Der weisse Schatten

The private investigator Bradford Galt (Mark Stevens) has just moved from San Francisco, where he was framed by his former partner Anthony Jardine (Kurt Kreuger) and unfairly spent two years in jail, to a well located office of his own in New York, where he works with his efficient, witty and very beautiful secretary Kathleen (Lucille Ball). When he invites Kathleen to date and have dinner with him, they see a man wearing a white suit (William Bendix) in their tail. Brad holds the man that tells that he is also a private investigator called Fred Foss and hired by Jardine to follow him. When a car almost hit Brad on the street, he visits and argues with Jardine, who is also a seducer of married women, and they fight. Later, when Jardine is murdered in his apartment, Brad realizes that he was framed. His only lead is the man of white suit, and with the support of Kathleen, they try to find the unknown man to discover who is behind the murder of Jardine.

In the atmosphere of New York in the 40's, "The Dark Corner" has a perfect direction, with the development of the characters in a great screenplay with some magnificent lines (I love Brad telling Cathcart's assistant that he would take the Donatello and asking her to wrap it up.) and a wonderful cinematography. The use of shadows is impressive, highlighting the faces and spaces, like for example when Hardy Cathcart sees his young wife kissing Jardine in the safe. Mark Stevens and Lucille Ball show a perfect chemistry and the villains are very realist in this unknown but first-rate film-noir. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Envolto Nas Sombras" ("Enveloped in the Shadows")

The Dark Corner of the title refers to the fact that our hero/protagonist Mark Stevens has himself in a situation where he's being manipulated and he can't see who's doing the manipulating.

To begin with Stevens has a grudge against former partner Kurt Krueger who when they were private eyes together, Krueger was doing a little blackmail on the side that innocent dupe Stevens took a fall for.

But elegant art gallery owner Clifton Webb has a much bigger grudge against Krueger. You remember Webb in his role of Waldo Lydecker in Laura and how obsessed he was with her. In The Dark Corner, he's married his obsession in the person of Cathy Downs. Krueger has been up to his old tricks romancing Downs on the side and Webb, learning of Krueger's previous troubles with Stevens has constructed an elaborate scheme to have Stevens blamed for Krueger's murder.

Webb for all his elegance and brittle sophistication proves to be a cunning foe. Stevens gives a good portrayal of a man trying desperately to find out who's pulling the puppet strings. He's aided and abetted by girl Friday Lucille Ball in a nice dramatic performance, unlike what we've come to expect from here. She proves to be of immense assistance to Stevens and it's her as well as some unforeseen breaks that enable him to figure out what's going on.

Of course the ever dependable William Bendix was borrowed from Paramount and radio's Life of Riley to serve as Webb's trigger man and muscle. Bill Bendix was never bad in anything he did and this is no exception.

The Dark Corner is a fine noir film, a great change of pace for Lucille Ball and a great followup second film for Clifton Webb to succeed Laura.

This is a perfect little film noir, it's everything a film noir is supposed to be. Lucille Ball is great (I echo the sentiments of the person who said she should have done more of this type of film.) She's not a femme fatale, she's a completely innocent heroine; perhaps a little unusual in film noir, but it works. The use of light and dark, some terrific camera angles, and a somewhat confusing plot make this a superb example of this genre. One wonders why this film is not better known; it should be.

It's a loss to the noir cycle that Lucille Ball never got to exercise her widely underestimated acting (as opposed to comedic) skills as a femme fatale; she might have gained entry to the Bad Girls' Club. She did, however, lend her welcome presence to three film noir: Two Smart People, Lured, and, the first and best of them, The Dark Corner.

She plays the new, spunky receptionist to private eye Mark Stevens (and gets top billing; logically the star, Stevens comes only fourth in the titles). Once framed into a manslaughter charge in San Francisco, Stevens has come east to start over with a clean slate. But he's being measured for an even bigger frame. White-suited William Bendix is the cat's-paw in a plot to goad Stevens into murdering the old partner who set him up (Kurt Kreuger).

