(1955)
3
Craig Butler
A somewhat overblown melodrama, Blood Alley doesn't totally succeed as a film, but it does have its exciting moments and will be especially appreciated by fans of John Wayne and/or anti-Communist films and/or suspense melodramas with a foreign war background. Alley's biggest problem is its script, which is clichéd and trite and which features dialogue in each scene that is almost always exactly what one would expect to hear, a fact which makes the scenes become rather monotonous. It also doesn't help that there's little chemistry between Wayne and co-star/love interest Lauren Bacall. Wayne is Wayne, which is all diehard fans will ask for, and he certainly carries the movie, but he lacks complexity; perhaps originally cast Robert Mitchum would have added that missing ingredient. Fortunately, Alley has some definite assets as well, including William Wellman's muscular direction, which is especially well suited to the high octane sequences and which is valuable in keeping suspense and tension up. He's aided by William H. Clothier's fine cinematography, which (along with expert production design) makes California look convincingly Asian. Perhaps the most memorable thing about Alley, though, is that this is the film that Wayne was promoting when he made his legendary appearance on I Love Lucy.
cast-crew for Blood Alley on AllMovie
Blood Alley (1955)
