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Black Widow (1954)
A clever screenplay and a solid ensemble cast make the 1954 murder mystery among the New York theater setBack Widow worth a look.
While his wife Iris (Gene Tierney) is out of town, a Broadway producer named Peter Denver (Van Heflin) is persuaded to attend a party at the home of his upstairs neighbor and star of his current Broadway hit, the glamorous Carlotta Marin (Ginger Rogers). Peter meets a young girl at the party named Nanny (Peggy Ann Garner) who claims to be an aspiring writer and persuades Peter to let her write in his apartment during the day while he's not there. One day, Peter comes home and finds Nanny hanging from a noose in the bedroom but when the detective assigned to the case, Detective Bruce (George Raft) learns that Nanny was really murdered (and hardly the innocent she claimed to be), that's when the story really kicks into high gear.
Nunnally Johnson was one of the most popular and busiest screenwriters during the 1950's, responsible for for films like How to Marry a Millionaire, Casanova Brown, O Henry's Full House, and Everybody Does it and though he has also written other dramatic, his name has always been associated with light comedy so I was a little surprised when I saw him credited as the writer and director of this stylish murder mystery that actually provides something a lot of murder mysteries don' and that is mystery. This is one of the few films I have ever seen where a murder was revealed and I had no idea who did it, which has to be credited with Johnson's mounting of the exposition and backstory of the characters involved.
Having the story center around New York theater people gave the story a sophistication that was quite engaging. Watching the glamorous Carlotta strutting and chewing scenery was so much fun as well as Peter's complete boredom with her theatrics. There were a couple of story elements that seemed silly to me...we learn that Nanny is murdered and we know that Peter didn't do it, we don't know who did, but we do know it wasn't Peter, but when Bruce shows up at his office to question, he runs...why?
But I digress. This was an economic and wonderfully entertaining mystery and the final third where we learn exactly what happened, aided by flashbacks, was full of twists and turns I didn't see coming. Ginger Rogers is flashy and flamboyant as the very theatrical Carlotta and Van Heflin grows into the role of Peter. Tierney effectively underplays Iris and Garner impresses as young Nanny, but Raft was just a little too stone-faced for my tastes, but did not deter my enjoyment of this dandy little murder melodrama.
A clever screenplay and a solid ensemble cast make the 1954 murder mystery among the New York theater setBack Widow worth a look.
While his wife Iris (Gene Tierney) is out of town, a Broadway producer named Peter Denver (Van Heflin) is persuaded to attend a party at the home of his upstairs neighbor and star of his current Broadway hit, the glamorous Carlotta Marin (Ginger Rogers). Peter meets a young girl at the party named Nanny (Peggy Ann Garner) who claims to be an aspiring writer and persuades Peter to let her write in his apartment during the day while he's not there. One day, Peter comes home and finds Nanny hanging from a noose in the bedroom but when the detective assigned to the case, Detective Bruce (George Raft) learns that Nanny was really murdered (and hardly the innocent she claimed to be), that's when the story really kicks into high gear.
Nunnally Johnson was one of the most popular and busiest screenwriters during the 1950's, responsible for for films like How to Marry a Millionaire, Casanova Brown, O Henry's Full House, and Everybody Does it and though he has also written other dramatic, his name has always been associated with light comedy so I was a little surprised when I saw him credited as the writer and director of this stylish murder mystery that actually provides something a lot of murder mysteries don' and that is mystery. This is one of the few films I have ever seen where a murder was revealed and I had no idea who did it, which has to be credited with Johnson's mounting of the exposition and backstory of the characters involved.
Having the story center around New York theater people gave the story a sophistication that was quite engaging. Watching the glamorous Carlotta strutting and chewing scenery was so much fun as well as Peter's complete boredom with her theatrics. There were a couple of story elements that seemed silly to me...we learn that Nanny is murdered and we know that Peter didn't do it, we don't know who did, but we do know it wasn't Peter, but when Bruce shows up at his office to question, he runs...why?
But I digress. This was an economic and wonderfully entertaining mystery and the final third where we learn exactly what happened, aided by flashbacks, was full of twists and turns I didn't see coming. Ginger Rogers is flashy and flamboyant as the very theatrical Carlotta and Van Heflin grows into the role of Peter. Tierney effectively underplays Iris and Garner impresses as young Nanny, but Raft was just a little too stone-faced for my tastes, but did not deter my enjoyment of this dandy little murder melodrama.