Waste of time

Just perfect...

hyped garbage

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

This RKO Film Noir stands above a lot of the studios films in the late 1940's. There are lots of good folks in the cast. Even some of the unaccredited extras are known from other films. I thought I actually spotted an unaccredited Frank Cady (Hooterville Store Keeper Sam Drucker) in the Jury at the end of the film. Could just be another bald guy.Robert Young carries the film and the story is done flashback style from his court trial for murder. The writing is good as this writer who wrote the story could write as he also wrote the story for the Hitchcock classic - "Shadow Of A Doubt". The screen writer who adapted his story would later do some of the better scripts for TV's Perry Mason. This quality of writers shows up in the film script.I like the way the story is handled here because there are times flashback gets confusing. This one does not and the ending is really worth sticking around for. I watched the black and white version of this on TCM. RKO did this as a "B"film quite obviously by the length of the feature.This film is a feast for people who like a good noir and in a way Robert Young here is the father who knows best.

At the Hall of Justice in Los Angeles, a murder trial is underway; Lawrence Ballentyne (Robert Young) takes the stand. He is charged with the brutal murder of a woman. A flashback, which covers most of the movie, tells a story that begins on a hot summer day in New York. Although Ballentyne is married to Greta (Rita Johnson), he has a mistress, Janice Bell (Jane Greer). Ballentyne was ready to leave his rich and influential wife and relocate to Montreal with Janice, but wife Greta knew of his plans and sabotaged them by convincing him to move to California with her. Greta's enticement was to buy her husband a limited partnership in a brokerage firm. Ballentyne promptly dumped Janice. Everything was fine for six months, until he spotted an office employee, Verna Carlson (Susan Hayward). He says, "She looked like a very special kind of dynamite, neatly wrapped in nylon and silk . . . I was powder shy." Before long though, the conniving Verna bails out Ballentyne, who was in a jam with his boss, Mr. Trenton (Tom Powers). After that Ballentyne is into a relationship with her. Events happen, like Ballentyne accidentally bumping into Greer at a restaurant (Hmmm).Eventually Ballentyne decides to go away with Verna to Reno, but his car is struck by an out-of-control heavy truck. Verna is promptly killed and her body burned beyond recognition, while Ballentyne ends up in a hospital. The investigating police believe it was his wife Greta who died in the accident. Ballentyne goes along with the story and soon recovers. After a few events pass, wife Greta commits suicide at a canyon near her ranch. Ballentyne finds her body and the note that he wrote to her in which he explained that he was leaving her for Verna. Although he left her body to decompose, the police eventually discover it. But they soon wonder about Verna. When Ballentyne travels to Kingston, Jamaica, he again unexpectedly runs into Janice Bell. Back in LA, he says he feels like the "bait." He should be uneasy, as Janice is setting him up for the police, who are convinced he murdered Verna. They believe in a motive: Verna must have been blackmailing him. The flashback over, we return to the courtroom trial and Ballentyne's dilemma. The ending is a real grabber, and the last two words provide a twist to this noirish thriller. The acting is fine all around, although the four lead characters are not particularly likable. Top-billed Robert Young is especially good even though he is cast against type; he does not overplay his role as a charming womanizer. After his movie career, he successfully moved into television and among other performances, had two terrific series with "Father Knows Best" (1954-1960) and "Marcus Welby, M.D." (1969-1976). Susan Hayward appeared in many movies, especially in the 1940s and 1950s. After receiving several Oscar nominations for Best Actress, she finally won the award for "I Want to Live" (1958). Jane Greer was the classic femme fatale in "Out of the Past" (1947). Anthony Caruso, a character actor who racked up over 250 movie and TV credits, has a brief role as a hardened hospital patient.

The first problem with this film is that there's no way you're going to like the lead character, played by Robert Young. He's a decided womanizer and as unfaithful as they come -- a wife and 2 lovers in just 95 minutes. Not to mention being a would-be murderer.The second problem with this film is that you're not going to like the wife (Rita Johnson), either. She's clearly manipulating her husband with her money.The third problem with this film is that you're not going to like the first "other woman", played by Jane Greer...well, you might have a little sympathy for her, and there's an interesting twist with this character.The fourth problem with this film is that you're not going to like the second "other woman", played by Susan Hayward. Clearly a gold digger.The fifth problem with this film is that there are just too many coincidences to be viable.Not liking a single main character is problematic for the film. Who does the audience root for? Nevertheless, as unbelievable as the story line may be, it's still pretty interesting with enough twists to keep your attention. And, while you won't like the characters, the acting is pretty decent.

Robert Young scores a real acting triumph playing against his nice guy Father Knows Best type to play a womanizer who fate deals a really tricky hand. The film is a combination of The Apartment and The Postman Always Rings Twice.As in The Apartment where Fred MacMurray has the nice established front of the wife and kiddies and carries on with whomever in the office, Young is the outwardly happily married man whose got a real itch that needs scratching. He's scratching it with Jane Greer at the moment while he's married to Rita Johnson. Greer gets tired of the arrangement and gives Young the door. Young then takes up with the saucy office tramp Susan Hayward and in doing so takes her away from Tom Powers the boss.I can't go any further except to say two women wind up dead, the third one turns evidence on him and Young winds up on trial for his life. The film is told in flashback while Young is put on the witness stand by his lawyer Frank Ferguson. As he tells his story he knows that They Won't Believe Me.This is one of the cleverest noir films going. Had it been done at 20th Century Fox it would have been played by Tyrone Power in one of his heel characterizations. Young did a brilliant job with this role juggling his love life around these three beauties. And I can't single one of the women to say they stood above the others.Definitely a must for fans of the noir genre.