It's on THIS now!
I didn't check on the lineup of movies till just now. It's going to be on at 11:00 p.m. ~ a couple of minutes from now. I've never seen it, so I'm happy to get a look at it.
~~MystMoonstruck~~
I stayed up to watch it last night because Leonard Maltin's Movie Book said it was a very good movie that would keep you on the edge of your seat from start to finish. That was absolutely right. This is an excellent film with really great performances by Dan Duryea, June Vincent, Broderick Crawford, and Constance Dowling.
It was definitely worth staying up until 1 AM to see it all the way through.
I definitely will watch it again! I can't believe this isn't aired more often, especially with the avid interest in film noir. I don't recall if I've ever seen it listed on TCM, but it's possible that it has been.
I agree about the great performances, and I would add Peter Lorre in a rather different role. So often, he's the wheedling little fellow begging and following people around, very powerless. In this, he gets to be the smooth club owner, borderline suave. I love everything about this movie!
~~MystMoonstruck~~
Yes, definitely a decent noir - even though the final revelation demands quite a bit in the way of suspension of disbelief because firstly, with a typical alcohol induced blackout you will NOT be able to remember anything, no matter how long a time goes by and secondly, Duryea so willingly putting himself in the electric chair to save another fella from that destiny, is extremely hard to swallow - and Duryea & Lorre are both great. But let this isolated instance of proper judgement not fool you - Leonard Maltin´s brain does not work and he´s one of the worst critics ever to have roamed the earth.
"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan
SPOiLER ALERT!
I don't see the Duyea character as the total jerk he's reputed to be. He was more used and used by the woman he fell in love with. But he was unlucky in love and couldn't get over the wife he loved who was a blackmailer of a man he might not have even known about.
What's interesting about the story is that his amnesia is real in the beginning and he genuinely fell in love with the June Vincent character. He also understood, in time, that she was loyal to her falsely accused husband. When Duryea finally came to and the alcohol cleared in his brain, his better nature seemed to come out. Why? Maybe he felt bad, guilty, about murdering his wife, or perhaps he was in love with June enough to want to do the right thing and he knew she loved her husband - that he somehow respected her for that. I see Duryea as a musically talented man (who made both ladies famous), a tough luck guy with a drinking problem who married the wrong woman and then something snapped in him when his wife refused to see him. The big mystery is how he got into his wife's room without being detected - and that's never explained.
bhouse - in Duryea's alcoholic remembrance of the fatal evening, he sneaks up the stairs while the doorman is on the phone facing away from the stairs.
shareI never had ANY respect for Maltin...he's a total dufus. My stomach would when I subjected myself to his spoken reviews on TV...forget where that was...
Enrique Sanchez
Oh,come on-----back in the day before the net existed, just about the only comprehensive film & video guide worth a damn (besides John Stanley's Creature Feature Guide) was Maltin's Video Movie Guide from which I found out about a hell of a lot of films I never would have otherwise. He ceased publication of it over a year ago, I believe, since everything he tracked down can be found on the net now, but he was like the man when it came to films, and his spoken reviews were fun to listen to.
shareMY back in the day was the 1960s, movie guide books weren't as crassly commercial as Maltin's. I followed a paperback guide book with over 20,000 movies must have lost in during a move. The listings were serious and did NOT review the movies, which I liked much better than books that TOLD you what you were supposed to like or not like.
Maltin nor Pauline Kael never "spoke" to me back in those days. I allowed my own distorted opinion decide if a movie was good or not. Maybe I wasted a lot of time, but discovered not a few gems.
To each his own, I say.
Enrique Sanchez