Wicked Woman
Posted: April 29th, 2010, 8:30 am
Written and directed by Russell Rouse, whose other other credits include THE OSCAR (1966)(director & screenplay), PILLOW TALK (1959)(story), CHICAGO CONFIDENTIAL (1955)(director & writer), and D.O.A. (1950)(story & screenplay), this 1953 film noir inhabits its own seedy and tawdry universe.
Blond floozy Beverly Michaels (you know she's a floozy because of the music her hips seem to cue each time she walks into the frame) moves into town looking for a job. Hired by Evelyn Scott, the lush co-owner of a local watering hole, to be a server, she soon becomes very friendly with the other co-owner, bartender and Scott's husband, Richard Egan. During this time, Michaels is also deflecting the advances of the lascivious voyeur who lives across the hall at the rooming house where she lives. Egan and Michaels eventually develop a plan to defraud Scott and a prospective bar buyer involving Michaels pretending to be Egan's wife and forging Scott's name to the bar's deed and sales agreement. They will then take the money and run off to Mexico to live happily ever after. But...
In his stalking of Michaels, her neighbor hears the plot and starts blackmailing her, not for money, but for dinners and the promise of fulfilling his desires. She, of course, keeps these activities a secret from Egan. Their plan unravels when Egan arrives unannounced at her room and finds the neighbor kissing and otherwise slobbering over her neck. Enraged, Egan admits the fraud, which the prospective buyer forgives, and returns to Scott, who acts as if she will take him back just in order to nag him about this episode for the rest of her life.
What is the primary reason that what otherwise appears to be a minor B-noir melodrama (many shades of THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE) is elevated to glittering B-noir melodrama status? The neighbor, the Lothario that can send Richard Egan (or any man) into a blind jealous rage, the sexual obstacle to a couple's life of riches and romance:
Percy Helton!
Only in the twisted B-noir Universe.
Blond floozy Beverly Michaels (you know she's a floozy because of the music her hips seem to cue each time she walks into the frame) moves into town looking for a job. Hired by Evelyn Scott, the lush co-owner of a local watering hole, to be a server, she soon becomes very friendly with the other co-owner, bartender and Scott's husband, Richard Egan. During this time, Michaels is also deflecting the advances of the lascivious voyeur who lives across the hall at the rooming house where she lives. Egan and Michaels eventually develop a plan to defraud Scott and a prospective bar buyer involving Michaels pretending to be Egan's wife and forging Scott's name to the bar's deed and sales agreement. They will then take the money and run off to Mexico to live happily ever after. But...
In his stalking of Michaels, her neighbor hears the plot and starts blackmailing her, not for money, but for dinners and the promise of fulfilling his desires. She, of course, keeps these activities a secret from Egan. Their plan unravels when Egan arrives unannounced at her room and finds the neighbor kissing and otherwise slobbering over her neck. Enraged, Egan admits the fraud, which the prospective buyer forgives, and returns to Scott, who acts as if she will take him back just in order to nag him about this episode for the rest of her life.
What is the primary reason that what otherwise appears to be a minor B-noir melodrama (many shades of THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE) is elevated to glittering B-noir melodrama status? The neighbor, the Lothario that can send Richard Egan (or any man) into a blind jealous rage, the sexual obstacle to a couple's life of riches and romance:
Percy Helton!
Only in the twisted B-noir Universe.
