Moonrise

1948

Action / Crime / Drama / Film-Noir / Romance / Thriller

10
Rotten Tomatoes Critics - Rotten 72% · 13 reviews
Rotten Tomatoes Audience - Upright 72% · 250 ratings
IMDb Rating 7.0/10 10 3288 3.3K

noir swamp film noir guilt

Plot summary

Stigmatized from infancy by the fate of his criminal father, a man is bruised and bullied until one night, in a fit of rage, he kills his most persistent tormentor. As the police close in around him, he makes a desperate bid for the love of the dead man’s fiancée, a schoolteacher who sees the wounded soul behind his aggression.

Director

Frank Borzage Photo
Frank Borzage

Top cast

Irving Bacon Photo
Irving Bacon as Judd Jenkins
Dane Clark Photo
Dane Clark as Danny Hawkins
Lila Leeds Photo
Lila Leeds as Julie
Amzie Strickland Photo
Amzie Strickland as Minor Role
720p.BluRay 1080p.BluRay
754.4 MB
988*720
English 2.0
NR
Subtitles us  
23.976 fps
1 hr 30 min
Seeds 1
1.43 GB
1472*1072
English 2.0
NR
Subtitles us  
23.976 fps
1 hr 30 min
Seeds 4

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by Steve-O-2 8 / 10

Excellent Film Noir

Dream-like dark film about a man driven to murder. Aside from the soundtrack and the lack of southern accents, this movie shines. A great b-movie with great visuals. Check out star Dane Clark goes eye to eye with a racoon, realizing they're both trapped with no escape. The film's not for everyone, but if you like b&w film noir you should dig this one up.
Reviewed by AlsExGal 8 / 10

moody atmospheric southern noir from...Republic Pictures???

Normally, I would think when you pitched a film idea to Republic their first question would be "OK, what does this have to do with Westerns or John Wayne?" And here is a film from that studio that involves neither.In a small Virginia town, Danny Hawkins' father is hanged for murder when Danny (Dane Clark) is just an infant. The result is that, for his entire life, other kids have tormented him for being the son of a man who was executed. Like he had any control over that anymore than he had any control over how tall he was. Thus is the nature of bullying. But I digress.One night at a dance, out in the woods, Danny and his tormenter since childhood are having a fight. Jerry Sykes (Lloyd Bridges) is the tormenter, and when the fight turns against him, he picks up a rock. Bad idea. Danny gets the rock away from him and does to Sykes what Sykes was going to do to him - bashes his skull in repeatedly, with a lifetime of anger over this guy's bullying swirling in his head. Realizing what he has done, he throws Sykes' body into the swamp and goes back to the dance like nothing has happened.The rest of the town is about as likeable as Sykes was - judgmental, snobby, a hive mentality. But those characters are largely kept at a distance as part of the crowd. The ones you get to know are likeable and sympathetic people - a retired brakeman living in the woods (Rex Ingram), Sykes' girl whom Danny unfortunately loves (Gail Russell), and believe it or not the sheriff, playing against stereotype for the lawman of a southern town of the era. Oh, and it turns out that Sykes was not that great a guy - he owed lots of money and he stole lots of money from dad's bank to pay his debts.Given Sykes' bad character there might be any number of suspects, and given the decomposition of the body by the time it is found and the primitive nature of forensics as it was in 1948, Danny might not even be a suspect if he played it cool. But he does just the opposite of that, drawing the attention of the whole town by his suddenly bizarre behavior.This is practically a one man show and probably the best performance Dane Clark ever gave as his character wrestles with bitterness, anger, guilt, and fear of the town that hanged his father and thus would probably never believe his own story of partial self defense. The costar of the film is the fantastic cinematography by John L. Russell, with beautiful black and white shading, with many important scenes being shot in the moonlight.
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