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The Dark Corner (Fox Film Noir)

Description

Lucille Ball has a change of pace role as the loyal secretary of a private eye in this brooding film noir about a man being set up for a murder rap. Framed by his partner years ago, hard-boiled detective Bradford Galt (Mark Stevens) served a two year stretch for manslaughter. Now trying to start over, he spends his time serving his clients and romancing his new secretary, Kathleen (Lucille Ball). But everything changes with the appearance of a sinister man in a whit suit (William Bendix) who's apparently working for Galt's ex-partner, Tony Jardine. When Jardine is killed, the police blame Galt. It's another frame, but if Galt can't prove he's innocent, this time he's headed for death row.

The Dark Corner can't seriously be proposed as a great film noir, but it's one that people cherish. For one thing, it's unique in having Lucille Ball--who has absolutely no "splainin'" to do--as the smart, resourceful, devoted secretary of beleaguered private eye Mark Stevens. Lucy actually rates top billing, with Clifton up-to-his-old-Laura-tricks Webb and William vicious-brute-in-a-white-suit Bendix also getting their names above that of the hero in the credits. In this, there's a certain justice; they all deliver the goods, whereas Stevens seems a tad lightweight as the hardnose, Phil Marlowe type cracking wise and punching his way through the mean streets. His character comes burdened with more backstory than usual for movie detectives; this time, the case the private eye has to solve is his own. The intriguingly convoluted screenplay (by Jay Dratler, who co-wrote Laura, and Bernard Schoenfeld, from a story by Leo Rosten) takes hold like a vise and sustains the tension even though, by rights, its credibility should be shrinking with each passing reel. Henry Hathaway's direction is crisp, and the cinematography by Joe MacDonald (who would next shoot John Ford's My Darling Clementine) is both pungent and gorgeous. With Cathy Downs, Kurt Kreuger, and Reed Hadley, who plays a police detective here but more often supplied the voiceover on Fox's semidocumentary thrillers and Anthony Mann's T-Men. --Richard T. Jameson

Reviews

Rating: 3 / 5
Date: 2010-07-29
Summary: "Old film noir"

THe movie has a feel of the 40s. And fun to see Lucille Ball in a glamour role.

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Rating: 4 / 5
Date: 2010-07-29
Summary: "everyone brings their A game"

especially the writers in this highly involving , tough talking , well acted , crackerjack noir . featuring Lucille (I Love Lucy) ball as the delightful female lead to Mr. Stevens excellent put upon gum shoe . additionally William Bendix and Clifton Webb turn in typically great performances in helping to advance this (still) very hip and plausible suspense story . high makes must go to all involved . terrific direction as well . i found the last five minutes of the picture rather predictable and anti climactic . not enough though to keep this picture from near greatness . lots of fun and tension . hope you enjoy it .

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Rating: 4 / 5
Date: 2010-05-15
Summary: "Good Film Noir"

This movie picks up after awhile, slow to start. Lucille Ball and Mark Stevens give lackluster performances. On the otherhand, Clifton Webb and William Bendix are great and the story picks up with these characters. It works though and is yet another decent film noir.

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Rating: 5 / 5
Date: 2010-03-21
Summary: "Framed like Whistler's Mother . . ."

Already in 1946, director Henry Hathaway made such a hard-boiled film noir detective story that it's practically a self-parody. And what fun. It should have been called "Pulp Fiction." Handsome Mark Stevens is a private eye with a prison record, and Lucille Ball is his secretary, with enough deadpan comebacks to float the Queen Mary. Clifton Webb is all upper-class snob, and too old for his two-timing wife, while Kurt Kreuger is an Aryan sleaze with a German accent, who doesn't make it to the last reel. William Bendix is caught in the middle, with plenty of lines straight out of Dashiell Hammitt ("The Thin Man" gets its own reference in the movie).

Hathaway and cinematographer Joseph MacDonald lay on the shadows with a trowel. There are silhouettes everywhere light happens to fall, with shadows cast by Venetian blinds, on frosted glass panels in doors, and curtains wafting in a balmy night breeze over the bodies of two men on the floor of a 52nd Street walkup. Location shots of New York are nicely intercut for documentary effect - from the opening shot in which the camera tilts down from a rumbling train on the Third Avenue El to a man in a white suit on a street corner. Meanwhile, if you pay attention to the soundtrack, there's a music background in nearly every scene, ranging from radio orchestras playing 1940s ballads to someone practicing the piano in a nearby apartment. Oh, and it's a love story, too. The plot is implausible and makes sense only in a 1946 issue of "True Detective Magazine," but who cares. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

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Rating: 5 / 5
Date: 2009-11-01
Summary: "Reminiscent of Laura and Maltase Falcon"

Bradford Galt (Mark Stevens), private eye has a secret past that he moves to New York to escape and set up a new life. Police Lt Frank Reeves (Reed Hadley) is aware of his past and keeps tabs on him. Looks like his past is catching up. Why?

And his secretary Kathleen Stewart (Lucille Ball) insists on helping him get out of trouble as they both get in deeper and deeper.

The story is a lot darker than most film noir and starts off slowly. It take time to review to the audience the plot so it is not so much a twisting plot as it is an unrevealed plat. The main character is not as much as snot but more of a pansy. He thinks he is more of the victim in the story and says so. Clifton Webb is almost the same character as in Laura.

I like all the small things like that of the theater cashier listing to Kathleen talking about begging Bradford to take her to his apartment. You also need to pay attention to what looks like frivolous details as the details become a major part of the plot later. Watch the ink stained suit and the lucky horse shoe key chain.

The voice commentary is almost if not better than the film it's self. We are told may things that are obvious in the film but no obvious as to how it relates to other films. After listening to the commentary you need to watch the film again with what you learned and with the knowledge of the first time through.