Down Three Dark Streets (1954)

September 2, 1954, release date

Directed by Arnold Laven

Screenplay by Gordon Gordon, Mildred Gordon, Bernard C. Schoenfeld

Based on the novel Case File: FBI by the Gordons

Music by Paul Sawtell

Edited by Grant Whytock

Cinematography by Joseph F. Biroc

Broderick Crawford as FBI agent John Ripley

Ruth Roman as Katherine (“Kate”) Martell

Martha Hyer as Connie Anderson

Marisa Pavan as Julie Angelino

Max Showalter (aka Casey Adams) as Dave Millson

Kenneth Tobey as FBI agent Zach Stewart

Gene Reynolds as Vince Angelino

William Johnstone as FBI agent Frank Pace, Ripley’s boss

Harlan Warde as FBI agent Greg Barker

Jay Adler as Uncle Max Charles Martell

Claude Akins as Matty Pavelich

Suzanne Alexander as Brenda Ralles

Myra Marsh as Mrs. Downes, the Martell housekeeper

Dede Gainor as Vicki Martell

Joe Basselt as Joe Walpo

Alexander Campbell as Alex Shurk

Alan Dexter as police Lieutenant Jake Kuppol

William Schallert as Ben, the gas station attendant

William Woodson as the narrator

Distributed by United Artists

Produced by Edward Small Productions

After the opening credits over shots of Washington, DC, the story begins with an exterior shot of the FBI building. A narrator extols the virtues of the science and technology that the FBI (the Federal Bureau of Investigation) uses to track crime and apprehend criminals, and then introduces the FBI and talks about its most important asset:

. . . But often more important than science is the intelligence, the imagination of the individual agent. The FBI man. The FBI man with his special knowledge of human weakness and his ability to probe that weakness and thus trap the criminal into his own betrayal.

It's all very official and very male-dominated. (It helps to remember that this film was released in September 1954, several years before the women’s movement.) The narrator adds a voice of authority and continues making points throughout the film. The based-on-fact nature of the story and the narration make the film a semidocumentary. The men in the FBI are the long arm of the law and, in this film, they are always on the right side of the law.

The switch in the action to Highway 91, heading into California, is also introduced by the narrator. John Walpo is driving along Highway 91 and stops at a gas station. Ben, the gas station attendant, recognizes him from wanted posters. He attempts to call the police inside the gas station office, and Walpo comes in and shoots him, but not before Ben gets some information to the operator who takes his call. Eventually, the FBI is brought in, and FBI agent Zach Stewart is given the Walpo case.

The second plot line in the narrative concerns someone named Vince Angelino, who is in the FBI office for questioning. The agents, including Zach Stewart and John Ripley, want to know more about his associates, but Angelino isn’t talking. He’s suspected of transporting a stolen car over state lines to Nevada, but he claims to know nothing about the car or anyone connected with it, other than that someone paid him to drive the car.

The film then switches to the third thread in the narrative. A man using a disguised voice calls Katherine Martell and threatens to harm her daughter Vicki if she won’t hand over the $10,000 she recently received on her husband’s insurance money, which he left to Katherine on his death. The caller will give Katherine instructions later, but, in the meantime, she is not to tell anyone. On her own initiative, however, she calls the FBI office. FBI agent Zach Stewart answers, and so the Martell case is his.

During the course of Ripley’s and Stewart’s investigations, Stewart is killed. The FBI now has two murders to solve: that of Ben, the gas station attendant, and FBI agent Zach Stewart. Ripley and his boss, Agent Frank Pace, conclude that Agent Stewart’s killer must be connected to one of his open cases (Joe Walpo, Vince Angelino, and Katherine Martell are Zach Stewart’s three open cases) and that they must solve all of these cases to find this person. The three dark streets in the title of the film are metaphors for the three files that FBI agent John Ripley must close to discover his partner’s killer. The rest of the film follows FBI agents and Los Angeles police officers as they track down the clues in each case and figure out who is responsible for Stewart’s murder.

