Runtime:
95 minutes
Directed
by: John Berry
Starring:
Richard Basehart, Audrey Totter, Cyd Charisse, Barry Sullivan, Lloyd
Gough
From:
MGM
Here's another film noir I have seen recently, and it was pretty good:
Each August, Turner Classic Movies devotes a day to one particular
star, only showing their films. Yesterday it was film noir queen Audrey
Totter; among the choices, I went with the ratings here and on IMDb in
selecting this motion picture. While it is not a must-see for noir fans,
I still found the picture to be pretty good.
Totter plays Claire, the awful wife of pharmacist Richard Basehart; she treats him like crap then finally dumps him for a rich dude, Basehart plots a scheme to get revenge where he eventually murders both Claire and her lover. Of course in this genre, things go awry and among other things, Cyd Charisse shows up as a potential new love interest. Believe it or not, Cyd neither sings nor dances; still, she and Totter were the most memorable aspects of Tension.
As the plot progresses, there is indeed tension as Basehart ends up in trouble and the cops (one of whom was played by William Conrad and he especially looked like Jack Black here) put the screws to him. A twist is that the narration is provided by the other cop, and he-probably unintentionally-came off as a sordid sort of character. There are plenty of the typical motifs you expect from the genre... the way it was shot, the music, the femme fatale, etc. There's also some 1940's forensics used by the cops, which was of interest to a nerd like me.
A clever ending did help punctuate things and reminded me why I do enjoy diving into this genre.
Totter plays Claire, the awful wife of pharmacist Richard Basehart; she treats him like crap then finally dumps him for a rich dude, Basehart plots a scheme to get revenge where he eventually murders both Claire and her lover. Of course in this genre, things go awry and among other things, Cyd Charisse shows up as a potential new love interest. Believe it or not, Cyd neither sings nor dances; still, she and Totter were the most memorable aspects of Tension.
As the plot progresses, there is indeed tension as Basehart ends up in trouble and the cops (one of whom was played by William Conrad and he especially looked like Jack Black here) put the screws to him. A twist is that the narration is provided by the other cop, and he-probably unintentionally-came off as a sordid sort of character. There are plenty of the typical motifs you expect from the genre... the way it was shot, the music, the femme fatale, etc. There's also some 1940's forensics used by the cops, which was of interest to a nerd like me.
A clever ending did help punctuate things and reminded me why I do enjoy diving into this genre.
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