Kreuzverhör

The Tattered Dress is a very under rated film that I wish would be broadcast more often. I saw it many times during the sixties and seventies and haven't seen it for years. But the performances do stand out.

The one who stands out the most is Jack Carson. This is no doubt his best screen dramatic performance. Carson usually was cast as amiable blow hard types who usually meant well, but could be very dense. In The Tattered Dress as the mean sadistic sheriff he really should have been nominated for Best Supporting Actor in this one.

Jeff Chandler plays a high price defense attorney who's come to Carson's town to defend a married couple accused of a murder that has generated national headlines. Chandler is usually well paid for his services and this is no exception.

While there Chandler makes the acquaintance of Carson. Carson's a local celebrity himself, his former gridiron exploits locally helped him first get elected sheriff. However Chandler's a real national celebrity and Carson fawns all over him.

What happens though is that Carson gives Chandler a confidence that when the trial comes, Chandler uses to impeach Carson's testimony and make him a figure of ridicule on the stand. Because of that his clients get acquitted.

Carson exacts his revenge by framing Chandler on a jury tampering charge and uses every avenue to close any loopholes Chandler might find as his own defense attorney.

The Tattered Dress is one of Jeff Chandler's best films, but as good as he is, Jack Carson gives us his career performance. He's an incredible study of pure evil in power. A person totally unable to deal with others professionally. Chandler was an attorney advocating for his clients, admittedly not a pair of the noblest creatures on earth, but in the final analysis was just doing his job. Carson can't separate that out. I've known some and worked for some people like that in real life. Bad when they get into positions of authority.

Elaine Stewart and Philip Reed are Chandler's wealthy clients who take a powder on him when he gets in a jackpot. Jeanne Crain is Chandler's estranged wife who still stands by him and Gail Russell in one of her last film roles is the woman who accuses Chandler of jury tampering. They all fill their roles nicely, but a special mention should go to George Tobias, a comedian who Chandler got off on a murder charge himself, but at the cost of his career. He serves as a gopher/confidante to Chandler and has a tragic end.

I truly wish The Tattered Dress was out on VHS or DVD. It's a terrific story that is well acted and written. Absolutely a must see for fans of Jeff Chandler and Jack Carson.

THE TATTERED DRESS has so many fascinating elements within it that it deserves to be elevated to the class of forgotten, but major, works. Jack Arnold's direction of a potentially overly-melodramatic plot manages to sidestep most of the problems, but it is the acting that is most memorable. The film's beginning uses Elaine Stewart to enormous advantage. She may have had a short film career, but you could not take your eyes off her when she was on screen (THE BAD AND THE BEAUTIFUL, SKY FULL OF MOON, HAJJI BABA, etal). She had quite a bit of talent that never saw stardom, partly because of a dog attack that left her out of the biz for a while. GAIL RUSSELL is superb...totally wonderful... in a supporting role, and the scene in which she breaks down in the courtroom deserved a Nomination. And how splendidly she handles the line about drinking!! JACK CARSON is cagey and sneaky and superbly threatening. In the lead, JEFF CHANDLER, as a lawyer, is always convincing. Low-keyed, you can tell when his character is confronted with an insurmountable problem. JEANNE CRAIN has little to do as his wife, but she is always lovely to watch. Catch this underrated film. It's worth searching for.

By far the best few minutes in The Tattered Dress occur in its swift, provocative prologue. In filthy-rich Desert Valley, California, there's an illicit tryst (where a bodice actually gets ripped); a fight between the adulterous blonde and her jealous husband; and the stalking and slaying of the popular young man who cuckolded him. When a hotshot mouthpiece from New York rolls into town to defend the killer, on the grounds that he was only avenging his wife's rape, it promises to be down-and-dirty fun, like Anatomy of Murder a couple years later.

No such luck. The trial is but a plot point, winning lawyer Jeff Chandler not only an acquittal for his client but the everlasting enmity of the town sheriff and political boss (Jack Carson). Chandler finds himself framed for bribing a juror and ill-advisedly chooses to defend himself. To his side rushes Jeanne Crain, playing that most thankless of roles, the loyal ex-wife. Though there's some welcome noirish violence, the movie has aspirations to being a big courtroom drama where Chandler fights for his reputation, his self-respect, and "principle."

Turning Chandler into the central character proves a colossal miscalculation. He can't begin to impersonate a legal legend who's been compared to Clarence Darrow; though he sweats and strains to work up a full head of steam in his flat, wide skull, he convinces only the jurors -- never us viewers.

Elaine Stewart, as the trampy trophy-wife, and Gail Russell, as the bribed juror, get tossed aside, as does Crain. Only Carson emerges unscathed; once again, as in a long line of supporting roles, he uses his affable, average-joe persona to hide the ruthless schemer inside. When Chandler turns the ripped dress of the original trial into a metaphor for the "tattered" garb of the blind statue of Justice, it's clear that this movie is giving itself airs because it has nothing else to give.

Jack Arnold's "The Tattered Dress" is a wonderful surprise - a very fine, well-crafted movie from Universal that defies the usual movie pigeonholes of A-movie versus B-movie, and serious film versus exploitation film. It also demonstrates Arnold's versatility as a director: known for his many classic sci-fi/fantasy pictures, yet capable of a classic British comedy hit "The Mouse That Roared" and everything in between including blaxploitation (with Fred Williamson) and excellent work for TV.

Watching it for the first time, some 67 years after release via YouTube, I was immediately struck by the excellent CinemaScope black & white photography, with fine compositions by an unheralded cameraman Carl Guthrie (who shot one of my all-time favorite movies, "Christmas in Connecticut").

But this is an Albert Zugsmith production, and like so many of his exploitation movies features many beautiful actresses like Elaine Stewart (she of the tattered dress) to add a tidbit or so of raciness to an otherwise serious picture.

The script by George Zuckerman, best-known for his screenplays for Douglas Sirk classics, is remarkable, with complex lead characters played by Jeff Chandler (the deeply flawed lawyer who has heroic elements) and well-cast Jack Carson (a most amiable villain). He manages to include courtroom gimmickry that puts a Perry Mason episode to shame, by taking the usual preachiness of a spirited lawyer's speech to nearly satirical extremes.

IMDb submitters have classified the movie incorrectly as "film noir" and "Psychotronic" (apologies to Michael Weldon, who I knew well back in Cleveland before we both moved to NYC). Just as the word "cult" has been misused and widely overused in recent decades, I prefer "overlooked" or "misunderstood" as more accurate to describe so many great movies ranging from Hugo Haas to Ken Russell that eventually have found a niche and latter-day appreciation. (Growing up in the '50s, it was the word "camp", both high and low, that was how film buffs treated similar off-beat content.)

Big-shot trial lawyer Jeff Chandler gets a client off for a murder in Nevada. The murdered man had been a friend of sheriff Jack Carson. Carson frames Chandler for bribing a juror. When the attorney Chandler and long-suffering ex-wife Jeanne Crain hire begins to talk about plea deals, Chandler fires him and conducts his own defense.

It's directed by the under-rated Jack Arnold, who is best remembered for some fine, subtext-laden monster movies of the era. With Chandler's dramatic, rumbling voice, however, it turns into a well-told soap opera, with undertones of danger from Carson, who is very good in his part. I'm afraid I was put off by the slovenly-lawyered courtroom scenes, in which attorneys accepted hearsay evidence without a whimper, and verdicts that seem unlikely. Other cast members include Edward Platt as a reporter whose job seems to be to follow around Chandler, George Tobias as a not-too-funny comic, Gail Russell as the woman who accuses Chandler of bribery, and Elaine Stewart as a rather dumb blonde.