Thursday, 26 January 2023

Cause for Alarm! (1951 Tay Garnett)

Loretta Young is looking after ill, bedbound Barry Sullivan - I personally would have liked to know what's wrong with him - he looked fine in flashback - but he thinks she, in league with friend /doctor Bruce Cowling, plans to kill him. When he pulls a gun on her, but then dies, she goes to pieces, because he's revealed he's sent a letter to the DA exposing the plot. She begins to make a series of mistakes, starting with - just call the police and explain what's happened. Then she becomes desperate about the letter...

So the plot (Lawrence Marcus story, originally for radio, Mel Dinelli / Tom Lewis script) is somewhat disposable, but the point of difference is in the number of chatty encounters she has along the way, with a talkative boy, a complaining postman (Irving Bacon), a verbally torrential aunt and a neighbour. Otherwise, it's routine and forgettable, and could just as easily have been a Hitchcock Half Hour. The title's terrible.

Music: André Previn; photography Joseph Ruttenberg. MGM.

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