The Hunted

Imported from her native England as a second-string Sonja Henie, ice-skating novelty star Belita soon found that there was little call in Hollywood for her to lace up her blades. After a couple of ice musicals, she landed in three Poverty-Row noirs. In the first of them, Suspense, her skating skills were worked, however awkwardly, into the plot. But in the second, The Hunted, her prowess on the ice was a mere afterthought – she briefly shows off her twirls and figure-8s because what audience she could still command expected them of her.

Too bad, because on the solid ground of The Hunted, Belita's not bad (with a tough, long forties face) and no longer needed the gimmickry. She's just finished a four-year stretch in Tehachapi for her part in a jewel robbery (she may have been framed). When her bus pulls into town one night, waiting for her, unseen, is Preston Foster, the cop who once loved her but sent her up anyway. He's convinced that Belita will come gunning for either him or the prosecuting attorney (Pierre Watkin). But when she has no place to go, he lets her bunk at his apartment, and lands her a gig skating during intermissions at hockey games. He slowly relents, thinking she's on the straight-and-narrow. Then Watkin is found murdered, and all the evidence points her way. When Foster turns against her once more, she lams it to Arizona to sling hash in a diner....

Jack Bernhard, who two years earlier had the good fortune to have Jean Gillie and the script for Decoy fall into his lap, directs this much less flamboyant script. He's good on atmospherics (dark highways in hard rains, cheap apartment houses) and keeps the story moving along (near the end of the movie, an uncredited Charles McGraw turns up as a hard-nosed cop). Bernhard made one or two more low-budget entries of passable interest (Blonde Ice among them), but Decoy's lightning was never, alas, to strike him again.

Internet Rule 34 says if there's a subject on the Web, there's porn about it. Maybe we need something like that for Film Noir: if it exists in the movies, there's a Film Noir about it. I suppose that's why this one has Belita as a femme fatale who does ice dancing routines.

Four years ago, cop Preston Foster arrested his girlfriend Belita for a jewelry robbery. Now she's out on parole, and he's gotten her a job at a hockey rink, teaching and performing. She says she was framed. He yearns for her and drinks. Eventually they reconcile, but then the defense attorney she claims threw her case is murdered.... and Belita's ring is found at the murder site.

Foster was at the end of his starring days. He was in his late 40s, and had been mature-looking when he entered the movies in the early days of sound. Fortunately, his solid presence would keep him working in star character roles. Belita is all right, but awkward off the ice. Longtime B cinematographer Harry Neumann (more than 300 films from 1918 through 1959) offers a lot of night-time shots, particularly a carnival midway sequence, for shadowy film noir lighting.

It's not a great movie -- Monogram didn't distribute those -- but it is a solid film noir for fans of the genre.

"The Hunted" starts off very well and showed tons of promise as a film noir picture. However, by the time it ends, I found myself incredibly disappointed.....as the movie seemed afraid to really allow itself to be tough and cynical like most noir pictures. Plus, the happy ending just seemed stupid and like a wimp out!

This movie stars Belita, a one-namer who was a skating star and appeared in just a few movies. Much of it might be because although she IS pretty, she's not traditionally pretty and her looks are a tad tough...which is a plus for noir. It seems that Laura Mead (Belita) just got out of prison, where she'd been for four years after being convicted of robbery. However, to complicate things, her old boyfriend, the Lieutenant (Preston Foster), is the man who arrested her! Now that she's out, he is interested in re-starting their relationship...though he's not sure if she can be trusted. See the movie to find out the answer.

Belita was excellent--mostly because they gave her some amazingly snappy dialog. But the ending....it was as if they'd lost the ending and just EXPLAINED the ending...a terrible way to wrap up any film. Plus, the upbeat ending just didn't seem to fit...hence me score of only 6. I really wanted to like this movie more than I did.

One of those very good, but forgotten film-noirs, it's a relatively strong story, of a girl who spent 4 years in prison for a crime she may or may not have done, and a cop who loved her and turned her in. It has good, tight execution and it's a film for film-lovers. The female lead is excellent in her portrayal, and it's too bad she only got used in several films, mostly for her skating and dancing abilities; and you should keep an eye out for the name of Jack Bernhard, the director, as he has other great noirs, such as The Decoy.

This is a film that manages to keep the viewer's interest through well- conceived plot twists and a well-played romantic relationship between the two lead characters. Preston Foster is believable as a tough cop with a hard-nosed exterior who has a complicated emotional entanglement with an enigmatic and dangerous woman. Foster does a great job in the role.

A now rather obscure actress named Belita gives a studied and endearing performance as the ex-con blonde noir babe who maybe does or does not love the cop. She manages to convey a vulnerable yet dangerous persona that is not easy to maintain for an entire film length but she pulls off this feat with remarkable consistency and aplomb. The multi-talented Belita also gives us a fine and professionally done figure skating routine wherein her rather tall, lean and graceful style reminds me of the great Olympian Peggy Fleming. And its good to see noir icon Charles McGraw in a supporting role.

I found "The Hunted" to be a rewarding blend of constant emotional tension between the characters and plot tension related to the twists and turns of its basic noir story line. View it if you get the chance.