99 River Street (1953)

Cab driver Ernie Driscoll is the lead character in 99 River Street, and his luck has soured even before the film starts. The narrative itself starts with a long shot of a prizefight. The camera moves in to show Ernie is one of the fighters, and he is losing the match to his opponent, the reigning heavyweight champion. Then the camera zooms out to show that Ernie is watching a television show that is highlighting his last night as a fighter. Ernie was forced to withdraw from the ring and quit fighting because of the serious injury to his eye that he sustained during this very fight.

Ernie’s wife Pauline isn’t interested in the past. She wants Ernie to turn off the television and finish his dinner. She wants results, especially financial results, now. She and Ernie argue about Ernie’s failure as a fighter, his job as a taxi driver, their lack of money, the necessity that she work in a florist shop. It’s a long list, with one more item to be added in this initial scene between husband and wife: Ernie notices that Pauline is wearing a new bracelet. He doesn’t know where it came from or whether it’s real or rhinestone, as Pauline claims. He is losing his wife, and he’s the only one who doesn’t know it.

You can see 99 River Street online for free. Click here to see it at the Internet Archive.

Ernie drops Pauline at work after their disagreement, then meets his boss Stan at a drugstore before starting his shift as a taxi driver. Stan thinks Ernie can solve his marital problems with a baby and convinces Ernie to sweet-talk Pauline into having a child. Ernie decides it’s worth a try, although viewers know already that this ploy is not going to work. Before Ernie leaves the drugstore, a regular cab customer, Linda James, drops in to tell him that she has the chance to read for a part in a Broadway play called—appropriately enough—They Call It Murder.

(This article about 99 River Street contains spoilers.)

In the meantime, Victor Rawlins stops in at the florist to visit Pauline, and viewers now know for certain that Ernie is too hopeful about a future with his wife. Victor wants Pauline to leave New York City with him. His jewel heist went exactly as planned, and he has $50,000 for both of them. Pauline can’t wait to leave the city—and Ernie—soon enough. At the moment that Victor kisses Pauline to seal their deal, Ernie stops by outside the florist with his box of chocolates and sees Pauline and Victor kissing.

Victor takes the jewels—and Pauline—to the jeweler, Mr. Christopher, who was set to buy the stones, but he won’t do business with a woman present. Victor insists that Pauline stay while he and Mr. Christopher finalize the post-heist transaction. Pauline learns from Mr. Christopher that Victor killed the man from whom he stole the jewels. Now Mr. Christopher has a second reason not to do business with Victor and is even more adamant about not buying the stolen jewels. Mickey, an enforcer for Mr. Christopher, pushes Mickey and Pauline out of Mr. Christopher’s store.

Linda, Ernie’s regular cab customer and aspiring actress, runs into Ernie back at the drugstore and tells him that she needs help because she has killed a man. She wants Ernie to go to the theater where she auditioned for the play and help her. She explains that the producer of the play, Waldo Daggett, would have been willing to give her the part if she would sleep with him. Ernie agrees to help Linda, and when they arrive at the theater, Linda describes to Ernie the attempted rape and that she killed the producer in self-defense. Ernie believes Linda and decides to take Daggett’s body to a gravel pit near the Hudson River. As soon as he puts his hands on Daggett’s body, everyone associated with the play comes out of the shadows because Linda was just using Ernie to audition.

This last act of deception is one too many for Ernie. (Ernie is a nice guy who believes Linda’s story about an attempted rape, only to be duped.) He wants to leave his wife and his life behind, and he goes home to pack. Linda arrives at his apartment to warn him that the theater people have called the police and that there is a warrant for his arrest on charges of assault and battery. Although all the folks at the theater, Linda included, are responsible for the deception and inciting Ernie’s reaction, they have decided to press charges because the publicity would be good for the play. I found this plot detail especially interesting: publicity seeking is nothing new; it was an old ploy, way before the Internet. Linda insists that she has no part in the publicity grab and has withdrawn from the play.

