Almas desnudas

In the charming community of Balboa 50 miles from Los Angeles, the middle-class housewife Lucia Harper (Joan Bennett) travels to Los Angeles to meet the scoundrel Ted Darby (Shepperd Strudwick). Her seventeen year-old daughter Beatrice (Geraldine Brooks) is in love with Ted that is a worthless man. He asks for money to leave Bea, but Lucia refuses to give. Bea does not believe on her mother and during the night she sneaks out to the boat garage to meet Ted that admits that Lucia told the truth. Bea pushes him and Ted falls on an anchor immediately dying. On the next morning, Lucia finds the body and assumes that Bea has killed her lover. She decides to get rid of the corpse and puts it in her boat and dumps far from home. When the police find Ted, the stranger Martin Donnelly (James Mason) visits Lucia to blackmail her on behalf of his partner Nagel (Roy Roberts) that has several letters that Bea had written to Ted, asking US$ 5,000 for the letters. The desperate Lucia tries to raise the amount since her husband is working in Berlin. However, Martin falls in love with her and tries to help her. But the dangerous Nagel wants to receive the amount at any price.

"The Reckless Moment" is a suspenseful melodrama of Max Ophüls. The despair of Lucia is impressive trying to protect her family and specially her teenage daughter from the scandal. The plot point is when the criminal falls in love with her and as he says, he had never done a decent deed in his life but he decides to help his beloved victim. Joan Bennett is fantastic in the role of Lucia and James Mason is a nice villain in the end. David Bair plays the annoying son of Lucia that is irritating. In 2001, Tilda Swinton played the lead role in "The Deep End", a good remake of "The Reckless Moment". My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Na Teia do Destino" ("In the Web of the Destiny")

Near perfect, this is a marvellous and magical non stop emotional thriller with the camera moving with such fluidity we can only stare in wonder. As the camera swirls, so does the middle class family of Joan Bennett. She is constantly keeping the plates in the air, cheering them along chiding them at dinner or suggesting changes of clothes. When trouble strikes it is she who has to confront the big bad world and visit the boat shed, the less salubrious parts of town and confront people and issues she never has before. All seems to depend upon her and James mason's character appears forcing financial worries on top of all else. Until he falls for her and begins to relent and finally even more. Not a wasted frame.

Taut drama with the always underrated Joan Bennett great as the panicked mother and James Mason just right as the conflicted anti-hero. They interact so well it's a pity they only made this one film together.

Wonderfully directed by Ophuls and atmospherically shot this was updated as The Deep End with Tilda Swinton also a fine film but this has a distinct allure of its own.

Most of the supporting cast isn't given much to do which helps focus the film but an interesting character is the faithful maid Sybil played well by Frances Williams. Always in the background but seemingly all seeing she emerges with a nice showing of grit and understanding at a climatic moment.

For fans of noir and melodrama this is a pleasure from start to finish.

An unusual film, this slow-burner starring Joan Bennett and James Mason seems like a straight-forward murder and blackmail case, but that's only part of the story. Joan Bennett is the mother living apart from her husband (he's working away), and coping with her growing son and daughter, and their maid. James Mason is an Irish low-life, who hopes to make money from Bennett's family misfortunes.

From the start, where we see the 'murder' and find out what really happened, to the startling ending, this film, directed by Max Ophüls, grips. Aside from the two leads, Geraldine Brooks is good as the teenage daughter struggling with a lost love affair and the hormonal rage of puberty; and Kathryn Card is suitably condescending as she refuses to loan money to the increasingly desperate Bennett.

'The Reckless Moment' has a frisson of noir, and a strong script. It is a minor film, certainly, but a rewarding one.

Upperclass mother (Bennett) is blackmailed because of her indiscreet daughter.

Director Ophuls' leisurely camera work tends to soothe rather than jar, resulting in a style not particularly well suited for the jagged world of classic noir. Still, it is well suited for bringing out character traits as they emerge on a specific background.

Here, a rather ordinary, if upperclass, housewife gets to show her toughness by protecting her family (while Dad's away) from the ignominy of apparent murder and blackmail. So, move over Ozzie&Harriet and Leave It to Beaver, because by implication those well-coiffed housewives of 50's sitcoms are a lot tougher than they look.

Ophuls' dollying camera effectively contrasts the seedy world of the blackmailers with mother Lucia's amiable home life. The problem is that the criminal virus has established a beachhead in her boathouse, and now she must keep it from crossing the yard and invading the family home. Ironically, in order to do that, this law-abiding woman must herself break the law (the reckless moment), resulting in a noirish downward spiral.

Halfway between the worlds of crime and respectability is reluctant blackmailer Donnelly (Mason). In a sense, Lucia meets him there, halfway, but the pull of their respective worlds is too strong to open up a third possibility. I guess my big reservation is with the highly contrived climax that wraps these things up too neatly in typical Production Code fashion. Nor, for that matter, is Donnelly's sudden life-altering devotion that plausible.

Nonetheless, it's a good atmospheric production (check out the moody use of the beach-front breeze), with a fine central performance from Bennett who refuses to go over the top. To me, however, the most unexpectedly jarring part is that very last phone scene—see if you agree.