one of my absolute favorites!

I gave this film a 9 out of 10, because it was exactly what I expected it to be.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

In addition to the superbly photographed, fast-paced, totally riveting noir classic I Wake Up Screaming (1941) in which a super-attractive Betty Grable, aided by heavy-handed Victor Mature, has a hard time escaping the minions of the law led by the magnificent Laird Cregar, Fox has also issued the not-half-as-exciting re-make, Vicki (1953), which the studio virtually threw away on its original release so that all attention could be focused on The Robe and CinemaScope. Vicki starts most promisingly. In fact Jean Peters makes a far more seductive "Vicki" than Carole Landis. Unfortunately, Elliott Reid makes an extremely weak hero, and Jeanne Crain is no Betty Grable. Although Richard Boone makes a fair stab at the Laird Cregar part, it all comes to a most unsatisfactory and unsatisfying climax when the murderer is flaccidly unmasked by an all-too-familiar ruse and then tamely led away without any of the promised action and excitement the script has been leading us to expect!

Elisha Cook Jr. as Harry Williams and Laird Cregar as Ed Cornell (named after Cornell Woolrich) do a much better job than Richard Boone and Aaron Spelling. Cregar, who died tragically as a result of a crash diet at the age of 31. I also prefer Elliott Reed in "Vicki" over Victor Mature in "I Wake Up Sreaming or "Hot Spot." I can sum it up this way. I would revisit "I Wake Up Sccreaming" but wouldn't watch "Vicki." The novel by Steve Fisher translates well to the screen. Finally, I don't consider this to be a film-noir picture.

A fairly close remake of the 1942 proto-noir "I Wake Up Screaming," "Vicki" was filmed and released 11 years later. During the picture's opening credits, however, with its elegant music and close-up portrait painting of a beautiful murder victim, "Vicki" may instead bring to mind another Fox noir, 1944's "Laura"; I'd swear that the typeface of the titles of the two films is even the same! "Vicki" features a cast of "lesser names" than did "IWUS," but follows the same basic plot path. Here, Jean Peters plays the title role, originally portrayed by Carole Landis, of Vicki Lynn, a pretty NYC model who is murdered while on the verge of her big Hollywood break. Jeanne Crain fills in for Betty Grable, playing her sister (a huge upgrade in terms of looks and acting ability, I feel), and Elliott Reid (I know...who?) takes over for Victor Mature, as the publicity man who gets Vicki's career started. Richard Boone here plays Ed Cornell, the maniac cop on the case (a debatable improvement on Laird Cregar's hulking presence), while future TV mogul Aaron Spelling (!) plays a wacky hotel clerk, taking the part once essayed by the great Elisha Cook, Jr. So yes, lesser names, perhaps, but the presence of Jeanne Crain, one of the greatest of screen beauties, always helps carry a picture...for this viewer, anyway. "Vicki" is a fairly compact film with little flab. It is well played by all and features a moody score by Leigh Harline. Director Harry Horner, a man better known in Hollywood for his contributions as an art director and production designer, acquits himself quite well here, lavishing great attention on his use of light and shadow. Watching the film, I was also reminded, by Carl Betz' presence as a sympathetic cop, of another Fox noir that I had recently seen, "Dangerous Crossing" (a superior film to this one), which also stars Betz and Crain. In all, "Vicki" is a lesser noir, but still great fun. Oh...at the film's tail end, one of the characters is revealed as being a nutjob for having constructed a shrine to Vicki in his living room; perhaps I should consider scrapping the Jeanne Crain shrine that I was going to build in mine....

Billboard and print model is found dead in her apartment; the New York City police get busy interviewing suspects, though the lieutenant on the case has personal reasons for wanting to find the killer. Steve Fisher's novel "I Wake Up Screaming" (its original title uncredited here, perhaps because it was already filmed as such in 1941 with Betty Grable), gets a strictly minor-league treatment this time, with nearly every actor on-board over-compensating for the uncertain script with pushy performances. Jean Peters, who looks like Jessica Walter and talks tough like Susan Hayward, is an odd choice to play the doomed, would-be starlet; Peters isn't the wide-eyed innocent/hash-slinging waitress the plot suggests, instead coming on with both barrels loaded. As her sister, Jeanne Crain has more of the Cinderella quality Peters should be projecting, and hers is the only substantial acting job in the picture. Playing the gruff, snarling lieutenant, Richard Boone is way over-the-top, as is Aaron Spelling in an hysterical role as a wormy desk clerk. Just silly enough to be watchable, though it is never explained why glamorous Vicki is living in that dumpy apartment--nor how her photograph pre-death has managed to land on the cover of every single magazine at the newsstand. ** from ****