La plage déserte

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" 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-

Jeopardy has the feel of being a stock movie of sorts - one of the movies that the studios pumped out inbetween big budget/box office ones. It's a mere 70 minutes and doesn't feature many sets, and the only star is Barbara Stanwyck. But what a star, of course.

Stanwyck is a tough lady once again as she runs into an escaped convict while seeking help for her trapped husband in the Mexican desert. The majority of the movie is focused on how she deals with her captor, who wants her to submit to him in exchange for his help. Some psychological battling there.

It's a surprisingly effective little movie - its short length makes it taut, and that Stanwyck is great should go without mention (but I'll still praise her every time).

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.

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.