While noir movies are already one of my favorites types of film, it is greatly appreciated when the plot of one concerns itself with world war 2 or its immediate aftermath. The Glass Wall is one such movie, and thankfully the storyline is not that complicated to follow, unlike many others in this genre. In this tense and exciting production, Vittorio Gassman plays Peter, a former concentration camp inmate from Hungary who saved an American paratrooper's life during the second world war. Because Peter has no passport, he is not allowed into the United States. The immigration officials on his ship care little for his compelling story about how he was tortured by the nazis. Peter wants the officials to search for his paratrooper friend, who now lives in New York, but Peter only knows his first name; Tom. Nothing else is known about him other than he has a job playing in a jazz band. Meanwhile, Peter is not willing to be deported back to Hungary, by now a socialist state under the jackboot of Soviet Russia. He leaps off the ship and injures his rib cage, and later comes across a woman in a diner trying to steal a coat just to survive. Her name is Maggie (Gloria Grahame), and she allows Peter to travel to her apartment after he saves her from being arrested. Shortly after, Maggie's annoying landlord Mrs. Hinckley comes to the door asking for money, and her brutish son searches the room. After he comes across Peter and has a fight with him, Maggie and Peter rush out while Hinckley's son calls the police. Peter is now wanted all over the city because he is not a legal citizen. As it turns out, Tom has been paying attention to all this nonsense involving the man who saved him back in ww2. He sees his picture in the paper and decides he must do whatever he can to prevent him from being arrested. Tom manages to lend credence to Peter's story (thought to be untrue earlier) about how he was stabbed in the shoulder with a German bayonet during the war. Early in the movie, Peter says he has a mark on his shoulder. Now realizing Peter was telling the truth, the authorities try to find him, but they have to do so before 7, or else he will be forced out of America permanently. Eventually, Peter is taken in by a fellow hungarian named Tanya, but he leaves her house voluntarily after his backstory is revealed to Tanya's argumentative brother. Finally, Peter decides his last safe place to be is the United Nations Headquarters, with its distinctive glass exterior. Once inside, he is chased by the police who want to save him, but he mistakes their efforts for an arrest attempt. Making it to the roof, Peter prepares to kill himself, but falls backward when he hears the voice of the soldier he once saved. With Tom able to verify Peter's story, he can now live in America. This is another excellent and straightforward movie from the 1950s. It doesn't have the most complicated story, but that's how I like it the most, as complex movies are painful to explain to someone who hasn't watched them. I thought Gloria Grahame's character was a welcome change from how girls are usually shown to be in noirs, since she actually has a bad side herself. The first we see of her, she's stealing somebody's jacket, and later, she steals money from a bunch of kids to pay back Peter. It's nice to see a woman who is complicit in the protagonist's crimes. Overall, this movie is decent even if the ending was a little wimpy because it could have just as easily concluded with Peter killing himself, but the producers didn't want to make the audience upset. Because the main character is a concentration camp survivor, this is understandable.
Review of The Glass Wall
