The Dark Corner **** (1946, Lucille Ball, Clifton Webb, William Bendix, Mark Stevens, Kurt Kreuger, Cathy Downs) – Classic Movie Review 5514

Mark Stevens stars in director Henry Hathaway’s tough-edged 1946 black-and-white film noir as Bradford Galt, a hard-nosed private detective with a record as an ex-con, who is set up for a homicide charge when an old enemy is murdered. However, it is Lucille Ball who gets surprise top billing and star Stevens is billed only fourth as Galt.

[Spoiler alert] Galt fears someone is tailing him, possibly to kill him, but turns the tables on the man (William Bendix), who claims to be private eye Fred Foss hired by Galt’s enemy, corrupt lawyer Tony Jardine (Kurt Kreuger) but is actually Stauffer, a hardman working for wealthy art-gallery owner Hardy Cathcart (Clifton Webb), whose much-younger wife Mari Cathcart (Cathy Downs) is having an affair with Jardine .

Twists and turns abound in this extremely entertaining thriller movie, raised well out of the rut by the top performances of an ideal cast, the crisp, exciting screenplay, Joe MacDonald’s striking shadowy cinematography and Henry Hathaway’s tautly controlled, powerful direction, bringing on a stylish Chandler-esque air of menace.

[Spoiler alert] It helps enormously that there are standout performances from Lucille Ball as Stevens’s new love-struck indispensable secretary/receptionist Kathleen, who tries to help him out of his jam, Clifton Webb as Hardy Cathcart, a jealous art gallery owner who is plotting to bump off his wife’s lover and William Bendix as Stauffer, the sinister white-suited heavy.

This thrilling postwar detective mystery boasts a great hard-boiled atmosphere, plenty of suspense, well-drawn characters, laconic lines and exactly the right actors to spit them out.

Also in the cast are Reed Hadley as Lt Frank Reeves, Constance Collier as Mrs. Kingsley, Molly Lamont as Lucy Wilding, Eddie Heywood as Himself, Colleen Alpaugh, Charles Cane, Mary Field, John Elliott, Ralph Dunn, Ellen Corby, John Kelly, Donald MacBride, Matt McHugh, John Russell, Minerva Urecal, Charles Wagenheim, Charles Tannen, Frieda Stoll and Tommy Monroe.

It is a 20th Century Fox, runs 99 minutes, is written by Jay Dratler and Bernard C Schoenfeld from a story by Leo Rosten, shot in black and white by Joe MacDonald, produced by Fred Kohlmar, is scored by Cyril J Mockridge and is set designed by Leland Fuller and James Basevi.

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 5514

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