Big acting is the offer in I Walk Alone, the first of many teamings for Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas, and the first directorial effort by Byron Haskin, up till this point an effects guy. Haskin delivers nuanced, psychologically attuned drama while Lancaster and Douglas go at it like fighting dogs. The whole thing is great to watch and it’s easy to see why Scorsese is such a big fan (it marks a transition from one type of film-making to another, he says). The critics of the day were less enthusiastic. “Low grade of melodrama,” said the New York Times. “Dreary,” said the Chicago Tribune. Variety liked it, though. So let’s side with Scorsese and Variety.
It’s a pile-on plot. Lancaster plays Frankie Madison, just out of jail after 14 years inside. He and Douglas’s character, Noll Turner, ran a bootlegging operation back in the day, but it was Frankie alone who took the fall when things went bad. Now he’s free he’s keen for Noll to make good on his promise to split the money they made together. In the interim Noll has turned that money into something, has become quite the reputable, rich entrepreneur, in fact. Shouldn’t Frankie have some of that too?
On top of the question of what 14 years of life is worth, and the dispute over the money, there’s the added complication of women. There are two in Noll’s life – the classy one he wants to marry and the one he wants to keep on as a mistress. What if Frankie also started getting fresh with them? Possibly because he’s a man who’s been in prison for 14 years and has itchy pants, possibly because he just wants to irritate Noll, who is an easily irritated man. They both are.
Kristine Miller plays the up-market Alexis Richardson. She introduces herself to Frankie as “Mrs Alexis Richardson,” and he replies, “You say that like it was spelt in capital letters.” One of several Raymond Chandleresque interchanges in this movie. I Walk Alone came out in 1947, after a run of films scripted by Chandler – Double Indemnity (1944), Murder My Sweet (1944), The Blue Dahlia (1946) and The Big Sleep (1946). This isn’t, but it wants to be.
The other woman is played by Lizabeth Scott, as Kay Lawrence, a singer at Noll’s nightclub, part-time vamp and part-time doormat, the character lending itself to Scott’s odd way of acting – either perfect or hopeless, with barely anything in between.
Business versus human feeling is the deal. Frankie is all human feeling – hurt, mostly – while Noll is pure business. Why won’t Frankie understand that he’s owed what he’s owed and nothing more? Why won’t Noll understand that a handshake all those years before sealed in more than just the words that were spoken at the time?
Noll’s nickname used to be Dink. No one uses it any more, except Frankie, who spits the hard D and K at him repeatedly. That sums up the way these two guys go at it, stiff legged and snarling, chests forward, biceps flexed. It’s going to come to blows at some point.
They are perfectly cast and work off each other brilliantly, Lancaster uneasy as a volcano, Douglas coiled like a snake. Noll and Frankie’s first meeting together after so many years – beautifully withheld by Haskin – is powerhouse stuff, the characters and actors in perfect sync. But then it is all very well cast – Miller and Scott, plus Wendell Corey as Frankie’s loyal old sidekick, Mike Mazurki as Dan’s boneheaded muscle and Marc Lawrence, excellent as ever as the ex gang member (now an accountant!) who knows both men and will, in a strange sort of way, end up adjudicating the dispute.
Beneath all the scowling and manoeuvring, a quiet examination of the idea that old-school crooks have nothing on the new corporate crooks, who use the law to do their dirty work. And for fans of film noir, some very fancy lighting, especially towards the end. The shootout in a darkened room with light filtering through the curtains is particularly spiffy. Hats off to DP Leo Tover.
I Walk Alone – Watch it/buy it at Amazon
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© Steve Morrissey 2026