One of the details that really stood for me in Down Three Dark Streets was the weird sexual aggression, which could have been called the fourth dark street. It was never mentioned as being part of Agent Stewart’s three open cases and is probably a way to confuse viewers about the identity of his killer. The first instance of this sexual aggression appears when the character of Uncle Max is introduced. Uncle Max is Max Charles Martell, uncle to Bill Martell (Katherine Martell’s deceased husband). He is a gambler and has come to the attention of law enforcement in the past because of fraud charges. But viewers don’t know any of that when he makes his first appearance in Katherine Martell’s bedroom. She has undressed down to her slip, and Uncle Max opens the bedroom door without knocking, taking Katherine by surprise. Viewers learn that Uncle Max has a real problem with knocking and that this isn’t the first time Katherine has been unpleasantly surprised by him.

Another instance of sexual aggression occurs thanks to Dave Millson. Millson has already appeared in the film: He shows up unexpectedly and introduces himself when Ripley meets Martell to discuss the details of her case over lunch. After he departs, Martell tells Ripley that Millson is a friend of the family, more specifically, a close friend of her deceased husband Bill. Millson next appears at Martell’s front door for a date that she completely forgot about—a turn of events that took me by surprise because it never seemed that there was a romantic relationship between Martell and Millson before this point in the story. Millson is upset about Martell’s unwillingness to keep the date and won’t accept her fatigue as a valid reason for postponing it. He forces a kiss; the bag of popcorn kernels that he brought along breaks during the struggle and spreads kernels all over the floor. Here is part of their conversation on this occasion:

• Millson: “I’d rather you fought me off, Katie. Anything but you just standing there.” [After an awkward pause, he bends down to clean up some of the popcorn kernels.]

• Martell: “That’s all right. Mrs. Downes [the housekeeper] will clean it up.”

• Millson: “You’re really sore, aren’t you?”

• Martell: “Let’s say I won’t be if you go now.”

• Millson: “And let’s say I just had one too many.”

• Martell: “Let’s say that, and all is forgiven.”

• Millson: “Nice going, Katie. [heads for the front door, opens it, and stops before leaving] You break the date, and I have to be the one who’s forgiven.”

Millson is happy to blame Katherine Martell, but he’s the one who forces himself on her. It’s an unsettling scene in a film that is supposed to be unsettling. But this scene is especially unsettling because Millson’s appearance at this point in the story is seemingly out of the blue, and nothing about any of the FBI’s cases has anything to do with men assaulting women.

Uncle Max and Dave Millson don’t escape the notice of the FBI later in the film because they are on the list of people who have regular contact with Katherine Martell. A next-door neighbor, Alex Shurk, also becomes a suspect. Even the postal carrier is subjected to a background check simply because he is someone who could potentially see her every day.

Down Three Dark Streets is based on a book by the Gordons, and I was afraid it was going to be a slightly different version of Experiment in Terror, another film that includes the character of FBI agent John Ripley and is also based on a book by the Gordons. Both films do have numerous similarities:

◊ Woman supporting herself with one person dependent on her

◊ Blackmail of this woman by someone she doesn’t know or recognize

◊ A campaign of terror waged by the blackmailer via phone

◊ Threats to kill the woman’s loved one (daughter in Down Three Dark Streets, teenage sister in Experiment in Terror)

◊ Woman calls the FBI for help despite threats to her and her loved one if she does

◊ Woman’s residence is placed under FBI surveillance

◊ FBI agent Ripley comes to admire the female victim for her strength and resolve in the face of danger

◊ For more information about the Gordons, click here.

◊ For my blog post about Experiment in Terror, click here.

But there were enough differences to keep me interested in Down Three Dark Streets. Another plus was that I really wasn’t sure about the identity of FBI agent Stewart’s killer until the end. It’s always fun to be surprised by a story, whether in print or on screen. If I have any complaint about the film, it would be about casting Broderick Crawford as agent John Ripley. Crawford is not very convincing as a squeaky-clean FBI agent or as a person with much compassion. I think Glenn Ford in the same role in Experiment in Terror is a much better choice.