bombersflyup The File on Thelma Jordan is an extremely dull unendearing film-noir.It started out fine. Thelma runs into drunken Cleve when going to report a fake burglary attempt, they hit it off. Then soon after there is the burglary and murder and it's all down hill. Cleve has a gorgeous, sweet wife played by Joan Tetzel with kids and he cheats on her with devious Thelma. Don't get it.

butchfilms If you like film-noirs this one is for you. This is one of the most entertaining film-noirs I have ever seen, and I am a big fan of this kind of movies. I am surprised this film is not very well known, this is an underrated one and it should have a higher score too.The performances of the leadings Barbara Stanwyck and Wendell Corey are very good. The plot is entertaining, smart and interesting, the supporting cast is good too. The film begins like a kind of entertaining drama & romantic-comedy movie to change at the middle to a very good film-noir. This movie will remind you a little bit "Double Indemnity (1944)" for some similarities in the plot. There is a great scene involving the already dead aunt that is a pleasure to watch for its suspense.Cleve Marshall is a married Assistant district attorney who is having problems with his wife and falls in love with the mysterious Thelma Jordon who is the niece of a rich old lady, when the aunt is murdered everything point that Thelma is guilty then Cleve will do everything to save her ........I recommend watching this movie. This is a must see for every film-noir fan8 stars = very good

jotix100 The combination of an unhappy man with an ambitious woman is a formula for disaster, as we have seen in a lot of film noir offerings. In this story, Cleve Marshall, and assistant D.A., proves to be the perfect target for what a scheming lady like Thelma Jordon has in mind. From the start, Thelma is too happy to oblige the interest and the passion she incites in Cleve.Marshall is a married man whose wife, Pamela, a society girl, is deeply involved with her parents in social events that are deeply resented by the down to earth Cleve. He drowns his sorrows in drink, something that Thelma knows will help her bring him to her side, although she has other things in mind. When the affair begins in earnest, Thelma gets involved in the murder of her old aunt. Cleve, who has been indiscreet with his phone calls to the old woman's residence, is summoned to help Thelma who stands a good chance to get the maximum death sentence for all the evidence points in her direction. Cleve, who gets the assignment to prosecute Thelma, doesn't know what he is really getting into.This 1950 Paramount release has not been seen much lately. As someone else pointed out, it used to turn a lot in the days of early television. The film is worth a look because Robert Siodmak's direction. Mr. Siodmak, who had worked in his native Germany and in France, had a great eye for detail, as he shows in this story.Barbara Stanwyck was the perfect actress to portray Thelma. She had been successful in other films that involved ambitious women with no scruples. Ms. Stanwyck always gave impressive readings to the characters she played, which is the case of her Thelma. Wendell Corey, another excellent actor, has the sad task to play the man who throws everything away because he is blinded by the intensity of his feelings for an unworthy woman.The supporting cast does wonders to help the film. Best of all is Stanley Ridges who plays Thelma's attorney. Paul Kelly, another good character actor appears as Cleve's boss. Joan Tetzel and Richard Lober also appear in minor roles.The film will not disappoint fans of this genre.

sol ***MAJOR SPOILERS*** Much like her big 1944 film noir classic "Double Indemnity" Barbara Stanwyck in the lead, and films title, role of Thelma Jordon is about as manipulative and cold blooded as they come but, unlike in "Double Indemnity" she has a conscience. That conscience on Thelma's part makes up for all the harm that she does to her lover in the movie Assistant District Attorney Cleve Marshall, Wendell Corey. But sadly it also cost the foolish and love-sick, for Thelma, man his career and possibly his marriage to his long suffering wife Pamela, Joan Tetzel.Not expecting to find the totally drunk Cleve Marshall to be in the D.A's office, Thelma actually wanted to talk to the D.A himself Niles Scott (Paul Kelly), Thelma soon realizes that he can help her with a pressing problem that she has in regards to her old and wealthy Aunt Vera, Gertrude Hoffman. Aunt Vera has been worried that someone is trying to break into her home and steal her valuable jewelry locked in her living-room safe.Having Cleve think that she's in love with him Thelma has him slowly trapped in a sinister plan that she concocted with her gangster boyfriend Tony Laredo, Richard Rober, to rip off Aunt Vera of her jewelry. It turns out that Aunt Vera somehow gets wind of what's going on and one evening when she hears some noise in her house and investigate, with her bedside firearm, Aunt Vera is shot and killed, off camera, by the unseen burglar. Thelma who was sleeping upstairs hears the gunshot and comes running down to find Aunt Vera dead and the safe opened,I'm not quite sure if the jewelry were in the safe and taken, and immediately calls Cleve, feeling that she'll be the prime suspect in Aunt Vera's murder, for help.Being the good friend, as well as Thelma's secret lover, that he is Cleve does everything to clear Thelma of anything that has to do with her Aunt Vera's murder. Cleve goes so far in covering up Aunt Vera's death that he actually, in his secret lover affair with Thelma, implicates himself in the killing! Walking a tight rope Cleve is now in the unenviable position, by being appointed as the state prosecutor, of both trying Thelma for murder and at the same time by purposely blotching the case in his very obvious, to his boss D.A Scott, attempt in getting her off Scot-free!The missing piece of this very strange and complicated puzzle is Thelma's estranged boyfriend Tony Lerado. Tony is always seen snooping around Thelma's home as well as in the courtroom as if he's in some way trying to either blackmail or intimidate, with his gangster friends, her. It's only much later in the movie, after Thelma's trial, that the truth comes out about just what the relationship is between the two, Thelma & Tony. This comes as a complete shock to the by then very relived, in the jury verdict, Cleve Marshall who's ready to leave his wife and family for, the playing him for a sucker, Thelma Jordon!It's just too bad that in 1950 the code of morality, or Hayes Commission, had full control of Hollywood , not foreign, released films. Making the movie have a tragic yet feel-good ending spoiled everything that was both interesting and realistic about "The File on Thelma Jordon". Despite that major fault, which was really no fault of the movie's screenwriters, "The File on Thelma Jordon" ranks right up there with film noir classics like the aforementioned "Double Indemnity" and "Out of the Past", two movies that were also hampered by the Hollywood morality code, as one of the best of it's kind even though nowhere, the film is rarely shown on TV, as popular.