“Riffraff” (1947) starring Pat O’Brien, Walter Slezak and Anne Jeffreys / Z-View

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Riffraff (1947)

Director:  Ted Tetzlaff

Screenplay: Martin Rackin

Stars: Pat O’Brien, Walter Slezak, Anne Jeffreys, Jerome Cowan, George Givot, Marc Krah, William Alland, Bobby Barber and Percy Kilbride.

Tagline: None.

The Plot…

A plane leaves Peru for Panama with just two passengers.  The plane lands with just one.  His name is Charles Hasso (Krah).

Hasso immediately hires Dan Hammer (O’Brien) to be his bodyguard for two days.  Before Hammer can start, he gets a call from Walter Gredson (Cowan), a big shot oil executive.  Gredson says that a man, with a map of wildcat oil wells was coming to meet him.  The man got on the plane in Peru but never made it to Panama.  Charles Hasso was the other passenger.  Gredson believes Hasso now has the map.  Gredson offers Hammer a lot of money to find Hasso and the map.

Dan Hammer is a tough guy who is known as a man who can get things done.  This time he may be in over his head.  Especially when Eric Molinar (Slezak) gets in the mix.

Thoughts (beware of spoilers)…

Riffraff opens with six and a half minutes of scenes without dialogue.  It is considered one of movies’ classic openings/sequences.

Pat O’Brien doesn’t look like a typical tough PI, but more than holds his own in that department.

Riffraff (1947) rates 4 of 5 stars