clanciai Pity about a promising and talented young girl who gets out of purpose by falling in love with the wrong person, since he is married to the wrong woman. Van Heflin makes the best out of a hopelessly incriminating mess, as a hanged girl is found in his apartment whom he has been shielding and helping. He is also married, and his wife is not happy about it. Ginger Rodgers stands aloof and freely abuses everyone, as she is entitled to it as the leading diva and primadonna, but she is actually the real victim of the plot, and she can't help it. The real tragedy is not the girl's, who proves a major disappointment as she actually seems to get what she deserves, an ambitious blue-stocking with some certain talent but no sense to cultivate it, the real tragedy is not Van Heflin's either, although he has every reason to feel paranoically persecuted, which he is, but by sheer accident of circumstances and by nobody's fault, while the real tragedy is Ginger Rodgers', who isn't even aware of it, but her downfall is so monumental that it can't even be shown. It happens after the film is finished, and Van Heflin actually starts suggesting her efficient defense. It's a lush thriller of wonderful salon architecture with all New York at your feet from the balcony, where the talented young authoress is wasting her talent on doting on the wrong guy, and Nunnally Johnson as both author, producer and director has made an interesting enough entertainment, but something is seriously lacking. It's too polished to be natural and therefore not very convincing. The music helps the production with some extra charm, especially Richard Strauss, who has been helpful with some musical loans, but the tragedy is not tragic, and the romance is not romantic. Van Heflin in his righteous fury as the unintended victim carries most part of the drama on his shoulders and does it well, while Gene Tierney doesn't help him much. You lack the solid sense of realism, it's all too artificial, but then the characters are all established and rich celebrities of the New York jet set, and perhaps such people act and live that way. Intriguing, to say the least, but you will soon forget the whole incident, until after some years you run across the film again and recognize that you've seen it before and has to admit you've forgotten the whole thing and will probably do it again...

JLA-2 Was this a play first? It feels like it. It's a virtually stage-bound film that is barely opened up. Almost all of it is set in 3 locations. Perhaps Hitchcock could have made this gripping - as he did in "Rear Window" and "Rope" - but that doesn't work here.In fact, Hitchcock might also have been interested in the "wrong man" aspect of this plot. But that is not developed here either. It's simply a drawing room murder mystery that is not really all that much of a murder mystery.The performances aren't horrible, but nothing is really memorable. Ginger Rogers has the meatiest part, but doesn't make it to the league of Bette Davis' Margot Channing....but then who could?The denouement - which, from the French means, "the untying of a knot" - is literally about a knot. But, again, one could see that coming a mile away. So, the movie ends with a thud.Speaking of that, I wish the movie had ended with a thud. If the actual murderer had gone leaping off the much-discussed balcony overlooking Central Park, it would have been much more memorable.

edwagreen Something really different for Ginger Rogers is this 1954 thriller where she portrays a hot-tempered, gossip Broadway actress, married to a man, Reginald Gardiner, in one of his best roles as the yes-man husband.Their neighbors are Van Heflin and Gene Tierney, a famous Broadway couple as well.When young ingenue writer, Peggy Ann Garner, enters their lives, all mayhem breaks loose. When Garner supposedly commits suicide in the Heflin apartment, intrigue follows, especially when it's realized that it was murder, rather than suicide.Heflin becomes desperate as Detective George Raft circles around him as the evidence begins to pile up, despite his repeated claims of innocence.It then becomes A Murder She Wrote like-situation with suspicion falling not only on Heflin, but Gardiner and Rogers as well.Just don't be taken in by these young girls. It's as if Garner is trying to emulate the not so very much innocent Anne Baxter in "All About Eve."

secondtake Black Widow (1954)An early full color Cinemascope drama, loaded with starts, and written by a high powered but somewhat forgotten stage and screen writer of the 40s and 50s, Nunnally Johnson. And this is one of a handful of films he directed, too. It's really quite a fully blossomed drama, and it grows with complexity as it goes. And it's packed with stars. The leading man has always impressed me even though he's not the handsome or powerful sort that usually commands the first credits, Van Heflin. he's really amazing, subtle and perfectly sophisticated and well meaning and (eventually) tortured.His wife is played with usual cool cheerfulness by Gene Tierney, and their neighbor and friend is a haughty and ridiculous (perfectly so) Ginger Rogers. Rogers takes her role to the hilt, both in arrogance and frivolity and later in emotional breakdown.What ensues is not just highbrow Broadway theater culture, but eventually a criminal (or psychologically suspenseful) tidal wave sweeps over the relatively lightweight beginnings, and the effect is kind of remarkable in its own way. I mean, it's so completely theatrical and melodramatic, and yet it really works as an interpersonal and heartfelt (and probing) drama, too. The writing is smart, nuanced, and it plays the line of being exactly what it is--meaning that it's about the very world that Johnson lives in.The cop in this case is George Raft, always a little stiff and stiff again here, but he does his job. The seductress who is the center of all these talents is Peggy Ann Garner. Who is she? Well, after several years of being a successful child actress, and except for a small role in an obscure 1951 Fred Zinnemann film as an adult, Garner was a television actress (including some t.v. movies) bouncing from one series to another. Then, at the end of her career, she had small roles in three more features. And in many ways, she's the weak link here--she's supposed to be sleeping her way to success in the theater world, and yet there's something not quite right about her in this role. I suppose I underestimate middle aged rich men.The plot this girl weaves for those around her is elaborate and devilish. And when it goes wrong for her, it really goes wrong for our main man Heflin. At the point the film is very much like Hitchcock film, with the apparently innocent man accused of a crime. Unlike Hitchcock, Johnson uses flashbacks at key points near the end., which do their job but also have a way of deflating the suspense.See for yourself!