Many of the great cinematographers of the classic period were filming programmers by the late 40’s, here it’s Billy Daniels, doing superb work in what must have been tight circumstances for ABANDONED, a lurid tale of a woman (Gail Storm) who goes looking for her sister and the baby she’s recently given birth to only to find her sister’s dead and the baby sold by a gangland ring that traffics in newborns. It’s got an attractive cast (Dennis O’Keefe, Jeff Chandler) of which I particularly liked Marjorie Rimbaud as the grand dame ringleader and Raymond Burr as a double-crossing detective who evokes a strangely powerful combination of the porcine and the epicene that is right at home in this noir setting. The film is beautifully lit in classic noir style but also attempts a documentary or at least ‘educational’ springboard to the narrative. Thus we get a very amusing explanation of what a police stakeout is, perhaps the first and last time that appeared in a crime film:

The definition of a ‘Stakeout’:

The more noir dimensions of the visuals:

José Arroyo