It's 1957 and the moral ambiguity and artfulness of the Noir era has been almost completely eradicated in favor of Eisenhower-era conformity and blandness. The free-wheeling male identity of the post-war years is being neutered.
This movie has an interesting character or two, and presents an interesting dilemma or two, only to founder with a feeble 2nd act. Slandering someone, it turns out, is wrong because it might cause little Timmy to get hit by a car (huh ?!). Yeah... that's crap - a tiresome trope of the 50s that all conflicts must be tied to a desexualized, reproductive imperative, and be embodied in the wholesomeness of some squeaky-clean pipsqueak.
It feels like a Playhouse 90 production, but Van Johnson (frequently a miserable and/or cardboard actor) actually does a decent job, as does the actress playing his wife (Ann Blyth). They're both too good for the movie. Also good is Steve Cochrane as dashing scandal-hound Steve Manley. The resolution in which Mother Manley guns down her own son (in a brightly-lit drawing room - so un-Noir) for being too despicable is absurd. Viewers might have wanted more serious topics in movies indeed, as this producer posited, but heartfelt moral simplifications filmed cheaply just aren't nutritious enough. These events seem to be occurring in a Petri dish.
I continually get 'Slander' confused with 'Libel' (Dirk Bogarde).
This movie has an interesting character or two, and presents an interesting dilemma or two, only to founder with a feeble 2nd act. Slandering someone, it turns out, is wrong because it might cause little Timmy to get hit by a car (huh ?!). Yeah... that's crap - a tiresome trope of the 50s that all conflicts must be tied to a desexualized, reproductive imperative, and be embodied in the wholesomeness of some squeaky-clean pipsqueak.
It feels like a Playhouse 90 production, but Van Johnson (frequently a miserable and/or cardboard actor) actually does a decent job, as does the actress playing his wife (Ann Blyth). They're both too good for the movie. Also good is Steve Cochrane as dashing scandal-hound Steve Manley. The resolution in which Mother Manley guns down her own son (in a brightly-lit drawing room - so un-Noir) for being too despicable is absurd. Viewers might have wanted more serious topics in movies indeed, as this producer posited, but heartfelt moral simplifications filmed cheaply just aren't nutritious enough. These events seem to be occurring in a Petri dish.
I continually get 'Slander' confused with 'Libel' (Dirk Bogarde).