Thu 17 Aug 2017
A Movie Review by Jonathan Lewis: JEOPARDY (1953).
Posted by Steve under Reviews , Suspense & espionage films[5] Comments
JEOPARDY. MGM, 1953. Barbara Stanwyck, Barry Sullivan, Ralph Meeker, Lee Aaker. Director: John Sturges.
Four years before they were cast as rivals in Samuel Fuller’s Forty Guns (1957) (reviewed here ), Barry Sullivan and Barbara Stanwyck portrayed a married couple whose dream vacation turned into a living nightmare. Directed by John Sturges, Jeopardy features Sullivan and Stanwyck as Doug and Helen Stilwin who, along with their son Bobby, are headed to a remote area of Baja California for a vacation. Along the way from California to their Mexican destination, they are stopped, for reasons not clearly indicated, by the Mexican police.
For persons well immersed in the world of crime films and films noir, however, it’s fairly obvious that the police must be looking for someone. And sure, enough, that person happens to be a wily scoundrel by the name of Lawson (Ralph Meeker). An escaped convict on the lam in Mexico, Lawson’s a thoroughly charming villain. He’s a sociopath, to be sure. But he’s also got a soft side, one that Helen Stilwin is more than willing to exploit so as to save her family.
As the title indicates, the main theme of the film is about persons in imminent peril. Helen finds herself a captive, while her husband Doug finds himself imperiled by the rising tide after a beam falls on him, trapping him on the beach, all the while wondering where his wife might be. If the plot seems somewhat artificially constructed and forced, well that’s because it is. But for a programmer that clocks in at less than 70 minutes, it works well enough to make this a rather spunky, if not overly memorable, entry in the film noir genre.
August 17th, 2017 at 8:15 pm
Jeopardy was released on the same DVD as To Please A Lady, reviewed a few weeks back. In both pictures Stanwyck plays some variation of an irresistible temptress. Consider me resistant. As movie stars go, she is, perhaps along with Bette Davis, the most unsleepable with ever given a chance to front a film. And I thought this one even worse than the Gable picture. By plenty.
August 17th, 2017 at 10:04 pm
It’s been a while since I’ve seen this film, but if I’m not mistaken there was left open the possibility that Barbara Stanwyck’s character may have been willing to do anything she could do to save her husband, including That.
August 17th, 2017 at 10:32 pm
It worked on television as a diversion when it used to show up every few months in the afternoon or late at night. By no means a great film.
Have to differ on Stanwyck. She may not have been a great beauty, but in many roles, especially comedy, she exuded sex appeal. I’ll go for her in BALL OF FIRE, MEET JOHN DOE, LADY OF BURLESQUE, CHRISTMAS IN CONNECTICUT, DOUBLE INDEMNITY, or THE LADY EVE any day.
August 17th, 2017 at 10:42 pm
David, I should have done it like that as well — go back a few years, and add Union Pacific to the charming performances you have listed. And eliminate Double Indemnity. Somewhere north of Christmas In Connecticut, probably about the time of Sorry, Wrong Number, she was done as an alluring leading lady. I recall Bette Davis commenting on her own career — “I’m very proud of what I’ve accomplished, especially because I had to do it without the benefit of good looks.”
August 22nd, 2017 at 10:33 pm
Barry,
I don’t disagree. I always liked what Stanwyck claimed Bill Wellman told her during BABY FACE. “You can be an ingenue a few years or a tough broad the rest of your life.”