No Questions Asked

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.

An insurance claims adjuster (Barry Sullivan) finds he can make a lot more money if he deals with the crooks who are robbing and stealing valuable jewelry and furs. The insurance company that he works for is actually abetting crime in order to retrieve the stolen goods and minimize their losses, thus upsetting the police who would prefer to not reward the crooks who are now even more motivated to pull off daring heists, as they now are guaranteed hefty payments for the stolen goods. This film has some interesting elements and a couple of memorable scenes, a couple of which take place in a swimming pool and one in which the assembled wealthy patrons at an opening night theater debut are robbed while they're all in the powder room between acts. At the root of Sullivan's actions is the woman who dumped him, played by Arlene Dahl. She usually plays sympathetic parts, but here her character has a solid place on the memorable list of film noir bad girls. For a film directed by someone known for editing, this is surprisingly good, with a tough ending.

"They turn a spotlight on you and then they narrow the search...You wonder how it happened and where it all really began. It started somewhere beyond the searchlights and sirens. You had ideals and you went to a top law school...I think it all started when I received a telegram that Ellen was coming home."-Steve

This wonderful little film noir starts with our unsuspecting Steve picking up Ellen from the airport. These two are practically engaged to be married but Ellen starts working Steve with the idea that she doesn't want to raise her children in poverty like she was raised. Naïve and happy Steve goes right in and asks his boss for a raise...for which his boss gives him the runaround and a resounding no. Steve works for an insurance company who, like all insurance companies, is trying not to pay out claims.

Desperate to save his company money and to try to get a raise, Steve embarks on a dangerous idea to hunt down the mobsters who stole furs from their client. Steve gets roughed up a bit, but his gamble works and one of the mobsters bites...returning the furs for $10,000 no questions asked. Steve earns $2,500, for which he buys a ring and rushes over to Ellen's...only to find out from her landlady that she is married and left for a honeymoon in Europe!

Drowning his sorrows over his lost girl, one of the mobsters makes Steve an offer to make the insurance hustle a regular scheme.

"You know what I like about you?...you never worry about me smearing your lipstick."-Steve.

"Don't talk to any strange girls."-Joni.

"Do we put a tail on him?"-Cop "I don't know, I think he looks pretty cute just the way he is."-Steve.

"You're not talking to the sucker you left. Oh no! I took your advice and went out and got a liberal education. There are a few things they don't teach you in law school...like how to buy a penthouse. Well you were a great teacher and I've graduated. I can afford to send Stevie to Oxford only there isn't any Stevie."-Steve

"See I'm too smart to stick around because I'm still sucker enough to be in love with you."-Steve.

Good story and excellent film noir plot. If you are a film noir fan...this should be on your list to see.

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

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.