Director: Bernard Vorhaus
Cast: Turhan Bey, Lynn Bari, Cathy O’Donnell, Richard Carlson
Have I Seen It Before: Nope.
Did I Like It: It’s so rare that a film noir rolls so slowly in its opening half, only to mostly recover in its second, that I’m tempted to give the film a recommendation on that criteria alone.
When the film is about the glassy-eyed widow (Bari) who hears voices coming in from the coast, the film is so deeply cliché and boring that I was struck only by the behavior of audience members around me. Cell phones went off with impunity. One guy snored like a jackhammer through most of the film. I’d be more mad at him if I was more thoroughly convinced I, too, didn’t fall asleep for a stretch. Scorsese recently complained about movie audiences, and I’m starting to see where he’s coming from.
When Alexis (Bey) really turns on his wares to keep his con going, the film veers into deeply embarrassing territory. I can’t really fathom any sort of optical effects that would still work after nearly eighty years, but I’m also having a bit of a hard time imagining that anyone saw the various phantoms Alexis creates and not laugh at any point in history. Grafting such video effects on to a noir drains a lot of the charm that even the cheaper entries in the genre can offer.
But then the film offers a fairly interesting twist, and does so at exactly the right time. What was a silly trifle for so long becomes an engrossing cat and mouse game that—would this even be a spoiler—results in the shifty participants in the plot getting their just desserts, and just an inch of redemption moments before it would have been too late. The film thankfully doesn’t spend a lot of time trying to get you to believe its more groan-worthy moments, and doesn’t let up on the tension until the end. That may be all I need from noir. Your mileage may vary.