The Worst Film Ever

Great Film overall

Admirable film.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

This is a masterpiece with a plot that keeps developing new twists throughout the entire film directed by one of the greats, Michael Curtiz. I was drawn to the film by Curtiz' being the director but the casting and the cast are marvelous. Carol Ohmhart is beautifully sinister and Tom Tryon gullibly smitten in what starts out as a love triangle but evolves into something far more devious and complex. The supporting cast shines with E.G. Marshall and Edward Binns as the law and James Gregory as Ohmart's wealthy husband especially notable. A rare performance in film by Nat King Cole is an added treat. This was quite a find and highly recommended.

THE SCARLET HOUR – 1956 It is late at night and a car is parked in a secluded hillside "lover's lane" area. A couple, Carol Ohmart and Tom Tryon are adjusting their clothing etc after an obvious bout of back seat mambo. The pair duck down when a car with a single occupant pulls up down the lane. Then a second car pulls up with two men inside arrives. A man, David Lewis, exits the first car and meets the two, Jacques Aubuchon and Scott Marlowe from the second auto. Ohmart and Tryon are listening from behind the handy brush in front of their car. Lewis tells the pair that he has a job for them. He points up the hill to a large house. Lewis wants the men to break in and lift $350,000 in jewels from a safe. He gives the men the layout of the inside and where to find the safe. The owners will be on holiday when the job is to be pulled. They then all grab their own cars and drive off. Tryon and Ohmart climb back into their own car. As they drive back into town, Ohmart says they could start a new life with that kind of cash. It seems that the two have been carrying on behind Ohmart's husband's back, James Gregory. A twist, here, is that Gregory is also Tryon's boss. Gregory is a big time housing contractor with several tracts of houses on the go. He is also tight with a buck, and Ohmart is sick of him. Not to mention that Gregory is a very jealous type who has threatened to kill her if she ever left him. Ohmart suggests that they need money so they can "run away" from Gregory. "Why don't we rob the robbers?" $350 large would hit the spot cash wise. Tryon is a no go on this idea and thinks they should contact the police about the whole thing. "How do we explain what we were doing there?" ends that idea.Over the course of the next few days, Ohmart needles Tryon about his lack of funds etc, till he finally agrees to her plan about the jewels. This of course pleases Ohmart no end. Now they just need to play it cool till the day the robbery is to happen. Unfortunately for them, husband Gregory sees the two together and quickly realizes he is being played. He comes up with a plan to kill Ohmart and Tryon the next time they have a rendezvous. On the night of the robbery, Ohmart is going out for a few drinks with family friends, Elaine Stritch and Billy Gray. Gregory says he can't join them as he has a late meeting at the office. After a few drinks at the club, Ohmart asks pal, Stritch to cover for her. She needs to dash off for a visit with a friend. Stritch gives that knowing smile, Ohmart has a bit on the side, and agrees to cover if any questions are asked.Ohmart grabs her car and roars over to pick up Tryon. They then speed to where the home robbery will be. They are there 30 minutes before the real robbers show. Tryon heads off to hide in some nearby bushes. Ohmart parks down the road and waits. What Ohmart and Tryon failed to notice, is that they were followed by Gregory. Gregory was not going to any business meeting. Gregory figured that the wife would duck out to visit Tryon, and he was right. Gregory parks his car, then sneaks up on Ohmart, he pulls out a gun and jumps into Ohmarts's car. Needless to say this shocks the hell out of Ohmart. Gregory growls that he intends to kill both her and Tryon. Gregory of course has no idea about the robbery. The two struggle over the gun which discharges, killing Gregory. The frightened Ohmart then shoves Gregory out on the side of the road. She fails to notice that her very distinctive bracelet went out the door at the same time. Back at the house, the two jewel thieves have pulled the robbery and exit the home. Tryon steps out of the dark and sticks a gun in their faces. He relieves the two, Jacques Aubuchon and Scott Marlowe of the swag, then hotfoots it down the road to Ohmart's car. The two thugs recover their senses and give chase, taking pot shots at Tryon. Tryon makes the car and leaps in, Ohmart jumps on the gas and they speed away. Aubuchon and Marlowe find Gregory's body and figure he must of caught a round that they fired at Tryon. The two give the body the once over and find the bracelet. This, they pocket before fading into the night.Ohmart drops Tryon and the jewels off at his apartment and speeds back to the club. She has a need for a few drinks to steady her nerves. Afterwards the three, Ohmart, Stritch and Billy Gray come back to Ohmart's for a nightcap. Waiting there, are Police Detectives, E.G. Marshall and Edward Binns. Gregory's body has been found out on a hillside road. Of course Stritch and Gray give Ohmart an alibi. They all say that Gregory had gone to the office for a late meeting. The Police thank them and head off. Tryon and Ohmart, new to this game, of course fumble the ball and things come unglued rather quickly. The bracelet is soon traced to Ohmart by the thugs. Without giving away the actual ending, suffice it to say that a few more bodies are soon joining Gregory in the morgue. There is a real unexpected twist involving the jewels.Well worth a watch if you can find it.

