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James Mason and Joan Bennett feel Reckless Moment pulls them toward temptation |
Director: Max Ophüls
Cast: James Mason (Martin Donnelly), Joan Bennett (Lucia
Harper), Geraldine Brooks (Bea Harper), Henry O’Neill (Tom Harper), Shepperd
Strudwick (Ted Darby), David Bair (David Harper), Roy Roberts (Nagel), Frances
E Williams (Sybil)
It’s a situation anyone could find themselves in: your
daughter is infatuated with someone totally unsuitable, and despite all your
efforts you can’t get her to shake him off. What’s perhaps more unusual is when
the man turns up dead after an accident – but in such a way it looks like your
daughter has bumped him off. What lengths will you go to, to save her from
prison? That’s the problem faced by Lucia Harper (Joan Bennett) – and it’s made
even more complex by the fact that the truth is out there and she’s being
blackmailed by surprisingly sensitive small-time crook Martin Donnelly (James
Mason), who finds himself developing feelings for Lucia.
Max Ophüls’ The Reckless
Moment is an enjoyable enough noir-thriller, that mixes a wonderful sense
of its locations with a perverted romanticism that first expresses itself
through the daughter’s infatuation with a pathetic bent art dealer and then
through the love blackmailer Martin Donnelly feels for his victim (and she for
him). But it’s also a film about women, and how alone they can be when dealing
with problems. Lucia’s husband is a never-seen presence on the end of a phone
(busy building a bridge in Germany), her father-in-law is charming but useless
and the two other men are criminals intruding into her life.
In fact this is quite ahead of its time with its thinking
around women. Far from the usual tropes of a femme fatale, instead Mason takes
on that role, while the mother turns out to be practical, brave and dedicated
to keeping her family safe – while still more than a little open to illicit
feelings of attraction. Lucia still has to balance all this with putting up a
front of domestic business-as-usual with her family, not letting them see even
a trace of the problems (including her daughter who is blissfully unaware of
the situation she has landed her mother in).
Ophüls’ directs this with a moody intensity, with a wonderful
use of the LA backgrounds, particularly of the boat landing where much of the
crucial action takes place. His camera placement is impeccable, and he finds a
number of interesting and striking angles to throw events into a sharp relief.
It’s a beautifully shot film, with wonderful use of black and white, and hints
of Ophüls’
background in German expressionist cinema. His camera constantly manages to put
us in the shoes of Lucia with tracking shots (another Ophüls’
trademark) loyally following her actions and placing the viewers into her
perspective of events to help build out bonds with her.
It’s a bond that obviously Donnelly ends up feeling very
strongly tied to. James Mason enters the picture surprisingly late, and the
film’s short length (less than 80 minutes) means many of the developments
around the blackmail end up feeling rather rushed. Perhaps the plot didn’t even
need the blackmail angle – there could have been more than enough tension of
Lucia dodging the police case that surely should have built around her.
Instead, the blackmail plot often feels rather forced, not least due to the build
of a romantic subplot between the two characters.
It’s a romance that never quite rings true, partly because
we never get the time for it to breathe. It seems forced and bolted onto the
film because it is expected, rather than something that grows organically. It
leads to sudden plot leaps, with Donnelly moving swiftly from business like to
buying gifts and even offering to pay part of the blackmail for her to his
shady boss. I’m not sure that the film ever earns this leap with its rushed
runtime. It never pulls together into a romance that we can really believe in –
and Lucia is such a carefully restrained and standoffish character that we
don’t always get a sense of the emotions that she is carrying below the
surface.
Despite this Joan Bennett does a decent job as the heroine,
an intriguing and rather admirable character who gets caught up in wild and
crazy events but never lets them overwhelm her. Indeed, Ophüls’
stresses her calmness and practicality at several points, never shaken by
demands of events and responding with ingenuity and calm to a range of
circumstances. Bennett might not be the most charismatic actress, but she does
a very good job here. James Mason struggles slightly with his slightly
incoherent character arc, but as a reluctant heavy he does a marvellous job
here, while mastering the sense of ruffled, shabby charm Donnelly has. It does help believe that he might contribute to a reckless moment of attraction from Lucia.
The Reckless Moment
is a well-made B movie, that Ophüls’ adds a great deal to with his
empathy for Lucia and stylishly smooth film-making. It makes for a very
polished film, which on its actual character and plot beats doesn’t really
always make a great deal of sense – rushing us into relationships and feelings
that it doesn’t always feel the film justifies. But despite that there is just
enough style here, even if this is always a film destined for the second tier
of classics.
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