A church provides a little safety, some sanctuary, a chance to take your time and hide out, while you flee, where a paratrooper padre, listens to the words that you say, recount the tale of what's happened, these past few days. It all began with celebration and your pal, but as the train approaches station it goes mal, when your friend just disappears, seems he had a past career, and is wanted for a crime that's capital. So we follow you around as you hunt down, spiralling around a story causing frown, until you find what we all knew, suspense has very little glue, then a parachuting lady in a gown.

"Dead Reckoning" is a good, if not very original, film noir starring Humphrey Bogart as a paratrooper investigating his buddy's death. William Prince, who later was a more visible actor as a white-haired older man, has a small role as the buddy, who runs away when he learns he's about to receive the Medal of Honor. Later, he's found dead in his home town.

There are the usual ethnic stereotypes - the de riguer black maid, the thug of Italian descent, and the torturing thug of German descent. The thug in this case is Marvin Miller, who later became the assistant of John Beresford Tipton on the TV show, "The Millionaire." He got to give people $1 million tax free. With prices today, they'd probably all laugh in his face.

Lizabeth Scott is the woman "Johnny" (Prince) was in love with. She's an actress I always found heavy on style and slight on substance. Beautiful, with a warm smile, and one of the best voices in films, she never exhibited the acting range of, say, Bacall, whom she seemed groomed to follow. In this role, she's not very believable, which is great for the noir films, in which she excelled. You really didn't know how involved she was or wasn't in the crime at hand.

All in all, a very entertaining film with a solid performance by Bogart. Regarding the film's reference to the "Geronimo" cry that paratroopers made as they jumped, I asked an actual war paratrooper about this, and he said, "We were usually so scared we couldn't make a sound."

DEAD RECKONING is a typical film noir flick from the era, one which goes through the motions with something approaching finesse. There's certainly no messing around, even if the events that play out smack of familiarity. This one has it all: a dogged Humphrey Bogart on the trail of a missing friend; the voice-over narration explaining the intricacies of the story to the viewer; the glamorous femme fatale, played by Lizabeth Scott in scene-stealing mode. It's not one of the best I've seen, but it holds the attention well enough throughout and has a quality and feel look to it.