Slattery's Hurricane (1949)
In Andre de Toth's post-war, noir drama, told in flashback,
about betrayal, adultery, and drug smuggling:
- the opening (although concluding) scene in an airplane
hangar, during a threatening Florida hurricane, when anti-authority
fighter pilot Will Slattery (Richard Widmark) beat a co-employee
Frank (Stanley Waxman) in order to steal his employer's private
seaplane Grumman Mallard from the estate in Miami; his goal was
to take the place of his drunken Navy war pal Lt. 'Hobbie' Hobson
(John Russell) (and against Navy orders and the threat of court-martial),
to suicidally engage in a dangerous tracking flight into the eye
of a hurricane approaching the Florida coast (200 miles off-shore)
- the previous events in the film were soon to be seen in flashback
as he piloted the plane and radioed in coordinates of the storm
- he mused (in voice-over): "What can you do about it? You're
spinnin' around up here like a cork. You know how it all started,
didn't you? Yeah, you could spin it that day too. Remember? Remember?"
- the main characters: Slattery - a cargo flight pilot
in the Caribbean for a shady Miami-based "candy manufacturer" (a
pair of homosexual drug runners, A.J. Milne (Walter Kingsford) and
Gregory (Joe De Santis)), a job arranged by his loyal girlfriend
Dolores Grieves (Veronica Lake in her last Hollywood film), Milne's
drug-addicted secretary
- Slattery's adulterous affair with ex-girlfriend, Aggie
Hobson (Linda Darnell), the wife of Slattery's Navy war pal Hobbie,
who was assigned to the Navy weather squadron
- the scene of a belated and unexpected Navy Cross
medal of honor ceremony for Slattery, and the crucial moment when
Dolores approached him (to congratulate him), but found that her
unfaithful boyfriend was kissing Aggie - and soon after when Aggie
and Will were leaving together, Dolores had a spectacular collapse
(from an off-screen overdose?)
- the ambulance scene - a stricken Dolores was raced
in an ambulance to the hospital (she was diagnosed in the hospital
with drug addiction: "Diagnosis: Pharmacopsychosis" and
placed in a psychiatric ward), when the camera switched positions
to capture Will and Aggie in a car following the ambulance in an
open convertible
- in the conclusion of the story, Slattery sought redemption
by taking the suicidal weather mission (in the original ending before
it was reshot, Slattery died as a martyr during the suicidal mission);
he crash-landed but survived, was restored to active naval duty (and
the hurricane was named after him), and was unexpectedly reunited
with Dolores