- Directed by Irving Reis and based on a short story by Frederic Brown, Crack-Up is a fun film noir arranged around the fascinating notion of a man who incorrectly believes he was in a train wreck. The man in question is art critic George Steele (Pat O'Brien), and he enters the film by breaking into the Manhattan Museum of Art in the throes of a violent mania. As he slowly grows more lucid, Steele describes a train collision, but the police lieutenant (Wallace Ford) claims that no such accidents have been reported. The museum's director (Erskine Sanford) cancels Steele's remaining art talks, the curator (Damian O'Flynn) offers Steele help, and a board member (Ray Collins) seems merely concerned.
- In flashback, we learn that Steele had just finished delivering an art lecture on the night of the alleged incident. Although his talks are well-received by the public, the director and the higher-ups aren't impressed with Steele's wry sense of humor and pronounced disdain for modern art. In fact, Steele is generally a pretty rude person who bristles whenever Terry Cordell (Claire Trevor) spends time with men like Mr. Traybin (Herbert Marshall), even when she's just doing her job as a reporter. Both Steele and Terry remember the call that came in about Steele's sick mother before he ran off to catch a train, though, and Steele further recalls that the train passengers included a rude vendor (Tommy Noonan) and a man too drunk to walk. The lights flash, the horn sounds, and Steele's memories go dark.
- Although the plot takes a few interesting twists and turns beyond this point -- counterfeit art and a dutiful secretary (Mary Ware) both factor prominently -- Steele's train-related hallucinations are definitely the most memorable part of Crack-Up. Plenty of film noir protagonists may feel like they're on a train destined to crash, but rarely is this metaphor rendered so literally as in this film. Steele and the audience are forced to watch a train speeding toward disaster not once but twice, and with two very different results. O'Brien does a lot to sell the experience as a grumpy man whose indomitable self-confidence finds itself badly shaken, and Trevor and Marshall deliver strong performances, too. Try not to crack up yourself when you meet the cantankerous station agent (Guy Beach), surrealist painter (Shimen Ruskin), or diminutive peep-show voyeur (Harry Monty).