This is a superb film noir directed by Michael Curtiz, which has never been officially reissued in video or DVD format. The film introduces three new lead players, Carol Ohmart, Ton Tryon, and Elaine Stritch, who here all appear in their first feature film. This was clearly a conscious decision by Paramount to try and create new stars. They took an excellent script and entrusted the project to the capable hands of Oscar-winner Michael Curtiz, who is of course most famous for directing CASABLANCA (1942). Carol Ohmart is the femme fatale. She has a low dusky voice and moves, speaks and acts like Barbara Stanwyck. Stanwyck was twenty years older than Ohmart, and perhaps it seemed time to try and reinvent her. Ohmart does an excellent job and there is nothing to complain of about her performance except for one thing, and that is that she did not possess the natural magic of a true star. In this film she is highly effective, but we are not entranced. What is there that makes one woman spellbinding and another not? We will never know the answer. Young Tom Tryon as the earnest, love-crazed male lead is very good, though at that age he looked a bit weird, and he was much more effective and better looking when he was older and had developed a bit of gravitas, as for instance in THE CARDINAL (1963). Elaine Stritch is given a substantial supporting role, and she makes the most of it, stealing plenty of scenes (though apparently without meaning to do so) and showing what stuff she is made of, as the decades which followed have proved. Michael Curtiz does his usual excellent job of directing, and the story really does have some surprises and twists. This is no B picture, it is the real thing. Ohmart is a gold-digger who has married a rich older man (played by James Gregory) for whom she has no affection whatever. But then, her affection is reserved for herself. She does however have a mad passion for Tryon, and must have him. 'I want you,' she says to him repeatedly, like a Roman Empress deciding to conquer Cilicia before the week is out. They can't keep their hands off each other, and their mouths are glued together and they simply can't tell whose arms are which. A slight problem! Tryon works for the husband. Also, the boss's secretary, played with doe-eyed devotion by Jody Lawrance (who retired from acting only 12 years later at the age of 38, and died aged only 55 in 1986), is hopelessly in love with Tryon, who does not notice. This film is notable for an appearance by the singer Nat King Cole, who sings an entire song, 'Never Let Me Go' (composed specially for this film), standing and smiling in a nightclub into which Ohmart briefly goes before slipping out on one of her sinister errands of passion. The film begins with Ohmart and Tryon sitting in an open convertible on a warm summer night on the hills overlooking the lights of Los Angeles. They have been necking passionately and suddenly two other cars drive up nearby, which do not see them. Men get out of each car and a rendezvous takes place, in which a jewel robbery is planned, and the couple overhear all the details. Who is the mysterious and genteel man who is organising it? Later in the film we get a real shock when we find out who he is. (No, it is not Ohmart's husband. Try again. Give up, you could never guess.) Ohmart wants to run away with Tryon, who 'has no money' (at least not enough for her), so she browbeats him into robbing the robbers and taking the $350,000 worth of jewels from them as 'running away money'. When Tryon protests, Ohmart ruthlessly scorns his comparative poverty, and says 'I've been poor before.' But of course, this being a film noir, things go terribly wrong. And go on going wrong. And go on going even more wrong. And everything becomes impossibly tense, so that sweat practically breaks out upon the celluloid itself. And then more surprises come, and yet more tension. The screenwriter has no mercy on us. And Ohmart is relentless, as greedy and passionate as Stanwyck in DOUBLE INDEMNITY (1944), a role on which she clearly modelled her own performance. This really is a good one. I would say don't miss it, but first you have to find it, and that is even more difficult than solving the plot. Type it into Google with the word 'buy'.

I really don't understand why this Michael Curtiz film is so hard to find. And since so many years. A rather good film noir, in the Warner Bors tradition, except that this time it was produced by Paramount Pictures. And like some other late Curtiz's films, there are no really great stars in this movie. Actors as we could have seen in B pictures. But this is definitely not a B picture.The usual topic of the triangle: Wife, husband and lover. The gal wants to get rid of her husband with the help of her lover. Characterization, music score, sets by night, everything is very interesting in this authentic and - I repeat - rare gem. Don't miss Nat King Cole singing "Never Let Me Go". A charming movie which reminds me my childhood. But it is not a masterpiece although.