I rather like the director, Allan Dwan, because he was a no-nonsense guy who was in the movie business from the beginning. Nothing pretentious or arty. Yet this movie sucks. It should open with some guy dressed in rags, tinkling a bell, chanting "B Feature." There's no sign of imagination and the story -- from James M. Cain -- is pedestrian. But then everything is dull, from the score to the photography.
Arlene Dahl is the bad girl. We know it at once because the camera cuts from a sign ("Woman's Prison") to Dahl being picked up at the gate by her equally red-haired and devoted sister, Rhonda Fleming. Arlene Dahl and Rhonda Fleming. Two aces.
Dahl, without being the least angry, blames Fleming for not having enough money to get her out of jail for theft. Fleming is happy and solicitous. When they reach Fleming's home -- she's a secretary to a mayoral candidate in Bay City -- Dahl heads at once for the booze while the morally upright Fleming refuses a drink in the most polite manner.
You ought to see Fleming's house. She's a secretary but she lives in a grand estate that looks like it might have been an apartment set aside for Frank Sinatra in Las Vegas. Every set looks just as opulent and tasteless. It doesn't matter whether it's a rich guy's house or somebody's office. It's as if they changed the shape of the room but just shifted the accouterments from one set to the next. Except for a few minutes the whole movie is shot on a sound stage.
Dwan shows no interest in the production. It's all functional and lapses into cliché at every opportunity. If Dahl wants to admire herself in the mirror, she looks into the mirror at an angle, so that she's not really seeing herself, only the camera lens.
There's a good guy and a bad guy. One of them (Ted de Corsia) is named Solly Kaspar. The other (Payne) is named Ben Grace. Guess which is the good guy and which is the bad guy.
The plot has the ambitious Payne taking over the politically influential gang of de Corsia. There is a conflict. The two red heads are dispensable, and both of them have about as much talent as you'd find in a community college play somewhere in Cranford, New Jersey. It's not just the actresses though; it's the roles as written. Fleming has unbelievable devotion to her unbalanced sister. Yes, the heart has its reasons that the mind will never know, but the reasons are stupid.
Watch it if you like, but it's not as carefully done as, say, any early episode of "Law & Order."
Arlene Dahl is the bad girl. We know it at once because the camera cuts from a sign ("Woman's Prison") to Dahl being picked up at the gate by her equally red-haired and devoted sister, Rhonda Fleming. Arlene Dahl and Rhonda Fleming. Two aces.
Dahl, without being the least angry, blames Fleming for not having enough money to get her out of jail for theft. Fleming is happy and solicitous. When they reach Fleming's home -- she's a secretary to a mayoral candidate in Bay City -- Dahl heads at once for the booze while the morally upright Fleming refuses a drink in the most polite manner.
You ought to see Fleming's house. She's a secretary but she lives in a grand estate that looks like it might have been an apartment set aside for Frank Sinatra in Las Vegas. Every set looks just as opulent and tasteless. It doesn't matter whether it's a rich guy's house or somebody's office. It's as if they changed the shape of the room but just shifted the accouterments from one set to the next. Except for a few minutes the whole movie is shot on a sound stage.
Dwan shows no interest in the production. It's all functional and lapses into cliché at every opportunity. If Dahl wants to admire herself in the mirror, she looks into the mirror at an angle, so that she's not really seeing herself, only the camera lens.
There's a good guy and a bad guy. One of them (Ted de Corsia) is named Solly Kaspar. The other (Payne) is named Ben Grace. Guess which is the good guy and which is the bad guy.
The plot has the ambitious Payne taking over the politically influential gang of de Corsia. There is a conflict. The two red heads are dispensable, and both of them have about as much talent as you'd find in a community college play somewhere in Cranford, New Jersey. It's not just the actresses though; it's the roles as written. Fleming has unbelievable devotion to her unbalanced sister. Yes, the heart has its reasons that the mind will never know, but the reasons are stupid.
Watch it if you like, but it's not as carefully done as, say, any early episode of "Law & Order."