Vida Contra Vida

"Jeopardy" is a fun, punchy noir that finds Barry Sullivan trapped underneath a collapsed pier while his wife, Barbara Stanwyck, goes off to get help before the tide comes in and drowns him. Because this movie must earn its noir credentials, she can't simply find help without some complications. No, first she has to run into escaped con Ralph Meeker, who takes her hostage and doesn't care much about her doomed hubby.

This movie is a lot of fun, with assured direction by John Sturges and a jaunty score by Dmitri Tiomkin that doesn't fit what's happening on screen most of the time but is still fun to listen to. Though Stanwyck and Sullivan are paired in this one, it's Stanwyck and Meeker who have all the chemistry. Good grief, the erotic undertones are off the charts in their scenes together. Meeker is just dripping with raw sexuality anyway, and nobody could smoke a cigarette more suggestively than Stanwyck. After all, she'd do anything to save her husband........anything.

Grade: A-

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.

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 doesn't deserve the brickbats it's getting from other viewers who think of it as little more than a B-film, a quickie in the career of Barbara Stanwyck.

Nonsense. Stanwyck was still a terrific actress and uses all her skill to keep this a taut woman-in-peril kind of story that starts out innocently enough but then shifts into high gear the moment her husband is trapped under some rotten pilings from a pier.

Nor is the plot a foolish one. Clearly, it's the kind of incident that could easily have happened on an isolated beach in Mexico, with Stanwyck unable to find an English-speaking person to help her when she and her small son are unable to free Sullivan as the tide rises.

It just so happens the only person able to understand her predicament is an escaped convict running from a murder charge (Ralph Meeker). The moment Meeker appears he lifts the film into a new realm of suspense, so convincing is his portrayal of a Stanley Kowalski-type of character without anything but self-preservation (and sex) on his mind. Meeker never had a better showcase for his machismo appeal.

Because of production code rules, the film fails to make more of the sex angle including Stanwyck's decision to be more cooperative with the man who clearly might do her a favor if she does him one. By glossing over this angle and merely showing Meeker grab her in a couple of tight clinches, the film loses some of its impact when she returns with him to help her husband.

Nevertheless, it's a brisk, tightly constructed story around a simple theme and it works beautifully. John Sturges doesn't waste a moment of the film on any sub-plots but stays firmly fixed on the woman's dire predicament and all of the tension the viewer must feel watching Stanwyck's distress mount, knowing that her husband is in even more peril than she is.

It's a much better film than cited here--definitely worth a look.

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.