AniInterview Sorry, this movie sucks

Mjeteconer Just perfect...

Cleveronix A different way of telling a story

Bumpy Chip It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Shawn Spencer I generally like Loretta Young, but unfortunately this script requires such dumb behavior on her part, that I found myself getting angry with her stupidity rather than the clumsy machinations of the villain.Barry Sullivan is largely wasted in this one note performance, he was so good in Tension.Irving Bacon adds some much-needed comic relief as a whiny postman who talks the ears off everyone on his route.A similar story and situation has been brought to life far more enjoyably in Sorry, Wrong Number and Gaslight which I highly recommend.Although the film is only 74 minutes long, it still seems to drag. There are some drawn-out scenes with a neighbor kid on a trike who I guess was supposed to add a cuteness factor, but didn't really advance the plot at all.

Robert J. Maxwell It would have made a typical Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode. It LOOKS like a TV program. The lighting is flat, the production design unimaginative, the dialog functional, and the values are the standards of the 1950s.Not that it's entirely without interest, and it gets better as it develops a bit of steam. Housewife Loretta Young's narration ("It was all like a terrible dream") takes us back to war time when she met her Army Air Force husband, Barry Sullivan, and fell in love with him. (At first sight.) A mutual friend, a Navy officer, Bruce Cowling, watches the romance with disappointment and envy.Then Sullivan is laid up with a heart ailment. Young is kept busy keeping house and tending to him while he's in bed. She loves Sullivan but she really DOES crave a rose-covered cottage and children. The attending physician is their old friend, Cowling, who comes to wonder if Sullivan might benefit from a talk with a shrink. And well he might.Sullivan appears to be suffering from a psychiatric condition that in the older editions of the DSM was known as "paranoid state." (I speak to you now as your psychologist. That will be ten cents.) Paranoid state isn't found in the more recent literature but it's real enough. The victim doesn't run around shouting gibberish about the NSA being after him. He's perfectly normal when circumstances require it. The problem is that he carries around in his head a set of delusions that are out of kilter with reality, but he can connect enough dots to make them sound reasonable. A real story: One clinical psychologist picked up a hitch hiker. They had chatted amiably for more than half an hour before the shrink realized that he was dealing with someone suffering from a paranoid state. The condition is something like an encapsulated brain tumor except that instead of being filled with cancerous tissue, it's puffed up with delusions about enemies plotting against him. Sorry. Got carried away. The condition is at least as beguiling as the movie. In any case, Sullivan grows ever more nasty and later goes berserk, which isn't usually part of the clinical picture.Sullivan, like most of his ilk, has been hiding his delusions away, except that he's keeping a diary of all the evidence he's found of the plot between his wife and his doctor to do away with him for the insurance. "An hour ago they tried again." When Young finally talks him into taking his medicine, he's certain it's something that will do him harm, so he mails a lengthy letter to the District Attorney, names all the names, then he drops dead while trying to kill Young. However the guilty party is not the winsome Loretta Young nor the doctor, and their sinister plot but only the familiar winged chariot of time.The bulk of the movie consists of Young's frantic efforts to retrieve the delusional but incriminating letter from the mailman and the Post Office. It goes without saying that she runs into every obstacle imaginable. There are regulations upon regulations; there's a little kid she almost runs over in her race to the Post Office.Loretta Young gives an emphatic rendition of a woman who is hysterical with fear, sometimes too much. But it's all peacefully resolved when the doctor who has loved her from afar shows up and a previously overlooked postal regulation causes the letter to return. Young will no doubt marry the doctor, and it's all for the good. She'll get that rose-covered cottage -- a dozen of them if she likes -- because next to curing diseases docs are best at raking in shekels. Plus, they're away from home often enough that there aren't many arguments. And children? Why not.

mark.waltz Free from the glamour of her first 25 years in Hollywood, Loretta Young gets to wear minimal make-up and even gets her hair mussed up in this frantic tale of a housewife who finds out that her neurotic bedridden husband (Barry Sullivan) has plotted to accuse her and his best friend of plotting his murder. She accidentally mails a letter to the D.A. which he makes the accusation and later she finds out that he has sinister intentions of his own. This leads her to chase all over town for the overly chatty (yet grumpy) postman, deal with a meddling aunt and little boy neighbor in a cowboy suit with a toy gun that he keeps shooting that makes her more and more nervous. Then, there's the overly watchful neighbor who seems at first like every suburban couple's nightmare (think of a non-comical Gladys Kravitz), spending way too much time watering her lawn.On the surface, this seems like an extended episode of her later T.V. series, but once the plot gets going, you don't really care anymore and are simply just anxious for her to get the letter back. The film spends too much time on this plot development and too much time with Young begging various visitors to leave her husband alone, and after a while, you might want to slug postman Irving Bacon who grumbles about his problems to anyone within earshot and who is a bit too officious. Then, there's the conclusion which in retrospect seems to be the only sensible way to wrap it up, although there are definitely a lot of questions left unanswered.Margalo Gillmore is amusing as the aunt and Georgia Backus keeps a mystery to the character of the neighbor. Carl "Alfalfa" Switzer is on and off so quickly as a mechanic Young questions in regards to the location of the postman that you might not recognize him. This is also surprisingly low budget for both MGM and director Tay Garnett but the neighborhood footage so realistic looking that you wonder if it is indeed shot on the set and not outside the studio somewhere.

MartinHafer "Cause for Alarm" is a great story idea. Unfortunately, so much was wrong with the execution of the idea that it really lost my interest well before the film ended.When the story begins, Loretta Young plays a woman whose husband (Barry Sullivan) is bed-ridden with a heart condition. She is exhausted caring for him—particularly because he is NOT an easy patient. He is demanding, paranoid and losing his mind. The doctor who visits the home to see him can see this but the wife resists having him institutionalized or putting him into the care of a psychotherapist. Here is where the story gets VERY interesting—the husband is so paranoid that he's imagined his wife is having an affair with his doctor AND he's sent a letter to the District Attorney saying that his wife is trying to kill him. This is a neat idea—as it is when he then confronts her and tries to kill her—and he ends up dying of a heart attack in the struggle! But, what happens next really, really irritated me. Instead of calling to report this, she tries throughout the rest of the film to get that letter that she put in the mail for her husband earlier that day. And, during all this time, she behaves VERY guiltily and gives everyone reason to doubt her sanity or think she DID kill her husband. This is clearly a case of very bad writing—as the character and Miss Young's performances seemed weird and unbelievable. Additionally, although the story was a great idea, it seemed more appropriate for a short film or episode of a TV anthology series (like "Alfred Hitchcock Presents") as the plot wasn't enough to carry a 73 minute film. All in all, a great example of a great story idea that is poorly executed….very poorly executed. No one is THAT stupid and the film loses steam because of this.