“D.O.A.” (1950, Rudolph Matě) This film exhibits the central film noir theme that sometimes at quite random, any one character from any level of society can be an unwilling victim to the world of crime that lurks in shadows. Edmond O’Brien plays Frank Bigelow, a Central Valley California accountant, who is the target of such crime only because he notarized a bill of sale that would convict two individuals on covering up a murder for oodles of cash. DOA has wonderful characters played by expertly type-casted actors. The stand-outs would be the three thugs sent to retrieve Bigelow for a Mr. Majak. The three are led by the dumbest of ring-leaders, Chester. “It’s not his fault. He’s…psychopathic. He gets pleasure from hurting you,” is how Mr. Majak explains Chester’s behavior to Bigelow. The character of the actual murderer, played by William Ching, is also an expert choice in the Dan Duryea mode of icy-cool blonde male. The dialogue in this film is almost as good as film noir dialogue gets. And there is a great shift in tone of the film from Frank, the happy-go-lucky, deciding on whether to get married to a waiting girl or not, mentally whistling (non-diagetic corniness at its best) at girls he sees in the hotel; to Frank, the frantic, cornered, poisoned with limited time left (“It may be a day, two days, a week, 2 at the most…”) individual. From a vacation to a nightmare told in a flashback. DOA is a great noir film, close to the upper echelon of those films.