Friday Night Film Noir: T-Men (1947)

Conceptually, tonight's entry doesn't have much in common with other film noirs. The plot - two US Treasury agents infiltrate a counterfeit ring and meticulously work their way towards the top - is pretty straightforward cops-and-robbers terrain. But as mentioned here, "if someone asked me to choose one example of what film noir looked like, I would likely sit them down and show them T-Men. Aesthetically it’s simply astonishing."

THE CAST

Alfred Ryder (Robert Crater from "The Man Trap") and Dennis O'Keefe play the undercover Treasury Agents, Genaro and O'Brien.

Both give great performances, O'Keefe - the main character - especially. Ryder is the married one of the pair - when we first meet him, he unfolds a picture of his wife and puts it on the table in front of him as he writes her a letter - and O'Brien is a bachelor but married to his job.

He throws himself into both the investigation -

and buries himself in his undercover persona: a flashy gangster type.

Like all "undercover agent" stories, we see him pay the price for committing to the role successfully.

Genaro's not so lucky...

Charles McGraw, arguably at his grittiest, as the muscle, "Moxie."

Wallace Ford plays the bad guy we spend the most time with ("The Schemer") but it's McGraw who steals the show. Not counting Jane Randolph as the Number Two in the counterfeit ring:

Mary Meade plays the picture-lady at Club Trinidad through whom Agent O'Brien makes contact with the California side of the counterfeit ring. 

THE STORY

T-Men opens with the real life Elmer Lincoln Irey (one of the Treasury Agents who brought down Al Capone) telling us that what we're about to see is a composite of real events. 

"These are the 6 fingers of the Treasury Department's fist, and that fist hits fair - but hard."

Six fingers?

From there, an Untouchables/ Dragnet-style narration moves the criminal investigation along, while O'Brien and Genaro get to know each other and slowly unravel the mystery.

This scene where they meet is interesting as they go through an elaborate ritual of changing into their gangster duds.

"Name's Genaro." "Nice to know you, see?"

JOHN ALTON 

As mentioned above, the real star of the show is the cinematography. Every trick in the book is used to keep your eye glued to the screen. 

The technique calls attention to itself but is used so seamlessly that you barely notice how tricky some of the compositions are.

The bath scenes montage is probably the film's most-often cited visual. Understandably so. It was recreated pretty well in Paul Schrader's Blue Collar (1978.)

Reflective surfaces are also used to great effect.

Just an amazing-looking film.

One thing I wasn't able to screencap effectively was the pulsing lights of the neon signs outside the windows of some scenes. This became a visual cliche of the genre, but when you see the technique employed in T-Men, it's easy to understand how and why that was the case. 

Despite the red-white-and-blue swagger of the narration and the bookend Elmer Irey stuff, T-Men conveys a palpable unease - is all of this really worth it? The narration insists it is; this is the admittedly-high price we pay for a free society. Free = "real" money, though, i.e. fiat currency. America off the gold standard - something very much still in the air at the time (even after World War 2. Perhaps even especially.) Interestingly, the Treasury experts at one point - discussing the high quality of the counterfeiters' contraband - remind the audience that "China invented paper." But not paper currency. 

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