In a moment that foreshadows the famously vicious moment in Fritz Lang’s The Big Heat where Gloria Grahame’s character takes a pot of hot coffee to the face, Rick, annoyed at Joe’s successful escape, flings a flaming drink in his girlfriend’s (Chili Williams) face after she simply bumps into him while dancing. The emotional violence unleashed by Joe, Pat, and Ann is topped only by Rick’s startling outbursts of physical violence.
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If Pat’s “raw deal” is Joe’s waning feelings for her in the face of her commitment to helping him, Joe’s is the harsh lesson that “honor amongst thieves” is clearly just a phrase people say, not a code that anyone actually lives by. Unfortunately for Joe, he not only finds himself stuck between two women, but the law has him surrounded and his old boss, the sadistic, pyromaniac Rick (Raymond Burr), who he took the wrap for, now wants him dead. She may be the blond bad girl, who appeals to Joe’s worst instincts, but the film filters much of the proceedings through her perspective, rendering her undying devotion to Joe, who, after all, has never even said he loves her, as something that’s both tragic and laudable.
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Pat’s pronouncements exude a deep yearning and anticipation that somehow manage to sound hopeless even when her words are full of hope. Perhaps surprisingly, it’s Trevor who provides the film’s voiceover, and her strained, wavering voice, accompanied by Paul Sawtell’s eerie theremin-laced score, endows Pat with a dignity that she otherwise wouldn’t have earned. Alton’s work is a constantly thrilling display of darkness and light that mirrors Joe’s internal moral battle, as well as the anguish Pat experiences as she sees Joe falling for Ann right in front of her eyes. Mann and cinematographer John Alton fill nearly every frame with stark shadows, frequently using canted angles and low-angle shots to further intensify the stifling, oppressive atmosphere as Joe and Pat feel the world closing in on them. Throughout, romantic longing is met with equal doses of despair and a sense of entrapment that the trio can’t escape no matter how fast they drive. Raw Deal, then, follows a love triangle that’s made all the more uncomfortable given that its three sides are stuck on the road together. With good behavior, he’ll be paroled after three years, at least according to Ann (Marsha Hunt), the pretty, young legal caseworker who’s taken an interest in his case, but that sounds like an eternity to the fortysomething convict, who’s suffocating on the inside and wants some fresh air, pronto, no matter the price.Īfter Joe’s getaway car breaks down, courtesy of a bullet to the gas tank, he and Pat drag Ann into their dirty business, taking her car and bringing her along for the ride since she’s a little too itchy to phone the police, thinking it’s the only way to save Joe’s life. Joe Sullivan (Dennis O’Keefe), the protagonist of Anthony Mann’s 1948 film Raw Deal, seems to know this even before he breaks out of prison with the help of his tough, possessive girlfriend, Pat (Claire Trevor). It offers desperate, world-weary types a sense of freedom from the grips of fate or the sins of the past, but every seemingly endless stretch of asphalt inevitably runs into a dead end.
The road is the greatest of false promises in the shadow world of noir.
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