''Portland Exposé'' is a 1957 American film noir directed by Harold Schuster and starring

Edward Binns Edward Binns (September 12, 1916 – December 4, 1990) was an American actor. He had a wide-spanning career in film and television, often portraying competent, hard working and purposeful characters in his various roles. He is best known for hi ...

and Carolyn Craig. The plot follows a tavern owner in

Portland, Oregon Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the list of cities in Oregon, largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette River, Willamette and Columbia River, Columbia rivers, Portland is ...

who is involved in a struggle for power between two gangs attempting to control the unions. The film was inspired by crime boss Jim Elkins and the

McClellan Committee The United States Senate Select Committee on Improper Activities in Labor and Management (also known as the McClellan Committee) was a select committee created by the United States Senate on January 30, 1957,Hilty, James. ''Robert Kennedy: Broth ...

's investigation into Portland's underground criminal ventures in the 1940s and 1950s, which were the subject of an extensive article published in ''

Life Life is a quality that distinguishes matter that has biological processes, such as Cell signaling, signaling and self-sustaining processes, from that which does not, and is defined by the capacity for Cell growth, growth, reaction to Stimu ...

'' magazine in March 1957. The film was distributed theatrically by Allied Artists in August 1957, though it was banned by local agencies from being screened within a radius of Portland.

Plot

In 1940s

, tavern proprietor George Madison resides with his wife Clara and their two children, teenage Ruth and young Jimmy. Pressured by salesman Spud Lennox, George agrees to place

pinball Pinball games are a family of games in which a ball is propelled into a specially designed table where it bounces off various obstacles, scoring points either en route or when it comes to rest. Historically the board was studded with nails call ...

machines in his business. Meanwhile, syndicate thugs Larry and Joe are attempting to start a gang war by pitting rival pinball and

gambling Gambling (also known as betting or gaming) is the wagering of something of value ("the stakes") on a random event with the intent of winning something else of value, where instances of strategy are discounted. Gambling thus requires three el ...

operations against each other. Under the supervision of their boss, Phillip Jacman, they report the names of various businesses housing the pinball machines, and Jacman orders them to pressure George into installing their machines into his tavern. The syndicate selects George's business as a target. Larry and Joe confront George at his tavern, and bully him into agreeing to put their machines in his business. George agrees to do so, and divide the profits in half. The installation of the syndicate's rival machines results in an increase in George's business, but Clara disapproves of the gambling connected to them. George agrees to covertly arrange a police raid at the tavern to eliminate the syndicate's presence; however, the raid is botched when police find nothing incriminating in the building. George meets with Portland's former crime boss, who warns him that the new syndicate will expand their enterprise to include drug trafficking and prostitution. Later, Ruth goes on a date with her boyfriend Benny, but he leaves her when she refuses to have sex with him. Outside the tavern, Ruth is accosted by Joe, who has been stalking her; Joe attempts to

rape Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse or other forms of sexual penetration carried out against a person without their consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority, or ...

her, but George interferes when he hears her screams. George overpowers Joe and holds him at gunpoint, but ultimately lets him free. Later, Larry executes Joe at Jacman's instruction. Shortly before Clara is to leave to her mother's home in Corvallis with Ruth and Jimmy, Benny visits and apologizes to Ruth. Meanwhile,

trade union A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and benefits ...

leader Alfred Grey begins investigating the syndicate. George is formally initiated into the syndicate after proving his loyalty, and uses his insider position to provide Alfred with information to bring them down. George wears a

wiretap Telephone tapping (also wire tapping or wiretapping in American English) is the monitoring of telephone and Internet-based conversations by a third party, often by covert means. The wire tap received its name because, historically, the monitorin ...

in an attempt to record damning evidence incriminating the syndicate. One night, Clara phones George to tell him Ruth is returning home to attend a fraternity party with Benny. A worried Clara decides to leave Jimmy with her mother and return to the city to find Ruth and George. While George attends the syndicate's party for a madame who has recently arrived in Portland to operate a high-end

escort agency An escort agency is a company that provides escorts for clients, usually for sexual services. The agency typically arranges a meeting between one of its escorts and the client at the customer's house or hotel room (outcall), or at the escort' ...

