Tuesday's Forgotten Movies: DEAD RECKONING Starring Humphrey Bogart

This fine 1947 film noir stars Humphrey Bogart as a grizzled World War Two paratrooper veteran and Lizabeth Scott as the blonde bombshell femme fatale. The last scene is fabulous, which is all I'll say about it. The plot left me scratching my head in a few places, but I thought the movie was well-acted, and it satisfies all of the things you expect from a film noir. There is lots of cigarette smoking, and a safecracker pal even smokes a pipe. Scott sings a torch song at a club that captures Bogie's heart, well, sort of, anyway. The setting is a small Southern city called Gulf City where it's hot. New Orleans is mentioned once, and I saw lots of Spanish moss on the trees. I read where Rita Hayworth was supposed to play the femme, but she was in the top brass's doghouse. Bogie is always watchable, and he has some great lines (pulp author Steve Fisher wrote the screenplay). All in all, Dead Reckoning is a worthwhile crime drama.