Allô... l'assassin vous parle

Resuming a subject which Patricia Highsmith lent credibility to in "the talented mister Ripley " (1955. Twice transferred to the screen as "plein soleil" (purple noon) (1960) and later by Anthony Minghella with Matt Damon), Hubert Cornfield gave one of his most interesting efforts ;his movie,however ,owes a good deal to Edmond O' Brien whose performance is mind-boggling ; the long "rehearsals" which puzzle the viewer in the first minutes are necessary to adopt a dead man's personality ; many scenes have the impostor talking on the phone (the safe affair is not shown at all ,and it works ); and it often happens in the dark or by night ,which makes it a true film noir. Unexpected ending.

Not bad.

Edmond O'Brien, Laraine Day, Julie London, and Olga San Juan star in "The 3rd Voice" from 1960.

"The Voice" is O'Brien, who has no other name in the film other than that of the man he is impersonating, Harris Chapman. The Voice was offered a great deal of money by Marian Forbes (Day) to impersonate her lover and ex-boss in order to clean out his bank accounts.

First, though, the bitter and revengeful Marian has to kill Harris, and The Voice has to get rid of the body. He has been rehearsing and memorizing every aspect of Chapman's life, and now he begins his impersonation.

He makes a property deal with people in Mexico in order to make arrangements for the money. Meanwhile, he is on the phone daily with his fiancee, a "24-year-old professional virgin" so described by Marian, as they plan their wedding and honeymoon.

It all seems pretty straightforward, but there is more than one agenda in play.

This film was longer than it needed to be, but it had a few surprises in store for the audience.

Day does a terrific job as the embittered ex-secretary. O'Brien had to take on a rather annoying voice to impersonate Chapman, but he was good. Day is terrific as the embittered ex-secretary. Julie London is gorgeous as a young woman The Voice picks up in a bar. O'Brien's ex-wife, Olga San Juan, appears in this film, and it's her last. She was actually divorced from O'Brien 18 years earlier.

Before THE NIGHT AND THE FOLLOWING DAY, the infamous Neo Noir with a troubled production and problems with star Marlon Brando ending the career of director Hubert Cornfield, it was important to go back and see how Cornfield made his few genuine film noir vehicles or in this case, post noir, the period before anyone knew exactly what noir was to realize it had ended...

Enter THE 3RD VOICE, a B&W thriller that plays out like one right up to the casting of Edmond O'Brien as a hired con artist who works very hard to impersonate the voice of a blowhard rich man, hired by his disgruntled secretary, another veteran in an effectively sassy, snaky Lorraine Day, and the set-up about O'Brien learning the man's voice and dealings is covered with more expository polish than the rest of an intriguing yet somewhat unfocused thriller...

Taking place in Mexico, where O'Brien, now solo, maintains the impersonation, mostly during a string of nervous phone calls (that include Noirish self-narration), and where the typical human "close call" occurs, almost meeting one of the real man's old friends...

And it's all suspenseful enough. But how he (and Day) have decided to get all the money (as the con plays out) is confusing... Yet everything becomes clear when the big twist is revealed, and it's a pretty good one...

But besides sexy ingenue Julie London and the well-shot wheeling/dealing, this is Edmond O'Brien's resilient one-man-show despite playing two people at once.

The bitter secretary and ex lover of a wealthy man plans to hire a look alike to assume his identity so they can clear out his liquid assets after they murder him.

It was an ingenious idea with a poor execution and a lackluster ending. It is a shame. This B noir had potential.

Plot-- Edmond O'Brien (he has no movie name) collaborates with his lover Marian (Day) to impersonate her wealthy boss in order to collect a quarter-million dollars. The ruse, however, involves more telephone calls than AT&T, hence the title "The Third Voice".

For a brief time it looked like writer-director Cornfield would follow in Stanley Kubrick's footsteps with his intricately plotted, stylishly filmed Plunder Road (1957), a caper movie in the mode of Kubrick's classic The Killing (1956). For some reason, however, Cornfield's career petered out, especially following a feud with Marlon Brando on the set of The Night of the Following Day (1968), another caper film.

Looks like Cornfield worked best with small-scale b&w movies like this one, his follow-up to Plunder Road. The Third Voice is an imaginative, low-budget variation on the caper film that makes good use of a veteran cast, including a sultry Julie London. But it's really a showcase for that icon of film noir Edmond O'Brien, who runs up a monumental phone bill, that is, when not changing hotels like some modern-day Gypsy.

There're several episodes of good suspense, especially the pins & needles of wondering whether an accountant will follow protocol or not. Also, catch that sweaty hang up with the incriminating boat. The climax itself amounts to a neat, ironical twist in a hotel room that I didn't see coming. I'm just sorry Cornfield's career, for whatever reason, didn't match the early promise of this nifty little suspenser.