Tension

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!

The cast was my main reason in seeing 'Tension'. Richard Basehart, Audrey Totter, Cyd Charisse, William Conrad and Barry Sullivan were all actors of considerable talent and all did fine work in other films of theirs. 'Tension' is also another film that had a very interesting sounding story, and also watched it due to loving mystery and noir-ish films and due to loving classic film. Having seen some very well done films recently in the same genre and similar, there was a lot of high expectations.

High expectations that were mostly met if not exceeded. 'Tension' has a lot to recommend and it is another recently seen film that is rather under-valued. It is though uneven and one half is better than the other, something that has already been picked up to a few. There are better films in the mystery and noir genres, but also worse and in no way should 'Tension' be compared to Hitchcock. Not a fair comparison and something that it was not striving to be.

Am going to begin with the good. Generally, 'Tension' looks good. Particularly the moody and smooth photography and eerie lighting. A young Andre Previn provides a score that gels beautifully with the atmosphere and even enhances it, sounding very ominous and unsettling. While the direction is not exceptional it is at least competent, especially in the first half. The script is intelligent and tightly paced.

On the whole the story absorbs, though it is not consistent. The first half is great, very intriguing and atmospheric without taking too long to set up. The best thing about 'Tension' is the acting, Basehart contrasts his two roles beautifully and with ease and Totter is a smouldering knockout and steals the film. Conrad injects his role with a lot of juice and Charisse is charming despite her character being on the one-dimensional side.

With all that being said, 'Tension' isn't perfect. The second half is not as strong. The tone shift is abrupt and jarring and the storytelling in the second is not as focused or as riveting, could have done with more tension and surprises. The conclusion and the truth are not hard to figure out at all.

For my tastes, Sullivan is on the bland side. Will agree too that some of the rear projection is distractingly fake.

Concluding, pretty impressive. Rough around the edges, but with more than enough to earn a recommendation. 7/10.

Underrated, somewhat obscure B mystery/noir film about a mousy drugstore manager married to a beautiful woman who uses him and plays the field while he works nights. Things heat up as the woman leaves her husband for another man, he goes to get her, gets beat up by the hulk of a guy she is with, and then he decides he will invent a whole new identity on the weekends and kill him. Richard Basehart does a really good job playing the mild-mannered Warren and then the more realistic Paul Southern. Basehart just doesn't stereotype either role but gives life to each. The director John Berry creates many suspenseful scenes and does all those film noir things we come to expect from a good noir thriller: lots of odd camera angles, excellent use of lighting and shadows, a narrator telling us information after the fact, and a group of players of dubious character. Audrey Totter plays Warren's playful wife to perfection - she really gives the role some depth despite it being so outwardly two-dimensional. The rest of the cast is very effective with Barry Sullivan pulling extra duty as policeman and film narrator doing a very credible job, William Conrad adding humour as his partner, Tom D'Andrea being a voice of reason, and lovely Cyd Charisse as Paul's object of affection. Tension is one of those diamonds in the rough you find when you least expect it. The film doesn't boast a huge budget or marquee stars, but it can hold its weight with many of the films of similar subject matter in its era. Another great plus is the terrific score used throughout by Andre Previn. It almost assumes the role of another character with its ubiquitous presence shadowing the proceedings throughout. If you like good old-fashioned mysteries, then you should not be at all be disappointed with Tension.

To begin with, when I was in Hollywood in late 2005/early 2006, this was shown on TCM – along with THE BLACK BOOK (1949) – as part of a Richard Basehart double-bill; however, my hotel room’s TV reception was terrible that night and I had to miss out on both films (thankfully, with respect to the latter, I happened upon its Alpha DVD edition as soon as I got back to Malta…but, as for TENSION itself, it is only now that I managed to get to it)!