Kreuger, however, isn't even aware that Stevens is out of prison and in New York; he's too busy romancing the young wife (Cathy Downs) of rich art-gallery owner Clifton Webb (she sits around bored, listening to `his paintings crack with age'). Webb is the puppet-master behind the elaborate scheme to eliminate his younger, more virile rival. When Stevens comes to on the floor of his apartment with a poker in his hand and Kreuger bludgeoned to death next to him, he, with Ball's help, must race against his inevitable arrest to find the real killer.

The story flits between two Manhattans: The shabby cityscape of penny arcades under the El and flats that open up onto fire escapes, populated by Stevens, Ball and Bendix, and the haut monde of ritzy galleries and high-ceilinged, richly upholstered apartments inhabited by Clift, Downs and Kreuger. Spanning the gap is the unholy alliance between the coarse Bendix and the p***-elegant Webb, reprising his Bitter Old Queen number from Laura and The Razor's Edge (though again, as in Laura, we're asked to swallow his obsession with a beautiful...woman half his age).

While maintaining a deft balance, the plot weighs in as quite a brutal one (Webb's quick dispatch of Bendix proves quite startling). Despite this role and The Street With No Name, Stevens never quite became the noir icon - like Ladd or Bogart or Mitchum (or even like Powell or Ford or Ryan) he seemed destined for, but he's persuasive enough as a man strained to the limit by forces he can't fathom.

Henry Hathaway directed, but the black magic comes courtesy of cinematographer Joe MacDonald. He ably lighted a number of estimable noirs (Street With No Name, Call Northside 777, Pickup on South Street), but here his work surpasses itself. When Ball and Stevens embrace, he turns a two-shot into a four-shot by placing them in front of a fireplace mirror; we see her face in the foreground, his in reflection. In plot, writing and direction, The Dark Corner falls just short of the finest entries in the cycle. But in its strikingly composed photography, finely filigreed with shadow, it could be shown at a gala opening in Webb's high-priced gallery.

Sometimes it seems like it's impossible to avoid being framed for murder. I think we've all had that experience, haven't we? That certainly is Bradford Galt's (Mark Stevens) problem in "The Dark Corner." I should say, it is ONE of his problems. That, along with being constantly annoyed by the cops and assorted bad guys. It's just one of the hazards that come with being a private eye. If you don't believe that, just ask Humphrey Bogart. Among others!

But there can be benefits, too. And in this case, one of the benefits is having the beautiful Kathleen (Lucille Ball) for your ... uh ... private secretary. Furthermore, it can be doubly beneficial when you and your "private secretary" become romantically involved. This role -- Kathleen -- is, I think, one of Lucy's very best from her lengthy pre-"I Love Lucy" movie career. She's beautiful (oh, I said that), she's charming, she's bright (quite un-Lucylike) and, perhaps most important for a private snoop, she helps her man Brad extricate himself from more than one tight spot. And, she's beautiful!

As for those aforementioned annoying bad guys, we have William Bendix and Clifton Webb on hand to annoy His Snoopness. The former THINKS he's a lot tougher than he really is. Better had he known that a tough guy gets much further being the other way around. As for the latter, he, apparently, didn't learn his lesson in "Laura" two years earlier. Too bad. For him.

One of the mildly amusing aspects to this film is Brad's use, perhaps as many as half a dozen times, of the word "shagged." Thanks to "Austin Powers," we now have a new 21st century meaning for that word. But in 1946, in THIS movie, it meant something completely different. And neither meaning has anything to do with rugs. Ahhh, language.

I also find it interesting that the star of this movie (Mark Stevens) took fourth billing. True, although he was both a known and a competent actor, he was never a star of the magnitude of, say, the aforementioned H.B. Which makes me wonder if Henry Hathaway (the director) and Fred Kohlmar (the producer) had a big-name star in mind for the main role but were unable to land same. Thus, did they have to "settle for" Stevens? It would be interesting to learn the background of the casting of this movie and how Stevens came to get the main role and why he was given just fourth billing.

Even so, "The Dark Corner," WITH Mark Stevens, is still one of the better film noirs of the 1940s. And watch out the next time somebody tries to frame you for murder. Maybe it won't be a movie!