I usually write about good movies in this feature. This week’s film is a mixed bag: the script is a melodramatic mess BUT the acting is first rate. As you can tell from the titles, The Woman On Pier 13 and I Married A Communist, it’s a period piece from the second Red Scare.

It was a pet project of future hermit Howard Hughes. He was a hardcore right-winger who thought there were reds under every bed. His McCarthyite views were the movie’s raison d’etre. I threw some French in since I wrote about the Paris Olympics yesterday.

The movie was previewed in 1949 under the original title: I Married A Communist. It tested poorly so it was shelved until 1950 and retitled The Woman On Pier 13. Holy generic title, Batman. Because it’s set on the docks and features longshoremen, I think of it as the poor man’s On The Waterfront.

Robert Ryan plays a former CPUSA member turned shipping company executive. Laraine Day plays the woman who married Ryan not knowing that there was a red in *her* bed.

Ryan is involved with labor negotiations with a Commie union chief played by the swell supporting actor, Thomas Gomez best known for playing Johnny Rocco’s right-hand man in Key Largo.

Gomez’s character is based on Longshoreman’s Union president Harry Bridges as was Lee J Cobb’s character in On The Waterfront. That was a smear: Bridges was a leftist not a Leninist. I give the movie high Marx for its smear tactics.

The plot involves blackmail, extortion, and other nefarious Marxist malefactions. Future mole person John Agar plays Laraine Day’s brother. He’s a dockworker being corrupted by Communist femme fatale Janis Carter who can be seen in the featured image with Robert Ryan.

The story is so convoluted that I refuse to delve deeper into the murky details. Besides, this feature is called pulp fiction, not pulp spoilers. I’m also unwilling to watch the movie a second time: once was enough even though it’s set in my other hometown of San Francisco.

The movie is saved by the acting. As always, Ryan is excellent despite the fakakta story. His casting is noteworthy because he was a leading Hollywood liberal but since he was a good Catholic he was never a member of CPUSA. In those days Catholicism often led to liberalism. Things have certainly changed. Ryan maintained he did the movie because he was afraid Hughes would destroy his career. How Trumpy is that?

The standout performance in the movie is by Janis Carter as the blackmailing Commie agent who is in cahoots with Gomez’s shady red menacey union chief.

Future Perry Mason co-star William Talman plays a bug-eyed Commie thug who menaces Laraine Day in this carny scene:

Talman’s character had one thing in common with Hamilton Burger: They were both losers. Check out this noirish image as Talman is about to meet his maker. Since he was a godless red, his maker was probably Stalin.

As you can see from that image, Nicholas Musuraca’s cinematography is one of the movie’s strong suits. The script is not. It was written by a couple of guys named George. The last names are withheld to protect the guilty.

Nicholas Ray refused to direct The Woman On Pier 13, so the job went to future Disney director Robert Stevenson. It’s not as good as Mary Poppins but it’s a red menace noir, so high expectations for the movie are unwarranted. It’s mostly of interest as a curiosity, which killed That Darn Cat, another Stevenson helmed Disney flick.

Grading Time: I give The Woman On Pier 13 AKA I Married A Communist 2 stars and an Adrastos Grade of C+. The plus is for the acting and look of the movie. The script is from hunger.

It’s time to cleanse our palates and check out the posters.

We begin with side-by-side three sheets:

As you can see above and from the quad poster, RKO’s studio flacks knew that Janis Carter was the best thing about this fakakta film:

All this talk of scripts from hunger has made me, well,  hungry. Let’s all go to the lobby:

I’m relieved that the concessions stand wasn’t selling any Russian treats. I dig borscht but I’d rather gargle turpentine than drink vodka.

While we’re in the lobby let’s take a look at the lobby cards for this self-proclaimed high voltage melodrama.

The next one is signed by John Agar and Janis Carter. It must be worth at least a fiver.

The movie is nowhere near as exciting as that last lobby card.

Light up a cigarette and watch this smoke-filled trailer. They thought smoking was sexy back then. Ugh, just ugh.

The last word goes to Eddie Muller with his Noir Alley intro and outro: