La marea della morte

A family (Barry Sullivan, Barbara Stanwyck and Lee Aaker) vacationing in Baja California encounter a life and death situation when the father (Sullivan) becomes trapped under a collapsed beam that was holding up a portion of a dilapidated and dangerous pier on an isolated beach. The situation intensifies with the rising tide. Wife Barbara Stanwyck goes off in the car frantically searching for help and encounters fugitive from justice Ralph Meeker. A fast pace between the occurrences on the beach as Sullivan and son Aaker try to come to grips with what is becoming a deadly situation and Stanwyck's intensifying relationship with Meeker make this movie significantly better than average, especially Stanwyck's attempts to get Meeker to go to the beach and rescue Sullivan. Meeker is chased throughout the film by Mexican police. His character is more complex than it looks. Stanwyck and Meeker share tense scenes as the day darkens, the tide rises, and the police close in. Directed by John Sturges, scene for scene this is a tough movie made on a small budget.

This was made when Barbara Stanwyck was not exactly at her prime form but she was still a major star and she still had to stay busy and pay her bills by appearing in uninspired material like this. Film starts out with Doug Stilwin (Barry Sullivan) taking his family to Mexico for a fishing trip and they head to a secluded beach area to camp. Their son Bobby (Lee Aaker) gets his shoe caught on an old pier and Doug gets him out. While getting off he falls and a piece of the pier lands on his leg and traps him. His wife Helen (Stanwyck) must take the car and find some rope because the tide is coming in! While on the road Helen meets Lawson (Ralph Meeker) who is an escaped convict and takes her hostage. She finally convinces him to take her back to the beach in exchange for sex (Not exactly implied) and to go with him. She agrees! Story sounds just like those "B" movie scripts that kicked around every studio at the time. But their is a few interesting things to notice here. Stanwyck and Meeker have more chemistry together then Sullivan has. Sullivan is so stiff and the only time that he seems to come to life is when he see's a lobster boat and he starts barking orders to Aaker and has him running around like an idiot waving a white cloth and putting more wood on the fire. But as you watch Helen in her scenes with Lawson she gives off just enough glint in her eye and uses subtle body English to make you think that she's secretly attracted to the bad boy Lawson. He's the total opposite of her husband. Meeker makes the most of his role and is always grinning like the big bad wolf. The script is strictly "B" level but the cast does their best and they do raise the material up a notch.

Leonard Maltin must've been watching some other movie. (Though I find his Guide to be quite a valuable resource, please disregard his comments on this one.) He states "starts off well then fizzles" when it's really the reverse - "starts off tepid then catches fire". The plot is about as simple as it gets. Happy Mom, Happy Dad and Happy Son take a vacation at an isolated beach, Dad incapacitated in accident, Mom runs off to get help, meets up with dangerous escaped convict. Mom tries to trick convict into helping while Dad waits and hangs on for dear life.

Good white-knuckler given an electric jolt by Ralph Meeker, appearing suddenly (the director, John Sturges, films it in a clever way that will make you gasp) around halfway through as the cunning, desperate criminal. Meeker is an unusually flippant, reckless actor (at least here and in the classic "Kiss Me Deadly") and he happily snatches the keys to the film's narrative and speeds off with the top down. His character has a habit of grinning childishly and saying "Pretty neat, huh?" when he's especially pleased with his misdeeds. There is a funny break in the action when they get a flat tire and he tersely instructs his hostage, Barbara Stanwyck, "Don't go away". She fires back "Where would I go?" (they're in the middle of nowhere) and he realizes sitcom-ishly "Yeah, that's right". The friction between them is a hoot.

There are flaws, somewhat ridiculous ones. There's one scene where the police, who have been chasing after Meeker for some time, stop Stanwyck's car and to evade detection Meeker rests his head on her shoulder like a loving husband supposedly would, and pretends to be asleep as she's being questioned. A. He looks conspicuously un-masculine in this pose and B. I think it's safe to say that any adult who appears to be asleep during an encounter with law enforcement would certainly arouse suspicion.

Still a sturdy thriller which builds to an exciting and edifying conclusion.

Jeopardy is a B movie, and it's sad to see the wonderful Barbara Stanwyck reduced to doing it. It is, however, not without merit. Stanwyck plays a wife and mother trying to get help for her trapped husband, Barry Sullivan. She runs afoul of Ralph Meeker en route. Now, here's the thing. He refuses to help her husband unless she has sex with him. As you can imagine, this being the 1950s, this is in the subtext and so far down that if you're not paying attention, you miss the implication.

This makes Jeopardy a cut above your standard B, especially because of the presence of Stanwyck. She's certainly desperate to save her husband, but the film raises some interesting questions. Meeker was more rough and tumble than her husband - was she perhaps attracted to him? Definitely worth seeing.

Jeopardy (1953)

*** (out of 4)

John Sturges directed this intense thriller about a wife (Barbara Stanwyck) and husband (Barry Sullivan) who take their son on a vacation to Mexico so that they can go fishing but an accident happens and the husband gets his leg caught under a log. With the tide coming in, the wife has to try and get help before it's too late but she gets kidnapped by an escaped murderer (Ralph Meeker). This film seems to get mixed reviews and while it's not classic Sturges I still felt there was enough suspense packed in the 67-minute running time to make the film highly enjoyable. I've never found Stanwyck to be sexy so that takes away from some of her roles for me but she's terrific when playing it tough and that's the case here. She's really good in the tough role and Meeker is the perfect snake to go against her. Sullivan is also very good in his moments with his son played by Lee Aaker. There are a few flaws throughout the film and the ending is pretty weak but there's still plenty to enjoy here. The score by Dimitri Tiomkin also adds to the suspense.