Fri 2 Nov 2012
THE WEB. Universal, 1947. Ella Raines, Edmond O’Brien, William Bendix, Vincent Price, Maria Palmer, John Abbott, Fritz Leiber, Howland Chamberlin. Director: Michael Gordon.
Films beget films. At least the popular ones do. In a process not unlike evolution, successful films breed films like themselves which in turn permutate into others like themselves, and on and on until the trend overpopulates itself and dies off.
But along the way, some interesting specimens pop up. Case in point: The Web, a nifty little semi-noir mystery that deserves to be better known. Unpretentious, fast-paced and intelligent, this was scripted by a team of writers (William Bowers, Bertram Milhauser and Harry Kurnitz) with solid credentials, and directed by Michael Gordon (who he?) with an eye for personality and atmosphere.
The forebears of this film are of interest: Back in 1944, Fox came out with Laura, a mega-hit starring Gene Tierney and Dana Andrews, with meaty roles doled out to Clifton Webb and Vincent Price as a pair of soigné suspects. Two years later, Fox decided to rework the motif with The Dark Corner, featuring Clifton Webb again as a cultured criminal type, this time backed up by William Bendix as mindless muscle. Then for its own variation on the theme, Universal populated The Web with Vincent Price and William Bendix — and did quite nicely by them both.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThW7t0kYHnY
Edmond O’Brien (back when he was merely chubby) stars as a struggling young attorney hired by wealthy industrialist Vincent Price (back when he was merely nasty) as a bodyguard. So, all obvious jokes aside, why hire a lawyer as a bodyguard?
Well, there’s a complicated story about an ex-partner (Fritz Leiber) convicted of stealing bonds, now out of jail and maybe carrying a grudge — though Vinnie assures us he himself had nothing to do with the whole messy business. To further complicate matters (he goes on, in his most urbane manner) there’s a business deal pending, and if word got out his life was threatened it might scare away investors. So what more natural than to have a lawyer on his staff who happens to carry a gun?
Yeah, any mystery fan can see something phony coming down the road like a float in a Macy’s parade, and O’Brien senses it too, but he takes the job anyway, mainly because of Price’s Personal Assistant, played by Ella Raines, one of the most uniquely alluring femmes of the 40s. The script says there’s a romantic spark between them, but frankly, she looks so far out of his class he might as well be in another movie.
And it seems Price has another personal assistant, this one more appalling than appealing, played by John Abbott, a 40s character actor who projects a prissy ghoulishness all his own. Just what work he does for Price ain’t exactly clear, but one quickly gets the impression it’s nothing very saintly.
So with some misgivings, O’Brien sees his old cop-pal (William Bendix, surprisingly bespectacled and cerebral here) gets a gun permit, and the show is on. What follows is a splendid game of move and counter-move involving murder (or is it?) blackmail (or is someone bluffing?) and carefully-plotted traps that seem to snare those who set them. Or as Bendix puts it to O’Brien, “Don’t you see? If you prove it’s murder, then you’re the murderer.”
This is an unusually intelligent film, with stops along the way for well-realized minor characters, like Leiber’s bitter daughter, broodingly portrayed by one Maria Palmer, an actress who should have gone further. And we also get the patently unsympathetic Howland Chamberlain — you may recall him as the loathsome druggist in Best Years of Our Lives or the smarmy hotelier in High Noon — as a pretentious author with clues to Price’s past. Fleeting pleasures in a film that provides an engaging and entertaining eighty-seven minutes well worth your time.
November 3rd, 2012 at 2:29 am
Thanks! This looks like it could be interesting. I wonder how many hidden gems lie unseen in the archives?
November 3rd, 2012 at 9:12 am
I agree. I’ve never seen this one, and with a cast like this, I don’t know how I managed that. It doesn’t seem to have had an official release, but a quick peek on says there all kinds of unauthorized copies available (eBay, iOffer and so on).
November 3rd, 2012 at 1:56 pm
I’m not sure I’ve seen this one. But Edmond O’Brien is excellent in film noir movies because he is not the usual pretty boy in trouble. Instead we have an overweight, sort of homely guy we can identify with.
My notes show that I have it. But I’m having trouble finding it among the thousands of dvds. My wife happened to notice me frantically hunting through the movies and off we go again with her ranting about out of control collectors who don’t know where the hell anything is. The non-collector will never be able to understand the collector…
November 3rd, 2012 at 2:23 pm
There is nothing homely about Edmond O’Brien. Homely guys lose the girl. Not Eddie. And prior to the war not at all overweight.
November 5th, 2012 at 12:16 pm
I just saw O’Brien in a movie with Lizabeth Scott and a very young, very wired up Terry Moore (she was like a modern kid in need of Ritalin). It was a pretty good little programmer called Two of a Kind (1951) — one of those con artist movies about people trying to pass off a double in order to get at an inheritance. Worth checking out if you can take Moore’s hyperactivity and “gee whiz” breeziness.
November 5th, 2012 at 4:01 pm
John
I enjoyed TWO OF A KIND too. Edmond O’Brien has to work hard to keep up with both Lizabeth Scott and Terry Moore.
My review is here
https://mysteryfile.com/blog/?p=1268
and a later one by Walter Albert is here
https://mysteryfile.com/blog/?p=14769
November 10th, 2012 at 12:20 pm
At Maureen O’Hara Magazine on-line there is quite a nice photograph from Hunchback of Notre Dame. Maureen O’Hara and Edmond O’Brien.
November 10th, 2012 at 8:34 pm
I haven’t been able to locate the one Barry’s referring to, but I did find this one, which he agrees may be even better:
http://www.thehunchblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/45-leaving.png