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Like a misfiring high performance car
posted by FergooseSTAFFMOD on February 1, 2021 at 12:59 PM
Decent performances by the leads. A fairly unique setting and plot (for its time) and a mixture of impactful action sequences and legal scenes from the expert director of the near peerless courtroom drama Anatomy of a Murder. This should be mouth-watering with all these component parts. However...
The relationship between the two leads comes off as unconvincing and unintentionally creepy with the age difference, the legal section isnt particularly gripping or suspenseful and the exact motivations and emotional state of Simmons' character remain a little obscure. Was she trying to frame her beau? Did she really love her father etc? Damned if I know.
6/10
Reply by MongoLloyd
on February 1, 2021 at 5:21 PM
Age difference? She's 20 in the movie and older than Mitchum in real life. I got the feeling that she'd do anything to keep lover-man and get him his garage because her father would inherit the step mother's dough. But yeah, Diane's motivations seem a little murky and they should have made it clearer that the father wasn't supposed to be in the car.
The ending kind of reminds me of the ending in The Hot Spot where the conniving bad girl gets the dreamy but very reluctant love interest.
Reply by Fergoose
on February 3, 2021 at 10:46 AM
Well, he was 36 in real life and she was playing a 20 year old little rich girl that keeps him as a plaything above the family garage. I'd have been more convinced if he kept her at arms length and paid her occasional visits rather than being at her beck and call (and he didn't even come across as desperate for the money).
I didnt mind the dad being in the car and figured it would result in daughter having an emotional breakdown at her error, but that element just kind of went nowhere. I'm probably nitpicking out of mild disappointment. Anatomy of a Murder is one of my favourite ever films and this one started out with some promise.
Reply by sukhisoo
on June 7, 2021 at 3:40 PM
One of the stories behind the story is more interesting.
Howard Hughes kept Jean Simmons around not because she was a good actress but because he wanted her to spend time on his casting couch. He wouldn't assign her any parts because once she completed a certain number of roles, she would be allowed to get out of her contract. He didn't want her out of her contract. He liked having her under his thumb. She didn't like this. Her husband Stewart Granger didn't either.
She took him to court. Howard Hughes didn't like going out in public so he didn't show up in court. It was ruled that he had to give her one more role so that she could leave the studio. He didn't like this, so he assigned her to a quickie film directed by Otto Preminger, who had a reputation as a rough taskmaster. He was instructed to make her life difficult.
There is a scene early in the movie where she becomes hysterical. Robert Mitchum's character slaps her so that she regains her composure. Mitchum just gave her a stage slap. Preminger ordered him to give her a real slap. He did, but it wasn't hard enough for Preminger's taste and told him to slap her harder.
Mitchum went up to Preminger and gave him a hard, solid slap. "You mean like this?"