Grattacielo tragico

It's a loss to the noir cycle that Lucille Ball never got to exercise her widely underestimated acting (as opposed to comedic) skills as a femme fatale; she might have gained entry to the Bad Girls' Club. She did, however, lend her welcome presence to three film noir: Two Smart People, Lured, and, the first and best of them, The Dark Corner.

She plays the new, spunky receptionist to private eye Mark Stevens (and gets top billing; logically the star, Stevens comes only fourth in the titles). Once framed into a manslaughter charge in San Francisco, Stevens has come east to start over with a clean slate. But he's being measured for an even bigger frame. White-suited William Bendix is the cat's-paw in a plot to goad Stevens into murdering the old partner who set him up (Kurt Kreuger).

Kreuger, however, isn't even aware that Stevens is out of prison and in New York; he's too busy romancing the young wife (Cathy Downs) of rich art-gallery owner Clifton Webb (she sits around bored, listening to `his paintings crack with age'). Webb is the puppet-master behind the elaborate scheme to eliminate his younger, more virile rival. When Stevens comes to on the floor of his apartment with a poker in his hand and Kreuger bludgeoned to death next to him, he, with Ball's help, must race against his inevitable arrest to find the real killer.

The story flits between two Manhattans: The shabby cityscape of penny arcades under the El and flats that open up onto fire escapes, populated by Stevens, Ball and Bendix, and the haut monde of ritzy galleries and high-ceilinged, richly upholstered apartments inhabited by Clift, Downs and Kreuger. Spanning the gap is the unholy alliance between the coarse Bendix and the p***-elegant Webb, reprising his Bitter Old Queen number from Laura and The Razor's Edge (though again, as in Laura, we're asked to swallow his obsession with a beautiful...woman half his age).

While maintaining a deft balance, the plot weighs in as quite a brutal one (Webb's quick dispatch of Bendix proves quite startling). Despite this role and The Street With No Name, Stevens never quite became the noir icon - like Ladd or Bogart or Mitchum (or even like Powell or Ford or Ryan) he seemed destined for, but he's persuasive enough as a man strained to the limit by forces he can't fathom.

Henry Hathaway directed, but the black magic comes courtesy of cinematographer Joe MacDonald. He ably lighted a number of estimable noirs (Street With No Name, Call Northside 777, Pickup on South Street), but here his work surpasses itself. When Ball and Stevens embrace, he turns a two-shot into a four-shot by placing them in front of a fireplace mirror; we see her face in the foreground, his in reflection. In plot, writing and direction, The Dark Corner falls just short of the finest entries in the cycle. But in its strikingly composed photography, finely filigreed with shadow, it could be shown at a gala opening in Webb's high-priced gallery.

The Dark Corner of the title refers to the fact that our hero/protagonist Mark Stevens has himself in a situation where he's being manipulated and he can't see who's doing the manipulating.

To begin with Stevens has a grudge against former partner Kurt Krueger who when they were private eyes together, Krueger was doing a little blackmail on the side that innocent dupe Stevens took a fall for.

But elegant art gallery owner Clifton Webb has a much bigger grudge against Krueger. You remember Webb in his role of Waldo Lydecker in Laura and how obsessed he was with her. In The Dark Corner, he's married his obsession in the person of Cathy Downs. Krueger has been up to his old tricks romancing Downs on the side and Webb, learning of Krueger's previous troubles with Stevens has constructed an elaborate scheme to have Stevens blamed for Krueger's murder.

Webb for all his elegance and brittle sophistication proves to be a cunning foe. Stevens gives a good portrayal of a man trying desperately to find out who's pulling the puppet strings. He's aided and abetted by girl Friday Lucille Ball in a nice dramatic performance, unlike what we've come to expect from here. She proves to be of immense assistance to Stevens and it's her as well as some unforeseen breaks that enable him to figure out what's going on.

Of course the ever dependable William Bendix was borrowed from Paramount and radio's Life of Riley to serve as Webb's trigger man and muscle. Bill Bendix was never bad in anything he did and this is no exception.

The Dark Corner is a fine noir film, a great change of pace for Lucille Ball and a great followup second film for Clifton Webb to succeed Laura.

This is a perfect little film noir, it's everything a film noir is supposed to be. Lucille Ball is great (I echo the sentiments of the person who said she should have done more of this type of film.) She's not a femme fatale, she's a completely innocent heroine; perhaps a little unusual in film noir, but it works. The use of light and dark, some terrific camera angles, and a somewhat confusing plot make this a superb example of this genre. One wonders why this film is not better known; it should be.

Mark Stevens a couple years earlier had played a sweet-voiced singer (small role in "Rhapsody in Blue," 1943-45). So when Fox Studio in '46 cast Stevens (4th in name order) as the hard-boiled private detective, they probably hoped Dame Fortune would smile on Stevens the way she did on Dick Powell (former sweet-voiced singer) when he was cast against type as the hard-boiled private detective in "Murder My Sweet" (RKO '44). Not to speak of minor actor Alan Ladd, who had been cast (only 4th in order) as the hard-boiled anti-hero in "This Gun for Hire" (Para. '42) -- and became a super-star overnight. Evidently the 3d time was not the charm, and Mark Stevens didn't strike it rich, the way Dick Powell and Alan Ladd had done... Speaking more positively, I would like to credit what to me is one of the best scenes in the film, combining high drama with plausible psychology. Detective Stevens, totally desperate to find the true culprit before the police catch him, tries a shot in the dark. He visits the "Cascara Gallery," with which he's totally unfamiliar (he's never been there). Awaiting gallery owner Clifton Webb in the latter's office, Stevens encounters a young woman (Cathy Downs), unknown to him, who turns out to be Webb's wife. From this point on, the desperate Stevens must improvise (think on his feet), trying to get the truth out of Downs. With believable uncertainty and hesitation (plus audience suspense), he does improvise, in a way that is dramatically quite satisfying. It's as if director Hathaway went back to the film pioneer D. W. Griffith (celebrated for "photographing thought"), and did the same thing in this one brief scene. Watch this part of "Dark Corner" and judge for yourself. -- Steven P Hill, Cinema Studies, University of Illinois.

Watched this on American Movie Classics the other day ... what a great surprise. Witty dialogue with lots of clever innuendo, murky (but not annoyingly so) plot, and stark, moody lighting set the scene for the "typical" noir scenario in which the smart-cookie secretary (Lucille Ball) saves the private eye's hide. The costumes are also wonderful -- 1940s glamour all the way, from Lucy's tailored suits to the rich wife's evening gowns and nightie (gasp!).