The Narrow Margin (1952)

May 2, 1952, release date

Directed by Richard Fleischer

Screenplay by Earl Felton

Story by Martin Goldsmith and Jack Leonard

Music by Gene Rose, Leith Stevens, Dave Torbett, Roy Webb (uncredited stock music composers)

Edited by Robert Swink

Cinematography by George E. Diskant

Charles McGraw as Detective Sgt. Walter Brown

Don Beddoe as Detective Sgt. Gus Forbes, Brown’s partner

Marie Windsor as Mrs. Frankie Neall

Jacqueline White as Ann Sinclair

Peter Virgo as Densel

Gordon Gebert as Tommy Sinclair, Ann’s son

Queenie Leonard as Mrs. Troll

David Clarke as Joseph Kemp

Paul Maxey as Sam Jennings                     

Distributed by RKO Pictures

The Narrow Margin has one of the best opening sequences of any film. A train whistle, no music, is heard over the RKO logo. Viewers hear another loud whistle behind a blinding headlight that fills the screen, and then they see the film’s title card. In 1950s movie theaters, the effect must have been especially effective. Then a train moving slowly on railroad tracks passes onscreen behind the opening credits. When the credits are completed, the train stops and Detective Sergeant Brown, played by Charles McGraw, steps off the train and onto a platform. It is a seamless opening and perfect for a movie about two police detectives responsible for picking up a witness against the mob and bringing her to Los Angeles to give her testimony.

(This blog post about The Narrow Margin contains spoilers.)

Detective Sergeant Walter Brown and his partner Detective Sergeant Gus Forbes have arrived in Chicago to pick up Mrs. Neall. Her husband has been killed by the mob, and now several mobsters are after her. Both Brown and Forbes are aware of the danger to their own lives, but they are committed to their work and to their assignment. The lighting in the foyer of the witness’s apartment building accentuates the building tension. The camera, from the upstairs landing, shows the two detectives climbing the stairs cautiously, with shadows of railing slats falling across them.

The witness, Mrs. Neall, is hostile to both detectives. She is concerned about her own safety, but she doesn’t stop playing her jazz music and thus bringing attention to herself. All of them have reason to worry: A shooter is waiting in the dark in the first-floor hallway of Neall’s apartment building. When the detectives and the witness head down the front hallway stairs, Detective Forbes is shot and killed. The killing of a main character, and a member of law enforcement, so early in the narrative is very noir.

The scenes on the train are claustrophobic. In one sequence, Brown is trying to evade a mobster, Joseph Kemp, who is wearing a plaid overcoat. The camera lurches as though it is handheld. The jarring movement adds to the tension and sense of impending violence. The fight scene later in the film between Detective Brown and Joseph Kemp is a long one, but it is realistic. It takes place in a cramped railroad compartment. At one point, Detective Brown kicks Kemp in the face: We see the sole of his shoe coming at the camera, at the viewer. It’s a bit of first-person point of view (POV) that works well.

While on board the train, Detective Brown meets Ann Sinclair and her son Tommy. Ann’s presence creates some confusion. The mobsters tailing Detective Brown on the train begin to think that she is the witness who will give her testimony at the trial in Los Angeles, and Brown is forced into the position of having to protect two people, and without any help because his partner has already died in the line of duty.

Jennings is traveling on the same train as Detective Brown and Mrs. Neall. At one point, suspicion is cast on his character because he and Brown argue over Brown’s double accommodations. In one scene, the camera lingers on Jennings, with bars of light falling across him, as he stares after Detective Brown in a rail corridor. Viewers learn later that he is a special agent for the railroad, but Jennings’s character at first helps to add more tension to an already tense situation. Jennings also gives some comic relief, however, when he says that no one likes a fat man: He is a portly gentleman traveling on a train with small spaces, and he and Detective Brown get stuck once or twice in a narrow train corridor.

What I really noticed about The Narrow Margin, in addition to the claustrophobia, is the way Detective Brown’s attitude toward the two women changes. He drops his snappy one-liners and his hard-boiled edge. By the end of the film, neither Mrs. Neall nor Ann Sinclair is a “dame.” He has new-found respect for the undercover policewoman who died protecting him and the whole operation. When Detective Brown and Mrs. Neall get off the train in Los Angeles, Mrs. Neall doesn’t want to hide any more. When other police officers meeting Detective Brown and Mrs. Neall protest her decision, Detective Brown says, “You heard the lady,” and he and Mrs. Neall walk away together. Not a completely noir ending maybe, but it’s a very satisfying one.