C-Man - Dean Jagger

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S E A R C H D V D B e a v e r

directed by Joseph Lerner
USA 1949

When his best friend is murdered in pursuit of jewel smugglers, customs agent Dean Jagger finds himself assigned to track down the killers and close the case. He flies to Europe in order to catch a return flight on which a chief suspect (Réné Paul) will be traveling. Before boarding, Jagger makes the acquaintance of a war-bride (Lottie Elwen), journeying to America to join her fiancé.

During the night flight across the Atlantic, Elwen falls `ill;' (she's been drugged on board by soused-up sawbones John Carradine, working for the smuggling ring). From the airport, she's whisked away in a hijacked ambulance, wearing a priceless necklace. There's a traffic crash, and she escapes to flee (she thinks) to her waiting fiancé; alas, the groom-to-be has been murdered as well, by one of Paul‘s myrmidons, vicious hothead Harry Landers. Jagger meets her there, thinking she's an accomplice; when he comes to trust her, he goes undercover to penetrate the operation....

C-Man is a New York story told in the warts-and-all, in-your-face style of the following year's The Tattooed Stranger or Guilty Bystander (the latter also directed by Joseph Lerner) – a low-down, dirty town. The location shooting takes us to as many liquor stores as Ray Milland patronized in The Lost Weekend (Jagger is tracking down Carradine, who has a taste for pricey Benedictine), to jazz cellars and fleabag hotels (the one `penthouse' we visit is dowdily middle-class). Part of the grunge can be laid to a desperately low budget, but the filmmakers turn their liabilities into pungent atmosphere.

Excerpt of review from Bill McVicar at imdb.com located HERE

Posters

Theatrical Release: 27 May 1949 (New York)

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DVD Review: Alpha - Region 0 - NTSC

Big thanks to Gregory Meshman for the Review!

DVD Box Cover		CLICK to order from:
Distribution	Alpha Region 0 - NTSC
Runtime	1:16:18
Video	1.33:1 Original Aspect Ratio Average Bitrate: 3.79 mb/s NTSC 720x480 29.97 f/s
	NOTE: The Vertical axis represents the bits transferred per second. The Horizontal is the time in minutes.
Bitrate
Audio	Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono (English)
Subtitles	None
Features	Release Information: Studio: Alpha Aspect Ratio: Fullscreen - 1.33:1 Edition Details: • Bonus trailers for titles from Alpha New Cinema • Alpha Video DVD Catalog DVD Release Date: March 28th, 2006 Keep Case Chapters 7

Comments

Here is a fast-paced crime drama from Film Classics that is so far only available through Alpha Video. C-Man stars Dean Jagger as the title customs agent undercover to crack a case of his friend's murder by infiltrating a gang of jewelry smugglers. German-born Lottie Elwen is a woman in distress in her only film role and John Carradine makes a 5-minute cameo as a doc working for the smugglers.

The film starts with an Alpha watermark that, thankfully, does not make an appearance afterwards (see bottom left corner in the title capture). Unfortunately, the interlaced transfer is poor, something that is expected from this studio. The image is muddy with poor contrast. There is a lot of damage throughout the picture and chroma can be seen in a few scenes. Audio is damaged as well, with many pops and sound distortions. There are some trailer for Alpha New Cinema titles and a DVD catalog, but one wishes a better release will eventually get released, but who knows if a better source exists.

- Gregory Meshman

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