And it was worth the wait – as the film turned out to be yet another underrated noir gem: compelling (even original) plot-wise and quite stylish (given the solid production values typical of MGM). Incidentally, Basehart proved a genre fixture during this early phase of his career – also appearing in HE WALKED BY NIGHT (1948), the afore-mentioned THE BLACK BOOK (really a costumer but the style deployed by two of the genre’s foremost experts, director Anthony Mann and cinematographer John Alton, is unmistakable!), FOURTEEN HOURS and THE HOUSE ON TELEGRAPH HILL (both 1951) and, even later, THE STRANGER’S HAND, THE GOOD DIE YOUNG (both 1954) and THE INTIMATE STRANGER (1956)! Still, the same can be said of his leading lady – Audrey Totter – whose femme fatale here was perhaps the most significant role she ever played: interestingly, when I recently watched her in A BULLET FOR JOEY (1955), I had felt the actress was somewhat past her noir prime (though, having checked my review of that film just now, I realize that I failed to mention this fact!)…whereas she’s at the pinnacle of her sensuality, to say nothing of selfishness, in TENSION. Particularly memorable is the scene where Basehart enthusiastically takes Totter to a beach-house he intended to buy: however, she doesn’t even descend from the car to have a look – rather, when her hubby starts to talk about it, his visibly bored spouse takes the wheel, repeatedly honks the car horn to drown his voice out, flatly asks him whether he was coming with her or staying and, to add insult to injury, contemptuously hits the gas pedal to triumphantly throw fumes in Basehart’s face as he meekly gives in to her rejection!!

The narrative sees mild-mannered drugstore owner Basehart suffering in silence over his wife’s brazen philandering ways; he’s consoled by an underling at his work-place (Tom D’Andrea) while, at the same time, being induced to assert himself – intimating that the boss take drastic action. So, Basehart decides to confront Totter and her brawny, bullying lover (a rather hirsute Lloyd Gough) – but only ends up getting a humiliating beating in front of his wife for his efforts! An intelligent man, he starts thinking about revenge – which he does in an inordinately elaborate yet extremely clever way (this section actually owes quite a bit to Basehart’s earlier turn as a virtually unstoppable cop-killer in HE WALKED BY NIGHT): invent a whole new personality for himself so that he can then threaten Gough using this assumed name, while openly appearing to bear the man no grudge! Still, he loses his nerve at the culmination of his plan…only that Gough still turns up dead, with the evidence alarmingly pointing to Basehart himself!; the thing is that he hadn’t reckoned on meeting and falling for wholesome Cyd Charisse (a neighbor at the apartment house where his alter ego resides) – who, when the latter disappears, goes to the Police with a photo she, an amateur photographer, had taken of him!!

This gave Barry Sullivan, the rugged cop investigating the murder (aided by a burly William Conrad continually in search of food), just the break he needed – since no solid case against Basehart had been established up to that point, the latter’s ‘mysterious alter ego’ ruse having worked only too well! Needless to say, Totter works her charms on Sullivan as well – so that the revelation to Basehart of being wise to his game, in what is perhaps the film’s highlight, carries with it an undertone of perverted self-satisfaction on the cop’s part…and the blow is even harder on the hero since all of this occurs in the presence of Charisse! And yet the detective is not a complete dumb-bell – like Humphrey Bogart in THE MALTESE FALCON (1941), he would have been willing to play up to her under different circumstances…but since it’s evident that she was behind Gough’s death, he’s not about to let her get away with it.

Finally, it should be pointed out that director Berry was yet another victim of the House Un-American Activities Committee (this was a very sensitive time indeed for Hollywood): after a promising start that included a stint at the Mercury Theatre with Orson Welles, his career fizzled out due to his being blacklisted (though he did contrive to make one last good noir – HE RAN ALL THE WAY [1951] – which, sadly, proved to be the untimely swansong for actor and genre favorite John Garfield who was similarly hounded for his supposed Communist sympathies!) and Berry was forced to go to Europe…where he could only find work helming a variety of mostly unrewarding potboilers.

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.