Josh Bell
The urban legend that fellow assassinated U.S. presidents Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy each had secretaries with the other’s surname may not be true, but a New York City police sergeant named John Kennedy saves Lincoln’s life in Anthony Mann’s offbeat period noir The Tall Target. Released 75 years ago this week, The Tall Target puts Lincoln at the center of the kind of twisty, morally compromised mystery that usually takes place in the back alleys of a modern city, starring noir staple Dick Powell as a hard-boiled detective who could have stepped out of those same alleys.
Aside from his old-timey pocket watch, Powell’s Kennedy is also dressed like a 1950s noir detective, in a rumpled suit and tie. He’s introduced having a heated argument with his boss, who doesn’t believe Kennedy’s assertion about a conspiracy to assassinate Lincoln en route to his inauguration in February 1861. Like hundreds of movie cops before and after him, Kennedy slams down his badge on his superior officer’s desk and quits the force, storming out of the police station determined to solve the case himself.
Aside from that early establishing scene, almost all of The Tall Target takes place in and around the train from New York to Washington, D.C., as Kennedy desperately tries to uncover the culprit or culprits behind the assassination plan. Mann elegantly introduces the possible suspects as Kennedy makes his way back and forth through the train cars, where most of the passengers seem hostile to the incoming president. There’s talk of a supposed rigged election, with the prospect of civil unrest holding up the train schedule. One railroad employee blames “radical Republicans” for the chaos, and Mann makes the turmoil of the time feel visceral and immediate, with resonance both to the Red Scare of the 1950s and the polarization of our current era.
For Kennedy, though, it’s not about politics. He spent a short time guarding Lincoln on the campaign trail, and he feels a personal affinity for the man, which motivates him to break various laws and put himself at great risk in order to warn Lincoln about the threat to his life. “I’m no Republican or abolitionist,” he tells Rachel, an enslaved woman played by a young Ruby Dee, but he does have a moral code, which is more than can be said for most of his fellow passengers. Even a strident anti-slavery journalist (Florence Bates) asks Rachel horrifically insensitive questions in her glee over meeting an enslaved person for the first time.
Rachel’s presence offers an extra reminder of what’s at stake, and Dee gives a sensitive performance without any of the typical stereotypes of Black characters in vintage Hollywood productions. Most of the characters who oppose Lincoln talk only about the prospect of war, and when the conspiracy’s leader is revealed, his justification comes down to financial greed, in familiar noir fashion.
The opening text crawl refers to the incident (inspired by the real-life Baltimore Plot) as “a forgotten chapter in the history of the United States,” and the movie ends with a stirring rendition of the “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” but there’s no simplistic patriotism here. Mann captures the messiness of a political moment when the entire country was on the verge of tearing itself apart, but people were still only looking out for their own interests.
That bracing cynicism marks The Tall Target as a noir as much as the moody visual style. Mann fills every train station stop with steam and shadows, obscuring the various threats coming at Kennedy from all sides. Aboard the train, Mann makes economical use of the cramped space, finding inventive ways to generate suspense as Kennedy investigates suspects and evades attackers. One of Mann’s most ingenious shots switches power dynamics in an instant, with a tight angle on Kennedy prowling through the aisles looking for clues before the camera pans to show that he’s now being led by a man with a gun at his back.
Powell gives Kennedy a mix of righteousness and recklessness, and Adolphe Menjou balances Powell’s grim determination as Kennedy’s jovial associate, a newly promoted militia colonel. With his prodigious mustache and mutton chops, Menjou fits more seamlessly into the period setting, dressed in a historically appropriate uniform. The contrast between the modern-looking detective and the old-fashioned military officer is a handy encapsulation of the tone that Mann successfully strikes here.
Although he tackled multiple genres, Mann is best known for his work in noir (Raw Deal, T-Men) and Westerns (Winchester ’73, The Man From Laramie), and The Tall Target exists on the cusp between the two. A few years later, Kennedy could be the upstanding sheriff sent to a lawless frontier town. For now, he’s the only bulwark against national lawlessness, a flawed noir hero doing his best to save a man he’s sworn to protect — who just happens to be one of the most famous figures in American history.
“The Tall Target” is available on Blu-ray.
