CRACK-UP and the Nagging Question

CRACK-UP (Blu-ray)

1946 / 86 min

Warner Archive Collection

Available at MovieZyng

Review by Mr. Paws😽

While I enjoyed 1946’s Crack-Up, it did leave me with a nagging question. Fortunately, I didn’t think to ask it until after the movie was over.

As the story begins, art critic and lecturer George Steele (Pat O’Brien) has apparently lost his mind, going berserk in the museum where he works. After waking up, he tells his colleagues and the police the last thing he remembers was being in a train crash on the way to visit his ailing mother. However, skeptical cop Lt. Cochrane (Wallace Ford) informs him there’s been no reported train wreck, nor any record of George’s mother being at the hospital.

At British art expert Traybin’s (Herbert Marshall) behest, George is released and followed by police. He decides to retrace his steps leading up to the accident, and though it turns out that there was no train crash, somebody definitely has it in for him. While Trybin and George’s beleaguered girlfriend Terry (Claire Trevor) implore him to give up after he’s suspected of murdering friend & colleague Stevenson, George uncovers a plot involving missing paintings and forgeries, and only he is skilled enough to identify the differences.

"You push that broom like a boss, buddy."

While no classic of the genre, Crack-Up is a fairly decent little film noir mystery. The story is pretty interesting, though overall implausibility of the antagonists' plans rears its ugly head here and there. It’s efficiently directed by Irving Reis, who may not display much in the way of aesthetic panache, but he keeps the pace lively, which helps smooth over some of the narrative rough spots. And what the film lacks in marquee names is compensated by serviceable performances.

There is that nagging question, though, which doesn’t necessarily ruin the movie. In the moment, Crack-Up is pretty fun, with a couple of neat plot twists. But without offering any spoilers, I simply gotta ask: Rather than arrange this elaborate scheme to discredit George by making everyone think he’s crazy, wouldn’t it have been easier just to kill him in the first place? Perhaps someone wiser than me can answer that one.

EXTRA KIBBLES

SHORT - “Purity Squad,” from the Crime Does Not Pay series.

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