No Questions Asked

No need to repeat the plot, which is a good, unpredictable one. This MGM noir is better than most of the studio's compromised crime dramas of the Dore Schary period. Director Kress keeps things moving, while scripter Sidney Sheldon manages a few neat twists, along with a stunningly gorgeous Arlene Dahl who's enough to make any man lose his head, plus the always soulful Jean Hagen. It's certainly a very watchable 80 minutes; however, I am wondering why it's not more memorable than I think it is. Kress has a good sense of pacing, but what the movie lacks is at least one, strongly memorable scene. In my book two come close. The stickup in the ladies room is really novel. The violent threat of "women" on women presents a genuine departure from convention and real possibilities for something memorable. It is a good scene, but ultimately nothing more than an unusual robbery sequence. The other promising episode is the showdown in the pool, a neat payoff for an earlier underwater scene with gangster Franko (Petrie). However, despite what looks like a lethal encounter, the aftermath turns into just one more conventional close call.

In a more general sense, the movie does contain a number of violent scenes. Yet all are staged rather impersonally, thereby eliminating one of the hallmarks of front-rank noir— that is, the "reality of violence" as one acute observer termed it. Anthony Mann's noirs (e.g. T-Men {1947}; Border Incident {1949}) are especially effective in making the audience not just see the violence, but more importantly, in making us feel its reality in a visceral way. Also important is the reality of evil (non-theological), whether it's corruption (e.g. Phenix City Story {1955}) or brutality (e.g. The Enforcer {1951}). The presence of evil is usually, I think, a matter of atmospherics and acting. Unfortunately, not only is there no sense of evil in the film, there's hardly even a sense of wrong-doing, especially from the rather genial chief gangster Franko who should be the main source. Now, Kress does a good workman- like job filming an imaginative script that keeps us interested and entertained. But ultimately he doesn't manage that extra dimension of making us feel a part of what's happening. As a result, the movie fails to rise above the level of respectable noir, yet that's certainly more than enough for a slow evening.

Arlene Dahl is "Ellen" in this flick from the 1950s. The opening scene is our narrator running from the police, but within 10 seconds we flash back to what brought us to that point. In the flashback, she is met at the airport by a lawyer-friend "Steve" (Barry Sullivan). Steve is also on a first name basis with Harry, the taxi driver. Harry takes him around to visit all the thugs in town so he can be the go-between in a shady transaction. All of a sudden, his girl is gone, and Steve is in business getting more and more stolen goods back for clients....for a price. The police are watching him, and he'd better watch his step....Jean Hagen is "Joan", Steve's new girl. ( Hagen had been in Singing in the Rain, and Dead Ringer with Bette Davis.) No real big names in this one, but it's a pretty good story. Directed by Harold Kress, who had won two Oscars for EDITING How the West was Won and Towering Inferno. He was nominated for editing SIX times, and won two of those times. Oddly, this was one of the five films KRESS ever directed. Pretty good movie - i'm surprised that this one isn't on more often, but I guess it's because they used lesser known actors of the time.

This is definitely one of the better and original B noirs of the 1950s. An insurance lawyer skirts the edge of the law and eventually ends up in bed with the criminal element. Our favorite buxom bad broad, Arlene Dahl. Jean Hagen is good but deserved a better role as a bad girl. Sullivan is adequate but lacks the star quality that would have made this an A production.

It has a few fun and original touches. I won't give them away.

No Questions Asked is directed by Harold F. Kress and written by Sidney Sheldon and Berne Giler. It stars Barry Sullivan, Arlene Dahl, Jean Hagen, George Murphy, Richard Anderson and Moroni Olsen. Music is by Leith Stevens and cinematography by Harold Lipstein.

Sullivan plays Steve Keiver, an insurance lawyer unhappy with his rate of company advancement. He hits on the idea of being a middleman in deals to recover stolen property from the Mob, thus earning a nice pay off for himself whilst the insurance company are saved money by not having to pay out. But sure enough his actions attract police attention and before he knows it he is up to his neck in double-crosses, frames and dames!

Tone is set from the off as our protagonist is on the run from the police, it's a dimly lighted moist street and he begins his narration. From there we get the film flashback of how he has come to be a wanted man.

We are in noirville so obviously we have a bona fide femme fatale (Dahl smouldering) who is greedy, immoral, manipulative and thinks nothing of crushing Keiver's dreams. If he's to go to his doom then she really will not give it a second thought - and yet he loves her and would have married her in a heartbeat. He's a classic noir dope, he just can't see the bad in the woman he so covets, which is all the more annoying since the lovely firm secretary Joan Brenson (Hagen excellent) covets him and he can't see the wood for the trees where the two ladies are concerned.

We have a bunch of run of the mill villains, with one who has a kink involving how long he can hold his breath under water for, though we do get a robbery scene that comes to reveal some devilish cheek soon afterwards. The cops you kind of get miffed about since the whole scam that Keiver has set up is implausibly allowed to flourish. Yet when things go bad for Keiver later in the play, we enter a dark world, where even if the finale isn't pure film noir, we get some moody turns of events that softens any feelings of there being a damp squib at film's end. 7/10

And God spoke: I need two people, of all my creations, who will be perfect for the leads in what I will call Film Noir. That's how Barry Sullivan and Jean Hagen were created. This film is indeed classic, even typical film noir, with the one big difference: It's quite original plot, which twists and turns like a mountain road. Director Harold Kress lays the story out in a crisp and uninsulting manner, expecting us to pick up subtleties and clues without obvious explanations. I suppose if I have to find issue, I'd say the picture seems to be slightly over edited, coming across at times like a long montage. All in all, really good movie, and, if you are a film noir nut, maybe even great. Dahl always gives the added obvious bonus of being stunning.