti.
RAF war hero, and former POW, Clem Morgan (Trevor Howard) is home from the war. He's a drunk, but with style. Criminal gang boss Narcy (Griffith Jones), a black marketeer, likes the bloke and has the sultry Ellen (Eve Ashley) pretend to be sweet on him to get him to join the gang. Clem is a thief and a good one and Narcy could use him. Clem reports for duty but when he finds out Ellen is really Clem's current GF, and that Clem is also dealing in narcotics, he bows out. Being the gentleman that he is, Clem unwisely agrees to do one job. The job goes south and Narcy is able to frame Clem for the murder of a policeman. The RAF hero gets 15 years in prison. Uh oh...sultry chorus girl Sally (Gray) is jealous that Narcy is now romancing Ellen. The fiend just dumped Sally, and Sally visits Clem in prison to see if she can help him gain his freedom. Clem, seeing her true motive, hates her and tells her to scram.
Clem breaks out on his own and heads to London to murder Narcy and his gang. Uh oh, Clem gets framed for another murder as he flees the prison yards in a weird and twisted scene...you'll see. Now Clem, with every cop in England looking for him, goes to Sally's place for help. He needs it. When Sally pulls three bullets out of his back, Clem realizes Sally may be a good girl. She is. Now Narcy knows Clem is after him and sends his thugs out to find him. The thugs grab Sally and her buddy Cora (Ray). Pain, blood, and humiliation will be the fate of the gals. Now sweet on Sally, Clem gets bold and moves to take out everyone in the gang. Uh oh, the cops are also closing in on Clem.
Does Clem have any shot at saving the nubile chorus girl, murdering Narcy and his gang, and getting the cops to believe he was framed? Will Narcy's new GF, Ellen, have a shot at marring Sally's pretty looks? Pretty women aside, does anyone in this film have a shot at surviving to the end credits? This is a brutal one and the ending is not a standard one. We wince at the fate of the two lovelies and the deeds of the psycho Narcy. For a Film Noir film that will make you gasp, see "They Made Me a Fugitive."
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