Still image from the 1949 film Red Light.

Red Light

Directed by Roy Del Ruth

An embezzler's revenge on the businessman who turned him in leads to a bloody vendetta.

1949 1h 23m Crime TV-PG

Expires: February 27th


CAST
see full cast & crew at TCMDb: view

0

Roy Del Ruth, Director
47832|135665
Roy Del Ruth
Director

1

George Raft, John Torno
157085|59266
George Raft
John Torno

2

Virginia Mayo, Carla North
125682|151852
Virginia Mayo
Carla North

3

Gene Lockhart, Warni Hazard
115352|57672
Gene Lockhart
Warni Hazard

4

Raymond Burr, Nick Cherney
25706|128117
Raymond Burr
Nick Cherney

5

Henry Morgan, Rocky
135426|190052
Henry Morgan
Rocky

FULL SYNOPSIS

In the projection room of San Quentin's movie theater, convict projectionists Nick Cherney and Rocky watch a newsreel which includes a story about Army chaplain Jess Torno returning home to San Francisco after five years in the South Pacific. In the newsreel, Jess is greeted by his brother John, the head of the Torno freight line company, who had Cherney, one of his bookeepers, arrested after he discovered that he had been embezzling from the firm. As Rocky is to be released the following week, Cherney hires him to exact revenge on John. John, who is very devoted to Jess, learns that he has been assigned to a church farther north and offers to drive him there. However, as Jess is packing in his hotel room, the lights go out, and Rocky enters the room and shoots him. Jess is still alive when John arrives to pick him up and John asks him to name the gunman, but all that Jess can say is, "written in Bible," before he dies in John's arms. However, John can find nothing in Jess's Bible. Later, John receives a visit from two homicide detectives, Strecker and Ryan, who warn him not to take the law into his own hands. After Warni Hazard, John's partner, tells him that Cherney has been released, John finds Cherney and accuses him of killing Jess, but Strecker points out that Cherney was still in prison when Jess died. While walking with Warni, John notices an office of the Gideons, an international society that places Bibles in hotel rooms, and realizes that there was a second...


VIDEOS
see more videos at TCMDb: view
Noir Alley: Eddie Muller on Re...
Hosted Intro
Two Brothers Reunited...
Movie Clip
Look Mr. Gideon!
Movie Clip
I Got No Hard Feelings...
Movie Clip

ARTICLES
"Don't give me all that malarkey about 'do unto others as you would have them do unto you.' Sure, Jess went for that stuff and what did it get him? A bunch of lilies and six silver handles!" -- George Raft, in Red Light Red Light (1949) is a rather obscure film noir from United Artists, newly released on DVD by Warner Archive in a nice-looking transfer. Fans of film noir and George Raft will enjoy it. Raft, playing a trucking company owner named Johnny Torno, spends the movie trying to track down a bible that was taken from the hotel room where his brother Jess (Arthur Franz), a former army chaplain, was murdered. Before dying, Jess was able to tell Johnny that he'd written something in that bible, presumably the name of the killer. Raft becomes a vengeful man on a mission, unwilling to share any information with the police as he seeks out the various people who registered for the hotel room in the time since his brother's death. One of them, Carla (Virginia Mayo), eventually helps him in his quest. Meanwhile, the audience is aware from the get-go that a former inmate named Rocky (Henry Morgan) is the killer, and that he was hired by Nick Cherney (Raymond Burr), who's in prison for embezzling funds from Torno when he worked at Torno's company. The plotting is simple enough, but for some reason it is at times rather muddled as told on screen. (Examples: Raft looks through a bible right away after the murder, but it is not, as we assume, the hotel room bible....

NOTES

The working title of this film was Mr. Gideon. Hollywood Reporter news items provide the following information about the production: In 1941, producer Roy del Ruth bought the title rights to Weldon Reeder's This Week magazine story, "Red Light." As noted in the onscreen credits, however, the film's story was based on Donald Barry's short story "This Guy Gideon," and not on Reeder's work. Alice Faye, Shelley Winters and Carmen Miranda were considered for roles in the picture, but do not appear in the completed film. Actors Homer Crane, Lily Hoffman, Jimmy Phillips, Cathy Carter, Margaret Burkett, Roddy Currie, Alice White and Joel Marston were also considered for parts in Red Light, but their appearance in the completed picture has not been confirmed. Virginia Mayo was borrowed from Warner Bros. for the role of "Carla North." Portions of the film were shot on location in San Francisco, Sacramento, San Quentin Penitentiary, Carmel and Monterey, CA and Reno, NV. Hollywood Reporter also announced that the production would be the first feature film to utilize magnetic sound recording instead of optical sound.

Welcome, DISH customer! Please note that we cannot save your viewing history due to an arrangement with DISH.

Watchlist and resume progress features have been disabled.

ACCEPT