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8 out of 11 people found the following comment useful:-
One of Otto Preminger's best, 23 August 2002
Author:
Dennis Littrell ([email protected]) from SoCal
This is film noir played in part as a comedy of manners. (Incidentally, a
comedy of manners gets its name from the satirical possibilities in the
differing class views on proper behavior--manners--exploited by playwrights
to the delight of an audience placed in a superior position--they think--of
social discernment. Here we can see the differentials, but they are not
played for comedic effect.)
Gene Tierney (at twenty-four) stars as Laura Hunt, a beautiful career girl
who, as the picture opens, has been murdered. (Shot in face with a double
barreled shotgun, a point of information not dwelled on by director Otto
Preminger. Today's directors, of course, would have begun with a full
facial shot of the corpse.) Dana Andrews is the leading man, playing Mark
McPherson, a hard-boiled police detective with a soft heart. Vincent
Price,
who before he became a maven of horror, was actually a soft-spoken, hunkish
ladies man, plays Shelby Carpenter, who could afford to have his reputation
blemished, but not his clothes. He is a man about town who would fit
nicely
into a British comedy of manners at the turn of the nineteenth
century.
But the surprising star is Clifton Webb who plays Waldo Lydecker, venomous
columnist and radio personality, who against his first impressions, falls
madly (and of course hopelessly) in love with Laura and becomes her mentor.
This was before the genteel and very precise veteran of the musical stage
was Mr. Belvedere, and before his triumph in Cheaper by the Dozen (1950),
that is to say, before he was typecast as an irascible but lovable middle
aged man--but not before his fiftieth birthday; strange how the fortunes of
actors may go. By the way, George Sanders's Oscar-winning performance as
the cynical critic in All About Eve (1950), owes something to Webb's work
here.
The strength of the movie is in the intriguing storyline featuring
surprising but agreeable plot twists, and especially in the fine acting by
Webb, Andrews, Tierney and Price. Webb in particular is brilliant. I
think
this is another example of Otto Preminger getting a lot more out of his
actors than he is usually given credit for. See Anatomy of a Murder 1959,
starring James Stewart and Lee Remick, for another example. Known for
turning commercial novels into commercial movies (e.g., The Man with the
Golden Arm (1955); Exodus (1960); Advise and Consent (1962)) Preminger is
at
his best when he lets the material have its way. I call that the invisible
style of directing and he follows it here. Add the beautiful score by
David
Raksin and this movie is a special treat.
As a mystery however it is a little predictable. We know from the
beginning
not only who will get the girl, but with a very high probability who pulled
the trigger. What we don't know in the first case is how, since she is
presumably dead, and in the second case, why. The lack of motive hides the
killer's identity from us. But rest assured, all is unraveled in the final
reel.
See this for Clifton Webb whose improbable Hollywood success, beginning
with
this movie, started when he was in his fifties and ended when he was in his
sixties. If I were a thirty-year-old actor running to auditions, I would
call that inspiration.
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