The Bribe (1949)
A loaded cast and crew make this an interesting draw (only the director Robert Leonard is little known to me, though he has two Best Director nominations). But really: Ava Gardner in a dramatic noir, with Robert Taylor the male lead (including a very noir voiceover to start). Throw in Charles Laughton and Vincent Price in smaller roles, and Joseph Ruttenberg doing cinematography and Miklos Rozsa the music.
And it starts great, in a lonely room in Central America, rain pouring down the windows at night. And then the flashbacks begin.
Maybe all this makes me a sucker. I expected a lot even with the clichés pouring on. But we have a formula noir here with all the elements exaggerated and none of them missed--the woman is even a nightclub singer, and wait for the drug in the drink later on. If you are willing to enjoy the form rather than the specifics of the movie, you have your film. It's almost great, and might someday be considered a classic simply because it makes so clear the elements of that form (the noir-alienated male, femme fatale, flashbacks, dramatic lighting, crime and treachery, short clipped phrases).
It's so good at all this, it became the model for the comic send-up, "Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid." But in a way this isn't fair, because the movie does work on its own, despite its lack of originality. It grows and gets better as you go, and the consistency of the production and the solidity of the plot make it worth seeing.
Gardner is not great in the way some leading noir females are, but she has her sculptural poise and is still young as an actress. Taylor has sort of the same problem of not quite rising to the needs of the role, but he is fine. The fact that the two of them are not "amazing" is one of the holdbacks of the film--lots of noirs have formula plots but have such great acting it doesn't matter a bit.
So Laughton, then, rising to the occasion, is really amazing. I've heard his performance called campy, but I don't think so, not for the genre. It's subtle, and if he's a character, he's not a caricature. Price, also good, has a someone limited role.
Until the end. The final ten minutes is a film wonder. If you can't watch the whole thing for some reason, you can still be thrilled by the ending. The drama, the lighting, the photography, the pace and editing, it's all unparalleled.
