XoWizIama Excellent adaptation.

StyleSk8r At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

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.

Kien Navarro Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Ben Larson Wendell Corey had a long career in film and television. In this film he plays Cleve Marshall, an assistant DA who is staying late at the office to avoid going home on his anniversary because his father-in-law (Minor Watson) is there.While he knocking back shots as fast as he can pour them, in walks Thelma Jordan (Barbara Stanwyck) looking for help. Now, one would certainly be suspicious if a beauty like that immediately began a relationship, but our intrepid hero is too drunk to notice, and, after all, he wants to go out and find a dame. He is no better the next day when his wife (Joan Tetzel) takes the kids to the beach house, and leaves him alone during the week.As one would expect in film noir, everything is not as it seems. Cleve gets himself into hot water and uses all his wits to get out. I have to admit the ending was a big surprise.

PudgyPandaMan From her first entrance, Stanwyck kept me captivated by her performance in this film. There is something about her that draws you in and holds you. You know there is more to her than meets the eye - but you're not sure what exactly. I have always admired Stanwyck. She was born Ruby Stevens, a Brooklyn girl that worked for a phone company and then became a chorus girl, before finally going to Hollywood to chase her dreams. She was nominated 4 times for an Oscar for Best Actress ("Stella Davis", "Ball of Fire", "Double Indemnity", "Sorry ,Wrong Number") but never won - except for an Honorary Oscar near the end of her life. She was considered a gem to work with for her serious but easy going attitude on the set (unlike many of her contemporary peers). This makes me like her even more!I thought the cinematography in this film was outstanding. I loved the elaborate sets and and set decorating.The plot kept me intrigued as well. Corey plays the perfect fall guy for Stanwyck. His average looks and dull exterior tend to make you feel sympathetic for this guy. Some have commented that they didn't have much chemistry together. I agree that they are an unlikely couple, but it helps you see how he could get so caught up in her and be willing to sacrifice so much. She was obviously outside his league.There are some nice twists and turns in the plot that will keep you interested - especially at the end. It's worth a watch.

whpratt1 Barbara Stanwyck, (Thelma Jordon) plays the role of a woman exactly like the one she played with Fred MacMurray in " Double Indemnity" where she has some very dark secrets in her past. Wendell Corey, (Cleve Marshall) plays the role as an Assistant District Attorney and Thelma meets up with Cleve in his office late at night and Cleve has been drinking a lot of booze because he has problems with his wife and he becomes very involved with Thelma who needs a lawyers assistance. Cleve gets romantically involved with Thelma even though he has a wife and children. Thelma's aunt who is very rich is murdered and she does not report her death right away and seeks Cleve's help in trying to take the blame off of her. Thelma complains to Cleve that she hated the room where her aunt was murdered and it smelled of death and she lost her sense of self-control. This film will keep you guessing how this film will eventually end and who actually committed these murders. This is a great mystery story from 1950.

sol ***MAJOR SPOILERS*** Much like her big 1944 film noir classic "Double Indemnity" Barbara Stanwyck in the lead, and films title, role of Thelma Jordon is about as manipulative and cold blooded as they come but, unlike in "Double Indemnity" she has a conscience. That conscience on Thelma's part makes up for all the harm that she does to her lover in the movie Assistant District Attorney Cleve Marshall, Wendell Corey. But sadly it also cost the foolish and love-sick, for Thelma, man his career and possibly his marriage to his long suffering wife Pamela, Joan Tetzel.Not expecting to find the totally drunk Cleve Marshall to be in the D.A's office, Thelma actually wanted to talk to the D.A himself Niles Scott (Paul Kelly), Thelma soon realizes that he can help her with a pressing problem that she has in regards to her old and wealthy Aunt Vera, Gertrude Hoffman. Aunt Vera has been worried that someone is trying to break into her home and steal her valuable jewelry locked in her living-room safe.Having Cleve think that she's in love with him Thelma has him slowly trapped in a sinister plan that she concocted with her gangster boyfriend Tony Laredo, Richard Rober, to rip off Aunt Vera of her jewelry. It turns out that Aunt Vera somehow gets wind of what's going on and one evening when she hears some noise in her house and investigate, with her bedside firearm, Aunt Vera is shot and killed, off camera, by the unseen burglar. Thelma who was sleeping upstairs hears the gunshot and comes running down to find Aunt Vera dead and the safe opened,I'm not quite sure if the jewelry were in the safe and taken, and immediately calls Cleve, feeling that she'll be the prime suspect in Aunt Vera's murder, for help.Being the good friend, as well as Thelma's secret lover, that he is Cleve does everything to clear Thelma of anything that has to do with her Aunt Vera's murder. Cleve goes so far in covering up Aunt Vera's death that he actually, in his secret lover affair with Thelma, implicates himself in the killing! Walking a tight rope Cleve is now in the unenviable position, by being appointed as the state prosecutor, of both trying Thelma for murder and at the same time by purposely blotching the case in his very obvious, to his boss D.A Scott, attempt in getting her off Scot-free!The missing piece of this very strange and complicated puzzle is Thelma's estranged boyfriend Tony Lerado. Tony is always seen snooping around Thelma's home as well as in the courtroom as if he's in some way trying to either blackmail or intimidate, with his gangster friends, her. It's only much later in the movie, after Thelma's trial, that the truth comes out about just what the relationship is between the two, Thelma & Tony. This comes as a complete shock to the by then very relived, in the jury verdict, Cleve Marshall who's ready to leave his wife and family for, the playing him for a sucker, Thelma Jordon!It's just too bad that in 1950 the code of morality, or Hayes Commission, had full control of Hollywood , not foreign, released films. Making the movie have a tragic yet feel-good ending spoiled everything that was both interesting and realistic about "The File on Thelma Jordon". Despite that major fault, which was really no fault of the movie's screenwriters, "The File on Thelma Jordon" ranks right up there with film noir classics like the aforementioned "Double Indemnity" and "Out of the Past", two movies that were also hampered by the Hollywood morality code, as one of the best of it's kind even though nowhere, the film is rarely shown on TV, as popular.