A STREET WITH NO NAME

US, 1948, 91 minutes, Black and white.
Mark Stevens, Lloyd Nolan, Richard Widmark.
Directed by William Keighley.

A Street With No Name is a tribute to the FBI, under the administration of J. Edgar Hoover. By 1948 the FBI had a very strong reputation.

This film shows a typical American city, gang-related killings. A suspect is framed and arrested and released. Mark Stevens then portrays an agent who goes undercover, ingratiating himself with the mad leader of a gang, played by Richard Widmark a year after his manic performance in Kiss of Death. Lloyd Nolan portrays a police inspector.

The film was directed by William Keighley who had a strong career at Warner Bros in the 1930s including directing The Adventures of Robin Hood. After this film he directed Errol Flynn in the western, Rocky Mountain, as well as the Robert Louis Stevenson adventure, The Master of Ballantrae.

1. This film was made in the late forties. Does it still seem relevant to modern times? Why?

2. How successful was the documentary style of the photography and the narrative? The voice and tone of the narrator? The values implied by the narrator? Is this style relevant now?

3. The picture of the FBI in this film. Was it impressive? Did it show convincingly the work of the FBI and the need for such work? Or was this just a propaganda film?

4. The implications of the title of the film and J.Edgar Hoover's comment on America as the Street with No Name, the gangsterism and the crime in this street? How typical was this story meant to be of America after the war? Did this seem convincing? Why?

5. How interesting was the mission of Gene Cordell? What motivated him to be an FBI man and to live this kind of life? How sincere a man was he? How interested in his work? How skillful? How interesting were the preparations for his infiltration into the gangs, his ability to submerge himself in the character and world of the gangsters?

6. What right did Briggs have to put Cordell in such a position? To run the risk of Cordell's being murdered? Is this necessary for such police work? Comment on the danger of the various times when they needed to communicate with each other?

7. The character of Gordon. His infiltration into the skid-row world, his contacts with Cordell, his radio contacts with Briggs, the risk he ran of losing his life - and his being sad at the end? what motivated a man like Gordon?

8. Was the picture of American gangsterism after the war convincing? Comment on the style of the gangsterism - the restaurant and bank robberies, the armories and the weapons, the masks and the getaways, Alex Styles and his running of his boys, the cover of the gymnasium and the boxing?

9. What kind of criminal was Alex Styles? Was Richard Widmark's performance too much of a caricature or do American gangsters act like this and want to act like this? What were the main characteristics of his style of gangsterism? How feeling was he? Why was he prepared to commit murder, how greedy was he, how ambitious, how cruel - especially in the scenes with his wife?

10. How did the film generate tension - in Cordell's assumption of the character of George Manly, his easy going confidence in the boxing, the need for contact with the police and the risks that this ran, the tip offs, Cordell's examining the armory, the final chase and fights?

11. Comment on the picture of police corruption, their being bought by gangsters, the access to files and their communication of these to the gangsters, the ruthlessness that such employment by gangsters enforces on policemen?

12. Was this film too moralising to be convincing or was it convincing because it moralised?