D.O.A. (1950), a film noir drama film directed by Rudolph Maté, is considered a classic of the genre. The frantically-paced plot revolves around a doomed man's quest to find out who has poisoned him – and why – before he dies.
Leo C. Popkin produced the film for his short-lived Cardinal Pictures, but failed to renew the copyright in 1977, so that it has fallen into the public domain. The Internet Movie Database shows that 22 companies offer the V...
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D.O.A. (1950), a film noir drama film directed by Rudolph Maté, is considered a classic of the genre. The frantically-paced plot revolves around a doomed man's quest to find out who has poisoned him – and why – before he dies.
Leo C. Popkin produced the film for his short-lived Cardinal Pictures, but failed to renew the copyright in 1977, so that it has fallen into the public domain. The Internet Movie Database shows that 22 companies offer the VHS or DVD versions, and the Internet Archive (see below) offers an online version.
The film begins with what a BBC reviewer called "perhaps one of cinema's most innovative opening sequences." The scene is a long, behind-the-back tracking sequence featuring Frank Bigelow (O'Brien) walking through the hallway of a police station to report his own murder. Oddly, the police almost seem to have been expecting him and already know who he is.
A flashback begins with Bigelow in his hometown of Banning, California where he is an accountant and notary...
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