Post by George Willson on Nov 12, 2005 1:46:23 GMT -5
A decent noir film following the investigation of the murder of a private detective's partner after he is put on the trail of a man that a woman suspects knows about her sister. The woman is more than she seems as she spins one lie after another putting the private dick on the right trail...sort of before her story changes again. It's got some nice twists as the story goes along, and really the only complaint is that the pacing runs a little slow in some areas.
Some modern audiences might not like it because it is very talky and cerebral like a lot of the older movies are, and it would help if the lead actress were able to...well...act. Compared to Bogart and two other actors who would go onto Casablanca the following year, one of whom is Peter Lorre, who I watched in M from ten years earlier in Germany, her dialogue delivery was consistently flat until very near the end when she finally came close to being in character. Perhaps, since her character made a habit of lying, it was part of that, but for me, the charade didn't work.
Other than this, it was a good film, and worth the time to watch it. It contains the lines, "Hey, what's this?" "It's the stuff that dreams are made of."
Some modern audiences might not like it because it is very talky and cerebral like a lot of the older movies are, and it would help if the lead actress were able to...well...act. Compared to Bogart and two other actors who would go onto Casablanca the following year, one of whom is Peter Lorre, who I watched in M from ten years earlier in Germany, her dialogue delivery was consistently flat until very near the end when she finally came close to being in character. Perhaps, since her character made a habit of lying, it was part of that, but for me, the charade didn't work.
Other than this, it was a good film, and worth the time to watch it. It contains the lines, "Hey, what's this?" "It's the stuff that dreams are made of."