Clifton Webb

Quote:
A fairly neglected exercise in film noir, The Dark Corner is a more than adequate if less than topflight example of the genre. Director Henry Hathaway was already familiar with crime thrillers, having helmed such previous efforts as Johnny Apollo and The House on 92nd Street, and he competently makes the shift to the edgier, more fatalist film noir game with ease and assurance, if little in the way of virtuosity. The screenplay is solid, hitting all the right plot points and keeping its cards appropriately close to the vest until it’s time to spring a few surprises on the audience, and there’s a good swift line of hardboiled dialogue hiding behind every corner. If Mark Stevens is not an immortal in the pantheon of screen tough guys — his Galt is a little wan, a trifle lightweight — he’s more than credible and makes the character’s tightlipped stoicism appealing. Lucille Ball assays one of her rare non-comedic roles and comes off very well; there’s a welcome mixture of innocence and worldliness to her character that she manages to get across without getting mired down in either extreme. Clifton Webb is deliciously smarmy, a nasty piece of work that’s a joy to watch. Corner misses out on being one of the majors, but as minor leaguers go, it’s one of the best.Read More »

Synopsis:
British Intelligence during World War II is trying to get the German High Command to shift its forces away from Italy prior to the invasion. To create the illusion that England is in fact planning to invade Greece, they plan to procure a dead body, plant secret papers on it, and arrange for the Spanish authorities to find it and send the papers on to the Germans. That’s the plan, anyway. First they have to find a body that will look drowned, then create an identity for it that will pass German scrutiny. Based on a true story.Read More »

Synopsis:
Unhappily married and uncomfortable with life among the British upper crust, Julia Sturges takes her two children and boards the Titanic for America. Her husband Richard also arranges passage on the doomed luxury liner in order to let him have custody of their two children. Their problems soon seem minor when the ship hits an iceberg.Read More »

by Hal Erickson
This adaptation of Vera Caspary’s suspense novel was begun by director Rouben Mamoulien and cinematographer Lucien Ballard, but thanks to a complex series of backstage intrigues and hostilities, the film was ultimately credited to director Otto Preminger and cameraman Joseph LaShelle (who won an Oscar for his efforts). At the outset of the film, it is established that the title character, Laura Hunt (Gene Tierney), has been murdered. Tough New York detective Mark McPherson (Dana Andrews) investigates the killing, methodically questioning the chief suspects: Waspish columnist Waldo Lydecker (Clifton Webb), wastrel socialite Shelby Carpenter (Vincent Price), and Carpenter’s wealthy “patroness” Ann Treadwell (Judith Anderson). Read More »