1949 film by Robert Stevenson
The Woman on Pier 13 is a 1949 American film noir drama starring Laraine Day, Robert Ryan, and John Agar.[2] Directed by Robert Stevenson, the picture previewed in Los Angeles and San Francisco in 1949 under the title I Married a Communist but, owing to poor polling among preview audiences, this was dropped prior to its 1950 release.[1][3]
Plot
Brad Collins, a San Francisco shipping executive (real name Frank Johnson) has recently married Nan Lowry after a brief courtship. Brad was once involved with a Communist group in New York while working as a stevedore during the Depression. Shortly after returning home following their honeymoon, the couple meet Christine Norman, an old flame of Brad's. Nan immediately dislikes her.
Brad becomes the target of a Communist cell led by Vanning, who orders an alleged FBI informer drowned after a brief interrogation. After threatening to reveal Brad's responsibility for a murder as well as his Communist past, Vanning orders the executive to sabotage the shipping industry in the San Francisco Bay by resisting union demands in a labor dispute. He claims it is impossible to leave the Communist Party. Norman, bitter over being rejected by Brad, is ordered to become closer to his brother-in-law, Don Lowry, and to indoctrinate him with their Communist world view. Norman falls in love with Lowry, despite Vanning saying that she is not meant to be so emotional.
Brad's friend and former boyfriend of Nan, union leader Jim Travers, cannot understand why Brad has become unreasonable to deal with. Travers is concerned about the possibility of the small number of Communists in the union being able to take it over, and suspects Norman of being a Communist, or at least a fellow traveler. He discusses this with Lowry, who is a new colleague. Lowry denies Norman's politics. She confesses when confronted, but after Lowry rejects her she shows him a photograph of herself with Brad and reveals his Communist past. Vanning interrupts them. Angry with Norman for breaking orders, who was supposed to be in Seattle for another two days on her day job as a photographer, Vanning tries to lean on Lowry because he is now able to expose the influence the party has regained over Collins.
Lowry travels to the Collins' residence to inform them of what he has learned, but is run over by a car driven by the Communist hit man J.T. Arnold who had observed the earlier killing with Brad. Nan, previously informed by Norman that her brother is in danger, tries to convince her husband that Lowry's killing was not an accident. He pretends to be unconvinced. Confronting Norman, Nan is told of her husband's past, and Norman falsely informs her that Bailey was probably responsible for Lowry's death. Preparing a suicide note, Norman is interrupted by Vanning. He thinks this is a good solution, but wishes to keep politics out of it, so destroys her confession of Communist involvement.
Intent on revenge, Nan befriends Bailey at the fairground where he has legitimate employment and goes off with him. The hit man is saved when she is identified, and Nan is kidnapped and taken to the hidden local Communist headquarters in Arnold's warehouse. Brad tracks his wife down to this location, and by threatening Arnold with a gun, is able to gain admittance. In a shootout, Bailey and Vanning are killed, and Brad fatally injured. In his last moments Nan says she still loves him.
Production
The original story forming the basis of the film by Slavin and George was first optioned then rejected by Eagle-Lion. It was announced in early September 1948 as RKO's first production following Howard Hughes takeover of the studio.
Hughes reputedly offered the script to directors as a test for presumed communist leanings. Director Joseph Losey would claim the film was a “touchstone for establishing who was not a "red": you offered [it]... to anybody you thought was a communist, and if they turned it down, they were.” According to Losey, 13 directors turned down the film including himself, though this number has since been disputed.[5] John Cromwell said it was the worst film script he had ever read,[6] while Nicholas Ray departed shortly before production began. Rewrites were frequent and extensive, and the script had to pass through many hands before a final draft was constructed, including those of Art Cohn, James Edward Grant, Charles Grayson and Herman Mankiewicz.[4] The script was still considered incomplete even with these contributions, leading RKO to bring on veteran screenwriter Robert Hardy Andrews to polish what would become the final iteration of the screenplay. The completed script contained significantly less political messaging, and leaned much closer to a traditional melodrama. To add to these difficulties, there was considerable turnover among the cast as well. Merle Oberon was reportedly on salary as the film's female lead for several months before RKO announced that she would be replaced by Jane Greer, who was again quickly moved to a different production.[4] In January of 1949, Paul Lukas was reportedly brought on to play the communist leader. He collected nearly $50,000 before RKO moved on from him in March.[8] Production began in April 1949 under Robert Stevenson and lasted a month.[9] Hughes and RKO took great lengths to ensure the credibility of the film's anti-communist messaging, going so far as to contact Luis J Russel, an ex-FBI agent and HUAC investigator, for genuine Communist Party cards to use as models for the prop cards employed in a communist meeting scene.[4] Some of RKO’s early plans for the film even included a prologue by communist informant Elizabeth Bentley, who would introduce the film with a “carefully written” speech.[4] Newsreel footage of J. Edgar Hoover was requested, but denied because the FBI was aware of rumors Hughes was using the script as a ruse. The agency feared "persons of communist sympathies" would seek to undermine the project's intentions.[5] Robert Ryan, a liberal, was the only available contracted RKO actor and only agreed to be cast out of fear for his career.[10]
The initial local release disappointed expectations as showings in Los Angeles and San Francisco grossed about 40-50 percent below the average. In response, Hughes announced a delay in “the national release” of the film on October 14, 1949.[4] While Hughes still insisted the title I Married a Communist was the most marketable aspect of the picture, his staff maintained the title must be changed, and a lengthy search went underway. Hughes' reluctance made the decision difficult. Historian Daniel J Leab reportedly encountered “well over a hundred titles” in RKO files prior to December 12, 1949. Of these included an initial list of nineteen titles sent to Hughes in October which consisted mostly of the words “San Francisco”, “Melodrama”, “Waterfront” and “Midnight” in different arrangements.[4] In November it was nearly settled that the picture be called “Where Danger Lives”, before Hughes decided the film's title should be “an out-and-out melodramatic title” that was not “possibly associated with communism”.[4] “Incident on Pier 13” was in the rotation of suggestions by early December, and “The Woman on Pier 13” appeared on lists of potential titles as early as December 19. The title was officially announced as The Woman on Pier 13 in January 1950.[4] The film's final certified cost came to $831,360.
Reception
Box-office
The film was a commercial failure at the box-office,[5] and recorded a loss of $650,000.[6]
Critical reception
A contemporary Variety magazine review was tepid: "As a straight action fare, I Married a Communist generates enough tension to satisfy the average customer. Despite its heavy sounding title, pic hews strictly to tried and true meller formula ... Pic is so wary of introducing any political gab that at one point when Commie trade union tactics are touched upon, the soundtrack is dropped."[7]
In 2000, Dennis Schwartz's Ozus review questioned the film's veracity: "The story was filled with misinformation: it distorted the communist influence in the country and how big business and unions act. It attempted to make a propaganda film that reaffirms the American way of life and familial love, but at the expense of reality."[8]
In 2009 the British critic Tom Milne in the Time Out Film Guide wrote: "The sterling cast can make no headway against cartoon characters, a fatuous script that defies belief, and an enveloping sense of hysteria. Nick Musuraca's noir-ish camerawork, mercifully, is stunning."[9]
Identifying The Woman on Pier 13 as an "amalgam of propaganda and noir", Jeff Smith considered it paradoxical "to use film to build political consensus" by borrowing "devices and storytelling strategies from the bleakest and most pessimistic films Hollywood ever made".[when?][10][better source needed]
