Johnny Allegro Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		3.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		0.0
Overall		2.5

Johnny Allegro Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman April 8, 2019

Note: This film is available as part of Noir Archive - Volume 1: 1944-1954.

While the frequently questionable “expertise” of Wikipedia asserts that film noir lasted from the early 1920s until the late 1950s, my hunch is at least some fans of film history would tend to proscribe the idiom’s heyday to a probably smaller window of time beginning at some point in the 1940s and then extending into some other point in the 1950s. If that proscription is accepted, it might then be arguable that there was no better purveyor of film noir than Columbia Pictures during this period. While many of the undisputed classics of film noir came from other studios, as in the case of Paramount’s Double Indemnity (released on Blu-ray through Universal, due to the vagaries of film catalogs changing hands), or Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s The Postman Always Rings Twice (released on Blu-ray through Warner Brothers, due to — well, you get the idea), Columbia Pictures managed to churn out a rather significant amount of noir offerings, albeit often in what would probably be termed the “B-movie” category. Kit Parker Films and Mill Creek Entertainment have now assembled nine of these rather interesting Columbia offerings in one three disc package, and for noir fans, there are at least a couple of rather notable films in this first collection (it looks like Noir Archive Volume 2: 1954- 1956 is due in a few months), as well as some other outings which frankly might be best categorized as oddities.

There’s a little remembered musical by Rodgers and Hammerstein called Allegro, which one critic at the time dismissed with a one word review: Andante. Despite the involvement of a capable cast, some may feel that the same kind of “slow” tempo afflicts Johnny Allegro, a film which is arguably on the unsubtle side, as is perhaps evidenced by the fact that the chief bad guy sports a surname which is suspiciously close to “villain”. That baddie is one Morgan Vallin (George Macready), who is the nefarious main squeeze of Glenda Chapman (Nina Foch), a damsel in distress who enlists Johnny Allegro (George Raft) in a bid for freedom.

Would you buy flowers from George Raft? Allegro is posited as an ex-con who now works as a florist, and one of the first scenes which depicts Allegro artfully arranging blooms may not exactly jibe with the perception of Raft as a tough guy’s tough guy. But the film has a number of subplots that aren’t especially well integrated. The underlying “scheme” is one of counterfeit money, but a lot of time is given over to Vallin’s skill with a bow and arrow, in an element that ends up playing weirdly like The Most Dangerous Game, including a “hunting party” on an isolated island.

Johnny Allegro Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Johnny Allegro is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Mill Creek Entertainment and Kit Parker Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.34:1. This is another one of the better looking transfers in this first volume of Noir Archive releases, though it still shows some of the same issues others in the set show, including some minor instability during credits, and fairly recurrent if minor speckling. There is what I'm thinking might be stock footage of a coast guard clipper several times late in the film that can look rather ragged compared to the rest of the presentation, and some of the day for night imagery when Raft and Foch get to the island isn't especially convincing. Grain spikes pretty appreciably in some of the exterior island sequences, especially a scene where Raft is doing a little spying on a dock. On the whole, though, this is a nicely sharp and well detailed transfer that has excellent contrast and nicely modulated gray scale. My score is 3.75.

Johnny Allegro Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Johnny Allegro's DTS-HD Master Audio Mono track is similarly nicely rendered. George Duning's score sounds nicely balanced, without any (or at least much) of the boxiness that accrues in some of the other releases on this set. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly and some fleeting attempts at realistic ambient environmental sounds during the island sequences resonate well enough.

Johnny Allegro Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

No supplements are offered on this release.

Johnny Allegro Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Johnny Allegro finds an aging George Raft not really very convincing as either a florist, an ex-con, or an undercover "agent", but the film is kind of goofily enjoyable on its own low scale merits. Video and audio are fine for those considering a purchase.