Tensión

Richard Basehart-an actor who never received the roles his talent merited-plays Warren Quimby a drugstore employee whose modest salary and aspirations frustrate his more avaricious wife Clare,played woodenly by Audrey Trotter.She leaves him for a wealthy operator ,Barney Deager,who compounds Quimbys misery by beating him up in front of Clare He resolves to take on another identity and kill Deager but while having the opportunity cannot bring himself to do it However Deager is murdered shortly after and suspicion falls on him.The rest of the movie centres on the investigation by the devious and shrewd police detective Collier Bonnabel (Barry Sullivan)and his attempt to get at the truth

It is not a who done it as the identity of the killer is never in doubt and instead the focus is on how the culprit will be revealed The performance ,the pouty and sulky Trotter aside ,are solid and the direction by John Berry brisk and to the point

It is not a major thriller but solid studio genre film making and worth the less than 90 minutes of your time that will be taken in watching it.

Putting glasses on the very versatile Richard Basehart and sticking him with a drugstore and a faithless trophy wife (Totter) is almost inspired. His Warren Quimby is such a timid, dependent little guy, and when wife Claire thrusts out her ample chest at any well-dressed man who walks by, we feel for the put-upon pharmacist. He's working day and night trying to please her, but she could care less, especially when she hooks up with the flashy Barney Deager (Gough) and rubs Warren's nose in it. Or rather it's Deager who does the nose-rubbing in the sands of his Malibu beach house. Now Warren may be no Clark Kent, but he's finally had enough humiliation, and there is an alter-ego waiting to break out of that timid soul. The alter-ego is named Paul Southern. He doesn't wear a red cape, but he does sport a very unWarren-like checked jacket and no glasses. More importantly, he's got a plan, a nifty plan for revenge on his two tormentors. In the meantime, he's picked up a new girl (Charisse) who admires the forceful Southern style. So now Quimby-Southern is ready for a new life with his new girl once his nifty revenge plan succeeds.

I just wish the second half succeeded as well as this riveting first half. But the focus shifts abruptly over to wise-guy cop Bonnabel (Sullivan) and we lose the compelling thread of humiliation and revenge. It's almost like the script didn't know what to do with Basehart following the Malibu showdown. The remainder of the film plays out in kind of fuzzy, not very believable fashion. It's like a screenplay in two very unequal chapters. The movie is another of Dore Schary's attempts to bring sunny MGM into the post-war world of noir. Like many of the others, the effort here only partially succeeds. There's some good location photography and an excellent cast. However, director Berry adds little to the erratic script, and I'm tempted to say that neither he nor the studio had a feel for this kind of RKO material. Nonetheless, that compelling first half remains.

MGM's Film Noir's may not have been up to par with RKO's during this time period but this is a pretty good film that doesn't actually become a Film Noir until well into the film but it has the look of a Film Noir throughout. Cinematographer Harry Stradling Sr. had a 50 year career in films beginning in the 20's as a young man and up until he died in 1970. Before this he had photographed such films as The Picture of Dorian Gray, Till The Clouds Roll By and had worked on the classic Intermezzo among his many films. He would go on to do A Streetcar Named Desire, Johnny Guitar, Gus & Dolls, My Fair Lady, Funny Girl, Hello Dolly and The Owl & The Pussycat. Director John Berry had made some dramas in the 40's and was really moving into Film Noir with this film. Unfortunately had also just completed a documentary about the blacklisted Hollywood filmmakers that got himself blacklisted and went to Europe to make films before returning to the USA and making some mediocre films. This is the story about a meek and mild mannered night manager of a 24 hour pharmacy/diner who toils 12 hour shifts to save money to make a comfortable life for his gold-digging, fast and loose wife. They are a mismatch who married while he was in the service because she thought he looked cute in his uniform but their life with living above the pharmacy is something she would like to ditch and she finally does. Audrey Totter is your classic femme fatal bad girl in a bullet bra. Richard Basehart is the pharmacist husband with a plan to seek a new identity. Cyd Charise is his new interest and Lloyd Gough is Totter's. Barry Sullivan and William Conrad are the detectives and Tom D'Andrea is the sympathetic late night counter guy. A story by John D. Klorer and screenplay by Allen Rivkin. 21 year old André Previn before he became a noted composer and conductor provides the film's score. I would give this a 7.0 out of 10.

Why is everyone here comparing this (unfavorably) to Hitchcock? Apples and oranges! What this is is a damn good little B mystery lifted to art by the estimable, underrated Audrey Totter and an evocative score by Andre Previn. He reused the theme here years later in the much more well known Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Parenthetically, can anyone think of a movie that wasn't bettered by the presence of the fabulous Miss Totter? Let's file belated criminal charges against M-G-M for misusing this dream girl!

Tension is neat little noir thriller from MGM where some of their second line players get a chance to show their stuff without any of the big marquee names to take the audience's attention.

Richard Basehart stars as a meek pharmacist whose wife Audrey Totter has been seeing loudmouthed liquor salesman Lloyd Gough and she's not even keeping it a secret. After Basehart gets slapped around he conceives of a plan to murder Gough involving hthe creation of a second identity. But then at the last minute Basehart can't go through with it. In my favorite scene in the film he tells Gough you can have the tramp, she's your problem now.

But then Gough is killed and the cops Barry Sullivan and William Conrad go looking for the man who doesn't really exist. More I cannot say this one has more twists than your small intestine.

Totter is one nasty slattern of a woman. In contrast to neighbor Cyd Charisse who Basehart has fallen for. But at the moment he and Totter are trapped by circumstances.

Even the detectives aren't quite what they seem. Barry Sullivan has some unique investigative methods that I'm sure the LAPD would not approve of.

You'll like how this one goes down. I'd check it out.