Agrega una trama en tu idiomaAn invalid husband (Barry Sullivan) wrongly believes his wife (Loretta Young) and doctor (Bruce Cowling) are conspiring to kill him and outlines that suspicion in a letter, which causes a se... Leer todoAn invalid husband (Barry Sullivan) wrongly believes his wife (Loretta Young) and doctor (Bruce Cowling) are conspiring to kill him and outlines that suspicion in a letter, which causes a serious concern when he ends up dying anyway.An invalid husband (Barry Sullivan) wrongly believes his wife (Loretta Young) and doctor (Bruce Cowling) are conspiring to kill him and outlines that suspicion in a letter, which causes a serious concern when he ends up dying anyway.
- Dirección
- Guionistas
- Elenco
- Hoppy - Billy
- (as Bradley Mora)
- Boy
- (sin créditos)
- Elderly Man
- (sin créditos)
- Tex
- (sin créditos)
- Girl
- (sin créditos)
- Woman
- (sin créditos)
- Mom
- (sin créditos)
- Boy
- (sin créditos)
- Boy
- (sin créditos)
Opiniones destacadas
Like so many films of the era there are several things that do raise humorous eyebrows these days. At the onset Loretta Young is doing "housework"; struggling with an unruly vacuum cleaner while wearing an elegant dress that would be more than appropriate attire for a four star restaurant. It really wasn't that long ago that millions of women would have killed for Young's sedate upper middle class existence as a "housewife." The idea that a doctor would make a house-call (let alone two house-calls in one day) is a humorous artifact of a bygone era. Redgardless of the anachronistic humor, "Cause For Alarm" is a pleasant diversion.
Early in the film Loretta Young walks out to her driveway and encounters - a celluloid ME. Attired in the exact same garb I wore in '51, a black cowboy outfit with two six(cap)-guns and riding a trusty trike, a not particularly adept child actor passes himself off as the one-and-only Hopalong Cassidy (as we grew older he became "Hopalong Catastrophe" but in the early fifties he was our unsullied hero). This kid even has the same toy I remember treasuring.
All that nostalgia aside, this short film is diverting albeit not the finest example of noir cinema. Loretta Young was as beautiful as she was talented. Barry Sullivan is appropriately nuts and most of the rest of the cast give dependable color to their roles.
This film definitely belongs in any noir retrospective.
George Jones is suffering from a heart condition and confined to his bed. An aloof and suspicious man, he assumes his wife and doctor, the latter a good friend, are conspiring to poison him and outlines his suspicion in a letter to the District Atttorney. Getting his wife to pass the letter on to the postman, he gleefully tells his wife what he has done. So when he actually does die, shortly after, wife Ellen panics and sets about retrieving the letter.....
Slight plot but well acted, Cause for Alarm! is an efficient pot boiling thriller. Tagged as a "suburban noir," it's a film that has had an up and down experience in terms of critical appraisal. What we can say now is that it does carry with it a degree of ambiguity, where once back in the day it was seen as a straight forward narrative, with Young's ever increasingly fraught wife trying to correct a wrong she hasn't in fact done; now it's quite possible that her telling of the story (via narration) is "arguably" a hokey smoke screen for a dastardly deed. It's the ambiguity, to me at least, that gives the film watchable value. For without it the film just plays out as a chase and deceive movie, one with a couple of colourful characters inserted in for plot suspense enhancement, and featuring a clumsy character thread about parental yearning.
Production (in 14 days) and cast performances are good. Young engages by exuding genuine sweaty stress, and supporting turns from Margalo Gillmore and Irving Bacon, as annoyingly talkative aunt and postman respectively, leave favourable marks. Direction from multi genre helmer Garnett is nicely on the simmer, while Ruttenberg's photography brings shadows and light to this twitchy part of suburbia. But the ending, if indeed there are no tricks being played, is a thoroughly unsatisfying outcome. There are those who have delved deep in search of meaning and explanations of character motives and reactions, with that the film has an aura of mystery about it. Certainly there are more questions than answers unfolded during the relatively short running time, and that's OK, we like that Sullivan's bile based husband courts no sympathy. However, it may well be that the film was merely just meant to be a suspenseful little ole race against time drama, a tale about a woman who just married a less than honourable man.
It's watchable and the paranoia elements do indeed bring it into the film noir realm, but your enjoyment of it may depend on if you side with the theory that there is more than meets the eyes and ears. Personally I have my doubts, and the thought of having to watch it again is about as appealing as painting Loretta's picket fence on the hottest day of the year. 5/10
The film is a showcase for Young, and she delivers a fine performance. The story, however, is very hard to accept. There are many things happening on the screen which needed to be more fully explained. For starters, the husband's illnesses - how does his heart condition affect his mind as manifested on screen? Then, there are several actions Young takes which do not seem to be the choices most level-headed thinking individuals would take. So, maybe she's not exactly a level-headed thinking individual?
****** Cause for Alarm! (1951) Tay Garnett ~ Loretta Young, Barry Sullivan, Bruce Cowling
It's a very well done movie, with a lot of little things that gave it a feel of authenticity: the nosy neighbours, and the neighbourhood kid who pretends to be Hopalong Cassidy showing up at Ellen's house looking for cookies. The opening scenes, explaining how George and Ellen met and their mutual relationship with Dr. Graham, went on perhaps a bit too long. Then, at the end, there is an expected twist (because you always expect a surprise twist in a movie like this) but the expected twist wasn't the twist I was expecting, and it provided a somewhat humorous (and perhaps, therefore, slightly out of place) ending to an overall very enjoyable film.
¿Sabías que…?
- TriviaProducer Tom Lewis wanted Judy Garland for the leading role, but his wife Loretta Young also wanted it. She retained a lawyer who told him that he was discriminating against her because she was his wife. She got the part.
- ErroresEven if written on heavy 24-pound bond, a two-page letter, mailed in a standard #10 business envelope, with no additional enclosure-- which appears to be all that Jones composes and the doctor burns in a tabletop ashtray-- would not come close to exceeding the one-ounce limit for a standard first-class letter. 24-lb bond contains 500 sheets - a ream. Each ream weighs 6 lbs (or 96 ounces). Each sheet weighs 0.192 of an ounce. Treating the envelope as a third sheet, the total comes to just under 0.60 oz., just 1/10th of an ounce over halfway to reaching the 2-stamp limit.
- Citas
George Z. Jones: Ummm... my head.
Ellen Jones: Is your head bothering you?
George Z. Jones: Terribly... both of them.
Ellen Jones: Would you like me to rub it for you?
George Z. Jones: I couldn't think of anything nicer.
- ConexionesEdited into Muchachada nui: Episode #2.8 (2008)
Selecciones populares
- How long is Cause for Alarm!?Con tecnología de Alexa
- Can I watch this film online?
Detalles
- Fecha de lanzamiento
- País de origen
- Sitios oficiales
- Idioma
- También se conoce como
- Cause for Alarm!
- Locaciones de filmación
- 116 N Oakhurst Dr, Beverly Hills, California, Estados Unidos(George & Ellen's house - since demolished and replaced)
- Productora
- Ver más créditos de la compañía en IMDbPro
Taquilla
- Presupuesto
- USD 635,000 (estimado)
- Tiempo de ejecución1 hora 14 minutos
- Color
- Relación de aspecto
- 1.37 : 1