By David in TN
Friday, November 26, 2021 at 10:50:00 A.M. EST
TCM’s Film Noir of the Week Saturday Night-Sunday Morning at Midnight and 10 a.m. ET is Phil Karlson’s Tight Spot (1955), with Ginger Rogers, Edward G. Robinson, Brian Keith and Lorne Greene.
Film Noir Guide: “Rogers is terrific as a wrongly imprisoned model who’s being pressured by D.A. Robinson to testify against a vicious mobster (Greene). Keith is the cop assigned to protect her. Before long, the cop and the con find themselves falling in love, while the nervous Greene is eager to make his move. Good acting (especially by Rogers as the wisecracking witness) and a clever plot twist add to this gritty film noir’s enjoyment. Greene went on to star as the wealthy patriarch in one of TV’s most successful Westerns, Bonanza.”
David in TN: Ginger Rogers is cast against type as a gangster’s moll. In this 1955 movie, deporting an undesirable is a good thing.
TCM's Film Noir of the Week Saturday Night-Sunday Morning ay Midnight and 10 am ET is Michael Curtiz's The Unsuspected (1947) with Joan Caulfield, Claude Rains, Audrey Totter, Constance Bennett, Ted North, Hurd Hatfield, Jack Lambert, Barbara Woodell.
ReplyDeleteFilm Noir Guide: "the host of a radio murder mystery show (Rains) kills his secretary (Woodell), making it look like a suicide. Woodell's fiance (North) shows up at Rains' home claiming to be the husband of Rains' niece (Caulfield), who supposedly died in an boating accident several weeks earlier. The imposter hopes to prove that Woodell's death was not accidental. But, unfortunately, for him, Caulfield turns up very much alive. North attempts to convince her that the reason she doesn't remember marrying him is that she has amnesia. Meanwhile, Rains, who's been slowly eliminating his family, turns his attention to Caulfield. Totter plays the wife of alcoholic Hatfield, Caulfield's former boyfriend, and Bennett is Rains' suspicious assistant. Lambert, who proves to be one of film noir's worst drivers, plays a murderer being blackmailed by Rains. The convoluted plot is difficult to follow and may require a second viewing to figure out what's really going on. But the acting is top-notch, with Rains at his deranged best, and Totter sensational as an alluring femme fatale."