Discrétion assurée

Barry Sullivan retrieves stolen goods for a fee in "No Questions Asked," a 1951 B noir also starring George Murphy, Arlene Dahl and Jean Hagen. Sullivan is Steve Kiever, an attorney for an insurance company. He's impossibly in love with the beautiful, gold-digging Ellen (Dahl), who dumps him early on by getting married and forgetting to mention it. After recovering stolen furs for the insurance company and making extra money, he goes into business for himself. Soon there's a city-wide crime wave, with the thieves collecting good money on the stolen goods without being caught trying to sell the stuff and with no one learning their names. The police, led by George Murphpy, are furious with him. Kiever becomes wealthy and has gone back to an old girlfriend from his office, Joan (Hagen) when he sees Ellen again. The old hunger returns - though, as Hagen is aware, it had never left.

This is a pretty good film, very noirish with his sleazy locations and nighttime drama. There are some good scenes, though I have to admit that I saw through the gimmick used for the robbery and couldn't figure out why no one else who was robbed did. Two future TV stars, Richard Anderson and William Reynolds, have roles in the film, as well as old-timers like Murphy and Moroni Olsen.

Enjoyable.

This is definitely one of the better and original B noirs of the 1950s. An insurance lawyer skirts the edge of the law and eventually ends up in bed with the criminal element. Our favorite buxom bad broad, Arlene Dahl. Jean Hagen is good but deserved a better role as a bad girl. Sullivan is adequate but lacks the star quality that would have made this an A production.

It has a few fun and original touches. I won't give them away.

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

Yes indeed, some terrific lines here, especially by Jean Hagen. She is the jewel of this passable noir. Watch for the scene where she shows up at Sullivan's apartment and the interaction with Arlene Dahl. Priceless and somewhat unexpected given the film's age. Some other good stuff as well, again considering the film's age. Like the holdup by two men disguised as women. Otherwise the main premise of the lawyer who acts as go-between criminals and insurance companies is a bit thin. The acting is fine if not exceptional. Barry Sullivan is convincing as the lawyer out for a fast buck to impress gold digging Arlene Dahl whose presence is enough as usual. But it's Jean Hagen who shines and makes this worth watching, at least for her scenes.

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.