Spidersecu Don't Believe the Hype

Doomtomylo a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

Salubfoto It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

Staci Frederick Blistering performances.

sbasu-47-608737 The decorated veteran comes back home to find the butterfly wife maintaining her ways. He wasn't too shocked, since he knew her manners, but thought that she would have changed post motherhood. He was still ready to forgive her, and try to have another go but when she blurted out, that she was the reason of the son's death, the bond was broken, and he walked out. Her current lover too was bored of her, and preferred that she kept herself to her husband and leave him alone, probably so that he could get his estranged wife back. The spurned lover had a secret, and she threatened him with exposure, unless he came back to her, and remained so. Meanwhile the wife calls the husband's friends, to locate him, and his closest friend, with a mental disorder due to injury, making him violent as well as semi-amnesic in presence of loud noise, comes over to understand what went wrong and collect the man, and escort him back to his place. He doesn't find him, but finds the wife, who puts a dope on him, to his horror and repugnance, when he comes to know that this woman was his best friends wife. At night the philandering wife is killed, and then it is who dunnit. Husband, the prime suspect, we know didn't, but police thought otherwise. He has the maximum motive to kill the wife, unfaithful as well as son's killer. Then the lover, whom she was turning into her puppet, courtesy some damning secret she had on him. The husband's best friend, who abhorred her so much, that under the trauma (the loud music she was playing), he could have killed her. The paramour's partner/manager who wanted the paramour to be rid of her and may be a few more. The movie moves along in nice pace, and there are nothing very strikingly discordant about it. The meeting of the protagonist, was chance, but these chances, even in real life, creates stories, so I won't harp on that. If I start on it, even "It happened One Night" was pure chance, and in any real life story, there would be many such factors, which would direct the course. Was it fantastic? I don't think it was entirely improbable or bordering on impossibility. Of the whole story, there are a few factors which does border on very high improbability, and those should have been modified.First was entirely useless. The husband throwing the gun disdainfully before leaving. No one would do that. He definitely didn't leave it, so that the wife could use it on herself, since it was clear she didn't have any intention of doing that. Then why? The investigation in fact didn't harp on the gun used for killing being husband's service revolver. So this unnecessary sequence could have been avoided, disdain could have been shown without it.The much more improbable was the son's death, or the circumstances. The wife was a man-eater and highly 'spirit'-ed woman. With that set-up, I don't suppose she would be taking her son to the parties, where she was hunting for fish. First the presence of the son would be a deterrent on her intended targets, he would have an effect much more than a chaperone has. Second, the son was not baby but a boy. Any normal woman would keep him away from her private activities. The death, due to her carelessness, even may be under intoxication, could have been better managed. Another question arises, how did the paramour know she was murdered, when it could have been a suicide as well? It was brought in to make him prime suspect, in the eyes of audience. But then it should have been explained how he knew. That wasn't done. Except these few incongruities, I didn't find any stark one. The romantic angle between Ms Lake and Ladd had been kept on a very low profile, but that is understood. She was still married, may be estranged, and may be was no more in love, but still did care for her husband's welfare. So starting a torrid romance would have been a bit eyesore, and it remained at the stage, where she cared, may be a bit more than care, to provide the irrefutable alibi of his innocence, but still not in head over heels in love.Ladd, Bendix, Howard Da Silva, Lake, Helen Morrison etc fitted the role. Don Costello seemed a bit soft for his line of work, a bit, but not too incongruous. In fact the one I found a bit puzzling was the second friend, George Copeland (Hugh Beaumont), the lawyer. He was almost villainous, most unsympathetic to the protagonist. This isn't really understood, especially when the hero had been the life saver for both, as they claimed, in many sorties.

gavin6942 An ex-bomber pilot (Alan Ladd) is suspected of murdering his unfaithful wife (Doris Dowling).Today, this film might be best remembered as indirectly providing Elizabeth Short with the nickname "Black Dahlia". Short, or more specifically her murder, is far better remembered in popular culture than this film is.But, even more interesting is how it was written by Raymond Chandler on the fly, not from one of his novels. The producer recalled, "It was not until the middle of our fourth week that a faint chill of alarm invaded the studio when the script girl pointed out that the camera was rapidly gaining on the script. We had shot sixty-two pages in four weeks; Chandler, during that time, had turned in only twenty-two with another thirty to go." Essentially, no one knew what the end would be halfway through the shoot!

