Smartorhypo Highly Overrated But Still Good

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.

Mandeep Tyson The acting in this movie is really good.

Fatma Suarez The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

st-shot Playing the lead is unfamiliar territory for Lee J Cobb but a welcome change of pace in a role usually reserved for a handsomer marquee player. Love is in the air for the usually abrasive haranguer but in this case it leads to his undoing.Wealthy Lois Frazier (Jane Wyatt) is in the midst of an acrimonious divorce with her husband Howard. When she finds a receipt for a 38 she immediately suspects her hubby might want her dead as well. Fortunately for her she's involved with police lieutenant Cullen (Lee J Cobb) who can smooth things over. When the husband returns she drills him and Cullen clumsily tries to cover the murder up. His green detective brother (John Dall) psyched in his first week on the job begins to piece things together while Cullen does his best to distract him from the trail. But he may have taught his brother too well.Cobb acquits himself well in a part that calls for softness and not the generic intolerance and rage he specializes in. He has the rumpled veteran dick down pat but in his clinches with Frazier a realistic every-man blinded by beauty. As the supercilious Frazier, Wyman overreaches but for those of us brought up in the 50s it can be quite jarring to watch Father Know's Best wife making out with Johnny Friendly.A B-picture Double Indemnity it lacks the classic's dialogue but director Felix Feist does have top shelf cinematographer Roger Harlan ( Gun Crazy) along for the ride who delivers at least two scenes ( an interrogation and an abandoned factory scene near the Golden Gate) that any noir or crime drama would be proud to inject into their mise en scene.

classicsoncall If the film didn't rely on the absolute wildest of coincidences it could have been a real thriller (as Boris Karloff would say). When ballistics showed that the gun used to kill a liquor store clerk was an exact match of the one thrown into San Francisco Bay by Lieutenant Ed Cullen (Lee J. Cobb), I just about jumped out of my seat. So, was it the same gun, or an exact match? After countless detective shows to instruct us that no two bullet riflings are exactly alike (much like snowflakes), having the Fraser murder weapon magically reappear was a stretch too unbelievable to accept.Other than that though, this was a pretty intriguing little story. I don't know that I'd hang the noir hat on it like so many others on this board have though. Jane Wyatt wasn't the conflicted femme fatale so much as an opportunistic (rhymes with witch), who's over the top histrionics border on the embarrassingly silly, beginning with her first phone call to Ed. I always thought she was a pretty good actress, so this had to be one of those exceptions in a long career that's best swept under the rug.John Dall delivers a fairly competent performance learning the ropes as a homicide detective and coming to the unsavory conclusion that older brother Ed is on the wrong side of the law for his very first case. The whole thing might have turned out different if he'd gone on his honeymoon, but instead, Ed's words of encouragement to Andy wound up sealing his own eventual fate - "If you do any better, I'll be out of a job."

JohnHowardReid Two of my favorite writers, Seton I. Miller and Philip MacDonald, worked up this somewhat familiar plot (husband tries to murder rich wife and make it look like a burglary but he gets killed instead) into a moderately suspenseful police thriller, which maintains interest with a few clever plot twists and a thrilling bit of action across downtown San Francisco roof-tops, before coming to a really grand climax at the marvelously spooky Fort Point, followed by a winningly ironic conclusion (which surprisingly got past the censors back in 1950).Cobb astutely underplays the lead role of the seasoned, crime-weary detective. Jane Wyatt's heroine-in-distress commendably follows Cobb's lead, leaving all the histrionics to the second-string team of John Dall and Lisa Howard. Despite Dall's efforts, however, it's Alan Wells as murderous punk who easily walks away with the movie's acting honors.Felix Feist has handled all the action with his customary competence, and other credits are equally serviceable.When this film was originally released much was made of the remarkable fact that it was produced by Jack Warner, Jr, the son of Warner Bros mogul, Jack L. Warner. Jack Jr made three movies: The Admiral Was a Lady (executive producer), then this one, and finally Brushfire (1962) which he also wrote and directed. Oddly, none of these movies were distributed by Warner Bros, though Jack, Jr, worked for some time as an executive in the Warner TV division.

GManfred As B movies go this was three-fourths of a good movie, done in by its confusing cop-out ending. To be honest, I still don't completely understand the denouement as it appears on my DVD. Dependable Lee J. Cobb gives it his best, just a few years before "On The Waterfront".On the other hand, Jane Wyatt does not, and gives a comatose performance she probably wished she could have back. The big surprise was John Dall, who as Cobb's younger brother/detective is a breath of fresh air. Makes you wonder why he didn't become a bigger star.I tried very hard to like this picture as it was a novel idea and it was working for a while. Sometimes filmmakers have a good idea but can't figure out how to end it (see "Harvey"). So disappointed was I that I dropped my rating to its present 6.