Why so much hype?

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

The timid pharmacist Warren Quimby (Richard Basehart) works hard in the night shift of a drugstore to give a good life to his promiscuous wife Claire Quimby (Audrey Totter). When Claire leaves him to live with her lover, the liquor salesman Barney Deager (Lloyd Gough), Warren plots a scheme to kill Barney. He creates a new identity of a man called Paul Sothern and moves during the weekends to an apartment, telling that he is a traveling salesman to explain the absence along the week. He creates evidences that Paul Sothern wants to get rid off Barney, but soon he falls in love with his next door neighbor Mary Chanler (Cyd Charisse). One night, he goes to the Barney's house by Malibu beach but he gives up killing him; instead he tells Barney that he will divorce Claire. He goes home to move to Mary's apartment but out of the blue, Claire returns and tells that Barney was murdered. When Lieutenants Collier Bonnabel (Barry Sullivan) and Edgar Gonsales (William Conrad) come to his apartment, Warren provides alibi to Claire. However the smart Lieutenant Bonnabel proceeds his investigation and finds that Warren Quimby and Paul Sothern are the same man and Warren is arrested. Will Bonnabel finds the truth?"Tension" is a great film-noir, with an excellent story of a meek cuckold that is humiliated when his unfaithful wife moves to the house of her lover and plots an intelligent revenge plan to kill his competitor. Richard Basehart and Audrey Totter are perfect in their roles with excellent performances. He calls off his scheme but the man is killed anyway and he is forced by his wife to provide alibi to her. The "modus operandi" of the cynical detective Collier Bonnabel building tension among the suspects and his final action telling to Claire that the furniture in Paul's apartment had been replaced is unique. My vote is eight.Title (Brazil): "Tensão" ("Tension")

Something different for Richard Basehart. He plays a plain, ordinary, unassuming man with a wife, Audrey Totter, who is out for plenty of action. Tired of her life with him, she takes up with another and leaves him.Basehart changes his name and puts on contact lenses in his plot to kill the guy, only to have a change of heart and find love with his new neighbor, played surprisingly by Cyd Charisse, in a totally non-musical, non-dancing role.The only problem is that wife Totter kills the guy and tries to blame her husband for the crime. Barry Sullivan plays the really smart officer who outwits the Totter character in the end.Totter is excellent here as the brassy blond whose desire for wanting more out of life gets in her deep trouble.

This late-40s film noir has all the right ingredients: murder, a sleazy and deadly female (Totter, with a wonderful gamut of facial expressions), a female with a heart of gold (Charisse), a possibly corrupt cop (who functions as narrator), location shooting, and a wonderful jazzy score by Andre Previn with possibly THE most perfect "femme fatale" theme ever written. (When that sax starts to wail you know that your heart is about to be stomped flat.)Of course, there are lots of films with these ingredients, but what really makes this one tick is a great script. The writers manipulate your feelings about the characters, especially Quimby (Richard Basehart). Is he a sappy milquetoast? Or a killer? Or an adulterer? And what about that cop? Whose side is he on, anyway? One great twist after another leads to a very satisfying conclusion.I had never heard of this film, but it popped up on TMC and I'm glad I took the time to watch. I think it stands with the best of the genre.

This may not be the best film noir out there, but it certainly is my favorite. It's a shame is not wider known. You have murder, adultery, a policeman with very dubious investigation methods, a simple little guy mixed in terrible business and a femme fatale that can easily fit in a "Desperate House Wives" episode. Richard Basehart and Audrey Totter star as husband (Warren) and wife (Claire) trapped in a dead end marriage: he is a meek pharmacist who works the night shift in a drugstore in order to save enough money to achieve his little domestic American dream. Unfortunately his wife has much bigger dreams than that: she wants a bigger man, with a bigger wallet, a bigger car and … you get the idea. When she runs away with her lover and poor Warren's dream and self- esteem are shattered, Warren comes with a plan to kill the big man … a plan that is quite silly and that attracts most of the negative critics again this movie, but please think again: would you really expect a nice little guy as Warren to come with a brilliant killing scheme? Of course not! As silly as the murder plan is, it's perfectly adequate for Warren's character. Mr. Basehart is absolutely brilliant in his performance: he makes his pathetic character so likable that at times I just wanted to scream at my screen:" Warren dear, what are you doing? You silly man, you could get dozens of woman, just dump that bi**h of a wife and move on!" Mr. Basehart was the perfect nice guy next door involved in criminal business by fate or accident that was a recurrent type in film noirs. And Audrey Totter … she is so deliciously vicious as the femme fatale! She is one of a kind; you'll never find one like this in the entire film noir library. All other secondary players are equally great. In summary, try it! Don't let the apparently contrived plot drive you away, just enjoy the quintessential performances by Basehart and Totter.