The Man in the Net

There's a nice New England feel in the Connecticut opening scenes of THE MAN IN THE NET and director Michael Curtiz makes striking visual use of the B&W camera in artfully photographing a country farmhouse with its rustic interiors full of paintings supposedly done by local artist ALAN LADD.

Ladd's wife, CAROLYN JONES, doesn't share his passion for the arts, staging quite a scene with neighbors when she breaks into a birthday party with a shiner and accuses her husband of mistreating her during one of their arguments. It provides a nice set-up for someone to eventually murder her, making Ladd look like the main suspect.

Alan Ladd, only 46 at the time, seems almost lifeless and delivers a completely stiff performance that has him befriending neighborhood kids in such a fashion that they become willing to help him avoid detection when the villagers turn on him. This aspect of the story simply rings false, as does the rest of the plot which is too pat and contrived to seem plausible. The children are not exactly adept at delivering most of their lines.

DIANE FOSTER does a nice job as a decent neighborhood woman who helps Ladd prove his innocence and CHARLES McGRAW, JOHN LUPTON and TOM HELMORE are fine as other suspects in the supporting cast.

But for a man accused of a crime he didn't commit, Ladd has all the facial animation of a department store mannequin.

Trivia note: The bit about the slashed paintings reminds me of the Ronald Colman/Ida Lupino flick THE LIGHT THAT FAILED, but Jones' emoting in the party scene is on the level of Bette Davis at her histrionic overkill.

But more likely a whodunnit of Hitchcockian proportions. Directed by Michael Curtiz in 1959 and starring Alan Ladd, it has a strong supporting cast of children, which made the film very unusual.

Ladd was a gentle, somewhat under-rated actor and he was effective as the passive husband and victim in this film. Curtiz's direction is pretty sharp, and there's the usual suspension of disbelief which one has to engage in these kinds of films. But I felt the film was 'small' in scope and would more easily have lent itself to television.

It was predictable in that Carolyn Jones wasn't a strong, leading actor and it was obvious she was going to be bumped off because she didn't have the charisma to last the full distance of the film.

An unwatchable late-in-career Alan Ladd vehicle, "The Man in the Net" is an extremely poor movie. Writer Reginald Rose, whose "12 Angry Men" is a certifiable classic, should be ashamed of this one.

The first half hour, setting up the story and characters, is overwritten to make Ladd, miscast as a dedicated artist who's fled the NYC rat race to pursue his art in bucolic Connecticut, the story's hero and his wife Carolyn Jones a monster. Rose's portrait of her as an alcoholic creep dumping on Ladd constantly for not selling out to be a commercial artist and returning them to her comfy social life in the Big Apple is ridiculously one-sided and phony. The stereotyped supporting cast is insufferable.

Act I climaxes with Ladd returning home from NYC where he turned down the ad agency job offer, only to find all his paintings destroyed and Jones missing. With stone age local cops Charles McGraw and Edward Binns on the case, the movie instantly turns into a version of Gone Girl 1.0, without any of the cleverness or subtlety of that 2014 classic that made Rosamund Pike a star.

The remaining hour of the movie goes in an entirely different direction than "Gone Girl", with a dumb subplot involving the local children who all adore Ladd, then vigilante justice rearing its ugly head and a final plot twist that is as stupid as it is unconvincing.

Worst of all is Ladd's performance. He is so dull and monotone, especially in the early reels, that if he hadn't been a Hollywood star he would have been fired and replaced with somebody who could emote a teeny bit.

Alan Ladd, (John Hamilton) plays the role of an artist who decides to leave New York and the rat race mainly because his wife likes to drink and is getting out of control where she has to see a doctor for help. Carolyn Jones, (Linda Hamilton) plays John's wife and lives in a very quiet town in New England where John paints pictures of children all day and never seems to sell a picture. One day John receives a letter offering him a job in New York City with an Art Firm for $30,000 dollars but refuses to take this position because of his wife's chemical dependency. Linda goes into a rage and starts drinking and goes completely out of control. In real life, Alan Ladd is really doing all the boozing and you can see it in the close up's of his face and eyes are puffy. The children in this picture take complete control over the entire film and gave great supporting roles in trying to hid and help John Hamilton from the police.

In "the proud rebel" , Alan Ladd played opposite a child,his own son ; in the very first sequence,he is surrounded by a bunch of kids who do not think his drawings are "dirty "; this sequence is rather long and may seem boring and soppy ;but it's vital .Hadn't the artist been good friends with the children of the neighbourhood, he would have been perhaps lynched by the populace -although it's a bit exagerated , his wife being not so popular in the vicinity.

The murder mystery is quite trite ,with the cardboard character of the alcoholical hysterical wife (Carolyn Jones ) ,and the trap the fugitive uses to clear himself of the accusation somewhat far-fetched .

The film's main interest lies in the children's intervention ,the last bastion against the maddening crowd ; for them ,it's the greatest game they have ever played ,and to hide the fugitive in their own "den" is extremely exciting ;their relationship with the wrong man makes up for the paucity of the detective story.