The Big Bluff

W. Lee Wilder's THE BIG BLUFF will never be a threat to his brother Billy's genre-defining classic, DOUBLE INDEMNITY, but on its own terms it's a nifty little quickie with a good story and a nice trick ending.

When it starts, this film looks so cheap -- I mean, Ed Wood cheap -- you're tempted to hang it up, but stick with it. It improves as it goes along. The writing and cast are perfectly adequate and it's more entertaining than a lot of big budget A pictures.

An unusual feature of this film is a reversal of the usual noir femme fatale dynamic. Here it's a sexy guy, an "homme fatal" if you will, who seduces a rich, love-starved widow.

Maltin's book (2003) doesn't even list this film, but it's included in the inexpensive 6-CD "Ultimate Film Noir Collection", which I recommend for its intriguing line-up of public domain B-picture rarities, which range from junk to cult classic B's (DETOUR, THE HITCHHIKER) to even a couple great ones (Welles' THE STRANGER).

When scheming fortune hunter and erstwhile Latin lover Ricardo De Villa learns that a wealthy but sickly widow has terminal heart disease, he seduces and marries the vulnerable millionairess.

Playing the part of a faithful and doting husband, he carries on a torrid affair with sexy exotic dancer Fritzi Darvel while avoiding the suspicious eyes of her jealous bongo-playing husband.

When his wife's condition seems to go into remission, the impatient De Villa decides on action that will hasten her seemingly inevitable death.

The plot sounds awfully racy but these are the 50s.

This is sort of a film noir and it's worth a watch, despite the very bad prints that are available.

Good story.

Good acting.

Not a bad programmer, nothing new in the con-man department, but with a nifty ironical ending. Con-man Ricardo (Bromfield) romances wealthy heiress Valerie (Vickers) who has a heart condition. Marrying her, he then plots ways of shortening her life. Trouble is Valerie's friend Marsha (Miller) suspects his motives and enlists Dr. Kirk (Hutton) to help track Ricardo who's also keeping company with Fritzie (Bowe) despite her husband. Thankfully, the complications come together at story's end.

Bromfield, looking a little like Clark Gable, knows how to use a cigarette to suggest character traits. He's just slick enough to be persuasive. The ordinarily shrewish Vickers goes against type, her Valerie being a sweet-natured victim; at the same time, little-known Eve Miller shows why she should be better known. And get a load of Rosemarie Bowe (Fritzie) who's got enough steamy allure to melt a polar ice cap.

Oh sure, the overall result doesn't rise above programmer level, but it's done well for a cheap indie. Too bad, however, that director Wilder doesn't or can't invest the filming with more style that would lift the visuals. And, on a niggling note-- this isn't really noir. Specifically, the film's missing such defining features as expressionist lighting, plus a morally ambiguous central character. Ricardo's wicked, but crucially he's not torn between ethical poles. In my book, the results count more properly as a crime drama.

Sibling rivalry can be a dreadful thing; look at Joan Fontaine and Olivia De Havilland. Sometimes, however, it approaches farce. W. Lee Wilder probably should have stayed in New York making purses, but, no, he had to follow his little brother Billy to Hollywood. And in Hollywood, maybe he could have been a passable producer (two early Anthony Mann movies, The Great Flamarion and Strange Impersonation, bear his credit). But, no, he had to direct, showing the world how vast was the disparity between young Billy's talents and his own inadequacies. Billy, long estranged, used to call him `a dull son of a bitch,' and he was being generous: W. Lee isn't merely dull, he's barely competent.

The Big Bluff rehashes a plot that Wilder had used in 1946 for The Glass Alibi. Merry widow Martha Vickers has a bum ticker and only a few months left to live. Off she goes to California with paid companion Eve Miller only to cross paths with slick operator John Bromfield (he brags about business interests in Central America but he's just a gigolo). The prospect of coming into her money at her early death emboldens Bromfield to court and marry her.

But there are obstacles. Her secretary/companion and her physician (Robert Hutton) harbor suspicion of Bromfield's motives. And Bromfield's mistress Rosemarie Stack, half of a sultry nightclub act with her jealous husband Eddie Bee, doesn't cotton to his romancing another woman. But the impatient Bromfield, not content with letting nature take its course, starts tampering with Vickers' pill supply. When, paradoxically, she seems to thrive under his care, he concocts a back-up plan, and the movie jutters along to a twist ending, à la Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

The plot is hand-me-down James M. Cain, done proud by the cheesiness of its direction (it's like a stock-footage festival). Wilder lets his cast get away with the stiffest readings of the literal-minded script (Martha Vickers would never nab many statuettes, but Howard Hawks goaded her into acting as Carmen Sternwood in The Big Sleep). Yet every so often there's a dark glint that keeps one watching: Bromfield and Stack plotting in a shadowy hotel staircase; Bromfield and Vickers toasting with schnapps at Scandia or `lo-balls' at La Rue. Something saves The Big Bluff from sinking to the very bottom of the barrel; it sure wasn't Wilder.

Written by Fred Freiberger (a decade before he made history producing the original "Star Trek" TV series) and produced/directed by B-movie talent W. Lee Wilder, "The Big Bluff" is an unusual drama that especially impressed me with its structure.

The first third (or act in a 3-act play traditional movie format) is placid, with the main characters firmly established, very well-acted by Martha Vickers as the "Ali McGraw" damsel dying of heart disease, but never showing outward signs of decline -in fact that adds to the plot development, her companion Eve Miller - a go-getter always looking out for Martha's interests, and as a fiery dancer/femme fatale Rosemary Bowe (the future Rosemarie Stack re: The Untouchables star) as the Other Woman. John Bromfield is smooth as a real anti-hero, a gigolo type who is alwasy studly and just as avaricious and deadly.

It's pure escapism as they live the high life, the many hints and clues to darkness ahead never interfering with the glamour and easy-going atmosphere.

The second act becomes dramatic as Bromfield's plotting to get rid of Vickers after marrying her for her fortune, and then Wilder steps on the gas for Act III, finally adopting the scary, dark tension and visuals of film noir leading to splendid plot twists coming fast and furious at finale time.

It's quite a sleeper, and has me re-evaluating Wilder's work: it's the tenth movie of his I've seen after enjoying his sci-fi, but never taking him seriously at all, certainly not in the league of brother Billy -I shouldn't have been so hasty.