When Ernie returns to his cab, his suitcase in hand and accompanied by Linda, they find Pauline’s body in the backseat. Linda wants to help Ernie. She feels that she owes it to him for the trick she played on him for her audition. Ernie isn’t so sure that he can trust Linda. He’s much more wary about women now that he knows his wife has been cheating on him and that Linda has lied to him once already.

Part of his reasoning is also that Linda should get away while she can so that she can avoid any trouble, but Ernie relents a bit because he could use some help. He tells Linda, “When I was a kid, I thought I’d grow up and meet a girl who would stick in my corner no matter what. Then I grew up. Things aren’t the way you think they’re gonna be when you’re a kid . . .” These lines sum up rather nicely the dilemma that Ernie finds himself in. It’s the kind of disillusionment that is made for noir. It’s also the kind of disillusionment that almost everyone can identify with on some level, although probably not quite so acutely as Ernie Driscoll can.

Ernie gets a lot of help: from Linda, his boss Stan, one of his fellow cab drivers. Victor Rawlins has framed him for Pauline’s murder; the theater folks are pressing charges; the police are pursuing him, first for assault and battery, then for the murder of his wife. Both he and Mr. Christopher are looking for Victor Rawlins: Ernie needs to clear his name, and Mr. Christopher wants the money that Rawlins stole from him, and he is quite willing to let Ernie and Linda serve as collateral damage if that’s what it takes to get his money back.

The film’s title comes from the address of the bar where jewel thief and murderer Victor Rawlins waits for his forged passport from someone named Monk. It’s the Harbor Light Café at 99 River Street in Jersey City, New Jersey. Rawlins is the reason that all the surviving main characters go to the bar in the final sequence. He’s the bait that brings them all together for the final showdown, so to speak. Ernie Driscoll may have lost his last fight in the ring, but he wins his fight with Victor Rawlins in Jersey City outside the Harbor Light Café. Sounds from the ring and echoes of his own words replay in his mind as Ernie pursues and catches Rawlins. He doesn’t have to think of himself as a loser anymore.

I don’t remember how many times I have seen 99 River Street. I think it’s because I have seen so many clips from the film in other contexts: for film classes or as examples posted by other bloggers to illustrate points about film noir. John Payne, who plays Ernie Driscoll, and Evelyn Keyes, who plays Linda James, are two of my noir favorites, and they are fantastic in 99 River Street. Evelyn Keyes turns from conniving actress into a willing partner for Ernie Driscoll, and the transformation is completely believable.

Low-angle shots emphasize the dark turn that Ernie’s life takes. The frequent use of extreme close-ups is one of the hallmarks of noir, and these types of shots in 99 River Street must have been impressive on a large movie theater screen, the way viewers would have seen the film in the 1950s. Every time I see 99 River Street, I see once again why so many turn to it as representative of what is so great about film noir.

August 21, 1953 (Los Angeles), October 2, 1953 (New York City), October 3, 1953 (United States) release dates  •  Directed by Phil Karlson  •  Screenplay by Robert Smith  •  Based on the short story “Crosstown” by George Zuckerman  •  Music by Arthur Lange, Emil Newman  •  Edited by Buddy Small  •  Cinematography by Franz Planer

John Payne as Ernie Driscoll  •  Evelyn Keyes as Linda James  •  Brad Dexter as Victor Rawlins  •  Frank Faylen as Stan Hogan  •  Peggie Castle as Pauline Driscoll  •  Jay Adler as Mr. Christopher  •  Jack Lambert as Mickey  •  Glenn Langan as Lloyd Morgan  •  Eddy Waller as Pop Durkee, the gym owner  •  John Day as Bud  •  Ric Roman as Monk  •  Ian Wolfe as Waldo Daggett  •  Peter Leeds as Nat Finley  •  William Tannen as the theater director  •  Gene Reynolds as Chuck  •  Paul Bryar as the bartender

Produced by Edward Small Productions  •  Distributed by United Artists