THE DARK CORNER. 20th Century Fox, 1946. Lucille Ball, Clifton Webb, William Bendix, Mark Stevens, Kurt Kreuger, Cathy Downs, Reed Hadley. Screenplay: Jay Dratler & Bernard Schoenfeld, based on a story by Leo Rosten. Director: Henry Hathaway.

   This is one of those movies that whenever I watch it again, I see things in it that I hadn’t noticed the first time. That may be true of many good films, but for me, it’s especially true for noir films, which this most definitely is.

   Mark Stevens plays PI Brad Galt, who’s trying to pick up the pieces in New York City after having had a plague of bad luck (and a jail term) out in California. But when you’re down, sometimes it seems that the rest of the world just wants to pile on. Only his new secretary, played to perfection by Lucille Ball, seems to care, and she’s the one who tells him that he’s being followed by a thuggish man in a white suit (William Bendix), posing as a down-at-the-heels private eye.

   I say “posing,” but even if he really is a PI, it’s soon clear enough that it’s a setup. Details need not be gone into, but it may suffice to say that at the other end of Manhattan society — the world of high society and culture — is an art dealer (Clifon Webb) who is having problems with his wife, and he thinks he can get the unwitting Brad Galt to help him take care of it.

  &nbsrp;It’s a complicated plot, and it takes all of the movie’s 99 minute running time to get everything established solidly enough that events can take their natural course. Galt is being set up, he knows it, but he has no clue who’s behind it, or why.

   Only the mother hen approach of his faithful secretary can keep him focused on avoiding the frame-up he’s all but wrapped up in. There’s no nonsense about it, either. She makes that clear enough right away.

   So there are elements of Cornell Woolrich’s Phantom Lady in this story, with even stronger overtones of Laura, though I don’t believe I can persuade you that this film is better than either. Nonetheless, it is very good, and so are the players, especially the beautifully sassy but still innocent Lucille Ball, whom one wishes had had the opportunity to appear in more noir films as good as this one.

      PS: What I was able to take the time to notice during this most recent viewing was the camerawork and black-and-white photography of Joseph MacDonald (Call Northside 777, Pickup on South Street). Superb! Next time you watch this film, see if you don’t agree.