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"The Accused" is a pretty good movie with some good acting turns by some reliable Hollywood stars. It is not a film noir but primarily a love story with some melodramatic moments. It is also too long and could have used a heavier hand in the cutting room.

Having said all that, I was tempted to stop the DVD player as I didn't think it was my cup of tea (the action is minimal) but the story became more absorbing as it unfolded. Right off the bat, in the opening scene, we find out that Loretta Young kills one of her students while fighting off an attempted rape. The rest of the picture involves a cat-and-mouse game between her and Police Lieutenant Wendell Corey, with lawyer Bob Cummings trying to pick sides.

The picture moves along spasmodically (as I said, it's too long) to its eventual denouement but spiked with some genuinely interesting plot turns.I must say I always felt Wendell Corey was a bit of a stiff but here he shows some depth, and Bob Cummings is the opposite of his usual feckless, irresolute self. But the film is Miss Young's and her legion of fans will not be disappointed - plus, she's beautiful as always. I have to think this was released as an 'A' picture, as they hired Victor Young to write the music - it doesn't get any better than that.

This movie really is worth watching but don't go out of your way - unless you're a Loretta Young fan.

Good film noir concerning a prudish, but attractive, college prof that kills a student, during what today would be considered 'date rape.' Cummings and Corey are capable co-stars, and the lovely Young as always, is easy on the eyes.

In The Accused, Loretta Young plays a psychology professor who kills an amorous male student in self-defense, then spends the rest of the movie covering up her crime. William Dieterle does an excellent job with the familiar material, and Miss Young gives a sympathetic performance. This is one of several crime pictures that Hal Walls produced in the late forties and early fifties, many of which fall into the noir category. Most of these films concern people with conflicted or tortured sexual urges, dysfunctional families, inadequate or just barely adequate men, with the women often hysterical or scheming. At the time this must have seemed daringly modern and contemporary. Now it just seems quaint, a waystation in the breakdown of small-town American values, with the action taking place in a netherworld between Andy Hardy and Tennessee Williams.

The movie is surprisingly sympathetic toward Miss Young, who, though on the cusp of middle age, still looks pretty damn beautiful. Robert Cummings is stronger than usual as her "suitor", while Wendell Corey is his inscrutably poker-faced self, as always, hinting between the lines, that had his character been better written he'd be more than up to the task. If this was so, I believe him. In a smaller role, Sam Jaffe is positively mephistopholean, delivering his lines as tartly as Corey, and in his lab scenes photographed to resemble a Dwight Frye hunchback from the thirties. A nice touch. The Accused is filled with nice touches, as Dieterle and most of his cast are much better than the script, breathing real life into it at times, which makes watching the movie a pleasure. There are no real surprises here, but lots of good scenes.

The Accused is directed by William Dieterle and adapted to screenplay by Ketti Frings from the novel "Be Still, My Love" written by June Truesdell. It stars Loretta Young, Robert Cummings, Wendell Corey, Sam Jaffe and Douglas Dick. Music is by Victor Young and cinematography by Milton R. Krasner.

Wilma Tuttle (Young) is a college professor who is prompted into an act of self defence when one of her students attacks her sexually. The damage done, Wilma covers up her crime and finds her conscience gnawing away at her, especially as she is actively involved in the police investigation…

Good sturdy story is well played out by a good sturdy cast, The Accused makes up for what it lacks in noir visuals with noir infected psychological smarts. Helps that Wilma Tuttle is a strong characterisation in Young's excellent hands, the whole film hinging on the fact that Wilma's crime is perfectly understandable to us viewers, she has our sympathy, more so since she has the chance of love with Cumming's amiable and cunning lawyer.

We follow the police investigation through its various strands of science, with Wilma privy to what is going on as well. This puts a devilish kink to proceedings as Lieutenant Ted Dorgan (Corey) is pretty sure he knows what really happened (an inquest had previously ruled the death as an accident caused whilst diving).

Further spice comes with the knowledge that Dorgan also has the hots for Wilma, thus this puts Wilma in a whirlpool of fear and fret, conscience battering and the amorous attentions of two male suitors, both of whom are intricately bound to the investigation. Plus she's trying to keep it together at work whilst she's teaching her students psychology!

It all builds to a good conclusion, which is nicely open ended, to round production out as an entertaining noirish meller. 7/10

This is actually a love story and, as is usually the case with noirs of the 40s, a very well written one, especially since it deals with some rather tricky psychological matters, of which guilt complex resulting in fear approaching the borders of possible schizophrenia is just one. What makes this film more than average of classy noirs of the 40s with a romantic and seriously psychological intrigue is the interesting peripatetic moment of the boxing match, when Loretta Young unintentionally gives herself away, and how very interestingly Robert Cummings as her lawyer and lover reacts to that. The acting is superb throughout, the story is credible and convincing, the dilemma of unintentionally having killed someone and the natural urge to avoid the consequences and take responsibility for what was not intended, anyone can understand and relate to. To all this comes Victor Young's endearing score fashioning the experience with a golden frame, the beauty of which increases all the time. In brief, this is a much underrated, unjustly forgotten and deeply human and interesting film, that deserves some intention after having been more or less buried alive since 50 years.