Tonight's Movie: Appointment With Danger (1950) - A Kino Lorber Blu-ray Review

One of my favorite Alan Ladd films, APPOINTMENT WITH DANGER (1950), was just released on Blu-ray by Kino Lorber.

The movie is part of the Dark Side of Cinema XX collection along with Ladd's CAPTAIN CAREY U.S.A. (1950); the other film in the set is MAKE HASTE TO LIVE (1954).

Coincidentally, MAKE HASTE TO LIVE was written by Warren Duff, who cowrote the APPOINTMENT WITH DANGER screenplay with Richard L. Breen.

I first saw APPOINTMENT WITH DANGER at the 2019 Noir City Hollywood Festival and revisited it last year at the 2023 Arthur Lyons Film Noir Festival.

This latest viewing confirms my opinion that this is a film with great "rewatch" value, thanks to a number of factors including Ladd, a sharp and witty screenplay, and some terrific location filming.

Alan Ladd plays U.S. Postal Inspector Al Goddard, who travels to Gary, Indiana, to investigate the death of a colleague.

The cynical Al is gradually softened by his exposure to idealistic Sister Augustine (Phyllis Calvert), the only witness to the murder.

Al must work to keep his key witness alive while also trying to solve the crime.

Everything about the movie works, from the involving story to Ladd's charismatic performance to the supporting cast. As mentioned, the script is quite good; Ladd has some terrific lines. I like this movie a great deal.

As with the film I reviewed last night, DARK CITY (1950), two of the crooks are played by future DRAGNET costars Jack Webb and Harry Morgan. It's kind of wild seeing dedicated cops "Friday and Gannon" as killers.

The supporting cast also includes Geraldine Wall, Paul Stewart, Jan Sterling, Herb Vigran, David Wolfe, and Harry Antrim.

APPOINTMENT WITH DANGER runs a well-paced 90 minutes and was directed by Lewis Allen (THE UNINVITED) and filmed in black and white by John F. Seitz. The musical score was by Victor Young.

A funny aside: The opening narrator's admiring comments about the post office's efficiency, including mail carriers visiting homes and businesses "a dozen times a week," made me chuckle. Oh, for the days when your mailman dropped off mail twice a day!

The good looking Blu-ray print is from an HD master of a 4K scan. Sound is also excellent.

Extras consist of the trailer; a gallery of three additional trailers; and a commentary track by Heath Holland (Cereal at Midnight) and Max Allan Collins.

Kino Lorber is certainly making Alan Ladd fans happy this year. In addition to the two Ladd films in this Dark Side of Cinema XX set, I also have his RED MOUNTAIN (1951) and BOTANY BAY (1953) in my review stack, and his long-unavailable THE GREAT GATSBY (1949) was recently announced by Kino Lorber as "coming soon."

Update: Here are links to my reviews of the other films in this set, CAPTAIN CAREY, U.S.A. and MAKE HASTE TO LIVE.

Thanks to Kino Lorber for providing a review copy of this Blu-ray collection.

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