, a prostitute there named Iris discovers George is wearing a wire, and informs the syndicate. Immediately, several men are sent to George's house to find any tapes he may have recorded, and stumble upon Ruth, whom they kidnap. George is abducted from the party and taken to the syndicate's headquarters in a secluded warehouse. When he refuses to provide information, the syndicate beat him mercilessly before threatening to blind Ruth with acid. George claims to have buried the tapes in the woods, prompting the thugs to untie him so he can lead them to their location; when they do so, George flees with Ruth through the warehouse. The two are ultimately saved by the unionists, led by Grey, who fight off the syndicate, allowing Ruth and George to escape to safety.

Cast

Production

Filming of ''Portland Exposé'' took place in

Portland Portland most commonly refers to: * Portland, Oregon, the largest city in the state of Oregon, in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States * Portland, Maine, the largest city in the state of Maine, in the New England region of the northeas ...

and

Gresham, Oregon Gresham ( ) is a city located in Multnomah County, Oregon, in the United States of America, immediately east of Portland, Oregon. It is considered a suburb within the Greater Portland Metropolitan area. Though it began as a settlement in the mid ...

Release

Allied Artists released ''Portland Exposé'' in the United States on August 11, 1957, though approximately 20 cities in the

Pacific Northwest The Pacific Northwest (sometimes Cascadia, or simply abbreviated as PNW) is a geographic region in western North America bounded by its coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains to the east. Tho ...

pulled the film from their screening schedules, and it was banned within a -radius of Portland, where it had been scheduled to premiere on August 14. An agent who canceled the Portland premiere stated that his primary reason was that approximately 40 individuals involved in the crimes upon which the film was based had threatened to sue should the film be shown there. The film continued to screen throughout the country, opening in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

on September 26, 1957.

Critical response

Dorothy Masters of the '' New York Daily News'' noted that the film "has more integrity than most of its genre," and praised the direction and cinematography. Myles Standish of the ''

St. Louis Post-Dispatch The ''St. Louis Post-Dispatch'' is a major regional newspaper based in St. Louis, Missouri, serving the St. Louis metropolitan area. It is the largest daily newspaper in the metropolitan area by circulation, surpassing the ''Belleville News-De ...

'' was less impressed by the film, deeming it "one of those quickie sensations which exposes nothing except the producer is hot after a fast buck... it is a trite B melodramatic crime plot, people obscured by actors." A review published in ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' questioned the film's validity, noting: "At the end of ''Portland Expose'', which arrived at Loew's State yesterday, there is a pretentious and cloying reference to the United States Senate investigation earlier this year into corrupt labor practices in the Pacific Northwest. Whatever the real situation may have been in Portland, Ore., an observer cannot help wondering whether it possibly could have borne such a striking resemblance to standard crime melodrama as ''Portland Expose'' would have us believe."

Home media

The film was released on

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kind ...

as a double feature with ''

They Were So Young ''They Were So Young'' (german: link=no, Mannequins für Rio) is a 1954 German-American drama film directed by Kurt Neumann (director), Kurt Neumann and written by Felix Lützkendorf, Kurt Neumann and the Hollywood blacklist, blacklisted screenwr ...

'' (1954) by VCI in 2006 as Volume 1 of its Forgotten Noir series. VCI reissued the film on DVD as a standalone release in 2011.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Portland Expose 1957 films American crime thriller films American gangster films American political thriller films Crime films based on actual events Film noir Films directed by Harold D. Schuster Films scored by Paul Dunlap Films set in Portland, Oregon Films set in Oregon Films shot in Portland, Oregon Allied Artists films 1950s crime thriller films 1950s political thriller films 1950s English-language films 1950s American films