Rijndri
Load of rubbish!!
InformationRap
This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.
ActuallyGlimmer
The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.
Kittyman
If ever a film deserved to be remastered, this is it. The commercially released copy I watched was in bad condition. There were numerous lines and widely oscillating sound levels. That is too bad, for I thought it was an excellent, and overlooked, film. Here's why I'd recommend it: the acting (with one exception) was very good; the plot was innovative, believable, and tight; and the pace never lagged. Raymond Burr had a tendency to overact. Here, however, as in his subsequent (and similar) Perry Mason role, his underplaying was perfection. Angela Lansbury, whose range is even greater than that of Bette Davis, nailed it as a bad girl. (It foreshadowed her later acclaimed portrayal as Eleanor Shaw Iselin in The Manchurian Candidate). As district attorney, John Dehner, who was always reliable, also did well. And Lamont Johnson, as Lansbury's other man, came across as likeable and naive. But, unfortunately, Angela's husband, Dick Foran, seemed over-matched. I thought his performance was weak, with little nuance. Ironically, this is a problem which could have been resolved easily. Foran and Denver Pyle (who was very effective in a minor role as lead detective) should have been asked to switch roles.Now, as to the major criticisms of other reviewers' that sacrificing your own life to destroy another is absurd. They are both right and wrong. Absurd it may be, but infrequent it is not. In a relationship, particularly when one is a man and the "dumpee," he is likely to shift into a "you lose," or threat orientation. Here the object is to destroy the other--by, for example, killing his children if he loses custody of them in a divorce. Yes, he dies, or spends the rest of his life in prison, but his ex.-spouse loses. And that's his goal.Considering how he was portrayed, I don't see what Raymond Burr's character did as all that unusual. He had a strong bond with Foran (who had saved his life on Iwo Jima). He was betrayed by Lansbury, the woman he loved. He was dumped by her. And he had a strong belief in justice (as testified to by the district attorney). So for Pete's sake, won't someone please remaster this thing?
dougdoepke
A wife kills her husband, while she carries on an affair with his best friend who also happens to be a defense attorney. Inexpensive little programmer that would work just as well as a movie made for TV. Still it has a good tight script, with a few twists, and two fine actors. It's Raymond Burr a year before Perry Mason and I expect his courtroom scenes here did a lot to win him the lead in Mason. He carries them off with real authority. Then there's Lansbury as the calculating ice queen, and I stopped counting her smiles after one. She does make a convincing spider woman, however.There's little action, while the courtroom scene takes up a lot of time. Still the plot line is an interesting one of intrigue and misdirection. So there are compensations to the talky format. One does have to wonder, however, about attorney Carlson's (Burr) iron sense of retribution. It appears a key plot contrivance, but an interesting one given the circumstances of his guilt. Should mention, at the same time, the presence of the great John Dehner in the key supporting role of county DA. His is a familiar face from that time, and I don't think he ever turned in a second-rate performance, no matter the role. Anyway, it's highly obscure little movie, but not without compensations.
sflynn22
The movie starts with Attorney Craig Carlson dictating the circumstances of his own upcoming murder into a tape recorder. Through a series of flashbacks we find out that he has a problem - his best friend's wife (Lansbury) comes to him for help in a divorce. Then another problem - he falls in love with her. Then another problem - she shoots her husband in self-defense. Now he has to defend her from a murder rap.He gets her acquitted and they get engaged. All is well!! Of course not - why would the movie be over in twenty minutes? Let's just say that his tidy little circumstances rapidly grow complicated. His awareness of his changing situation, and his reaction to it, make for an interesting psychological development.Burr was a good actor and the camera focuses in on his brooding face. It takes a while to find out that Lansbury's performance is more subtle than you might think.The movie is economically directed - witness how the attorney picks up his gun in the opening shots. No dialog, just a brief sequence of visuals, and the plot advances. Well written, with good supporting performances, including a youngish and slim Denver Pyle. Nice unknown movie.
weho90069
I give this one a 10 and dub it a diamond in the rough, worthy of rediscovery by today's gay cynics. After this one gets going it pays off with unintentional laughs again and again. The acting is stilted, to be sure! The plot is preposterous, and Angela Lansbury's performance will have you in stitches (too good to be true - isn't it true she has the mouth of a truck driver in real life?). The cherry on the sundae is queer-in-real-life Raymond Burr's character's immense, almost obsessive love for his dead male friend (WINK WINK) as well as his idiotically masochistic obsession with Justice (oh, Ye Gods!). His Karl Rove-like calculated and infallible retaliation against Lansbury for her arch treachery wears the crown of high camp. It all seems perhaps more fresh than it ever could have before due to the current climate in US politics (with Machiavellian maniacs like Rove guiding the destiny of a country onto the rocks for purely spiteful and self-serving reasons). Fire up a BIG batch of popcorn, mix up a gallon of Mai-tais, and have over all the snippiest gay men you know for cocktails and 78 minutes of PURE TRASH you can sink your claws into. I kid you not. When you least expect it, this movie pays off out of left field again and again. You'll be sitting there asking yourself, "what were they on when they made this thing?" It's kinda like an episode of Perry Mason, except I never sensed that Perry would have reacted so self-destructively over losing a case (not that Perry ever would lose a case!). Okay, enough said. You know the drill. Track it down on eBay or at your local video store if they can find one (mine had a copy and I rented it on a whim, based on the title. By the way, if the title alone doesn't get your girlfriends to show up to see what all the fuss is about they're sorry sports, indeed). Suggested co-features include...Fritz Lang's film noir masterpiece, SCARLET STREET (1945) in which bad girl Joan Bennett takes soft-hearted chump Edward G. Robinson on the ride of his life...The saucy pulp fiction, CRIME OF PASSION (1957) in which desperate housewife Barbara Stanwyck inexplicably casts aside a torrid love affair with hard-as-a-rock Sterling Hayden for a cheap fling with Raymond Burr (yeah, can you believe it???)...or John Waters' FEMALE TROUBLE (1974) which always pairs well with any other girl-gone-bad film.