James Hitchcock Recently discharged from the United States Navy, Johnny Morrison arrives back in his home town, Hollywood, eager to be reunited with his wife Helen. He is in for a shock. During his absence serving in the South Pacific, Helen has become a heavy drinker and hard, brassy good-time girl. Johnny also discovers that she is having an affair with a nightclub owner named Eddie Harwood. (The "Blue Dahlia" of the title is the name of Harwood's nightclub). Johnny decides to leave Helen, and when she is murdered shortly afterwards Johnny becomes the prime suspect.Of course, Johnny is not the killer. Although the film was released in 1946, it was shot the previous year while the war was still being fought, and in 1945 there was no way in which Hollywood was going to make a returning war hero a murderer. Aided by his old Navy buddies Buzz Wanchek and George Copeland and by Harwood's estranged wife Joyce, he goes on the run to try and expose the real killer. It then gets a lot more complicated, but this is only to be expected given that the script was written by Raymond Chandler. (This was Chandler's first original screenplay).For most of the film the audience have no idea who the killer really is; his or her identity is only revealed at the very end. In fact, for most of the time during filming the cast and director George Marshall did not know who the culprit is. Even Chandler did not know. The reason for this strange state of affairs was that the studio, Paramount, were anxious to get the film completed as soon as possible, fearing that its star Alan Ladd, who had briefly served in the army before being discharged on medical grounds, might be conscripted again. (In the event this never happened). As a result, they started shooting without a finished screenplay and Chandler continued working on it while filming of the early scenes was taking place.Chandler had particular difficulty in writing the ending in which the murderer is revealed. He evidently rejected the most obvious solution, that the killer is Harwood, possibly because it seemed too obvious. His original idea was that Buzz, who is suffering from mental disturbances after being wounded in the war, would turn out to have killed Helen in a fit of madness, but Paramount, at the insistence of the Navy, vetoed this suggestion. (As I said, in 1945 Hollywood was never going to make a returning war hero a murderer). Chandler, who was drinking heavily at the time, therefore had to come up with an alternative solution, something that was not achieved without a good deal of anguish.I wouldn't class "The Blue Dahlia" as one of the great films noirs- it is not quite on a par with something like "The Big Sleep" or "Gilda", to take two other films from the same year- but given the rather chaotic conditions under which it was produced, it is surprising that it is as good as it is. Ladd gives a good performance as Johnny, as does William Bendix as the tormented Buzz, although Veronica Lake, in her third appearance with Ladd, does not make quite such an impression as she did in some of the others. (Chandler took a strong dislike to Lake, possibly because she had never previously heard of him, calling her "Moronica". Lake seemed to have a talent for making enemies, which explains in part why her career, although at times an impressive one, was also a short one).As often with noir, the plot is perhaps more complex than it needs to be, but this is the sort of film which depends less upon plot than it does upon atmosphere. It is a film about returning war heroes, made just before the end of the war and released just after it, yet the mood of the film is far from heroic or triumphant. Johnny, George and Buzz have put their lives on the line for their country, but the country they are returning to is shown here as a corrupt, seedy land of cheap criminals and hoodlums. Although there is a "happy" ending in that Johnny and Buzz's innocence is eventually vindicated, this does not altogether overcome the rather sour pessimism which is the dominant mood of this film, a mood which it shares with some other films noirs from the period. This pessimism contrasts oddly with the triumphant optimism with which many greeted the return of peace in 1945, but it also perhaps served as a necessary corrective to it. 7/10

Alex da Silva Alan Ladd (Johnny Morrison) returns from the war to his wife Doris Dowling (Helen). However, she has been tarting about behind his back with Howard Da Silva (Eddie Harwood) and she also admits responsibility for the death of Ladd's son. This revelation proves too much for Alan Ladd and he walks out. However, Dowling is shot that night and Ladd becomes the number one suspect. He forms an alliance with Eddie's wife Veronica Lake (Joyce) and the film becomes a murder mystery. Who-dunnit....? The acting honours go to Howard Da Silva as the confident nightclub owner and Doris Dowling as the partying floozy, followed by Alan Ladd in the lead role. William Bendix as army buddy "Buzz" can be annoying at times. He shouts his way through the film and although he gets much credit for playing an ex-serviceman with shell-shock, the truth is that he is irritating at times.I wasn't sure what the film was about for the first half hour or so and the film gets a bit slow in parts. The story also stretches credulity with the rather convenient meeting between Ladd and lake and their association with each other. The ending is also a cop-out. Although the film keeps you guessing as to the identity of the murderer (I didn't guess it), all is ultimately revealed in a very poor confession from out of the blue. Tacky. It could have been much better. Overall, the film lacks something.