The Reckless Moment (1949) - Max Ophuls 

After a trio of films for Fritz Lang, Joan Bennett began to slightly modify her screen image. In Max Ophuls' final American film she assumes her role as a the supreme matriarch in the mode of Joan Crawford's Mildred Pierce. Here she does any and everything to protect her family while her husband is away. The story, which came from the fountain of American literature The Ladies Home Journal was written during wartime and therefore had a more patriotic overtone. Bennett's Lucia Harper was a little more in line with Mrs. Minniver and her would be blackmailers were a little more German. Here however the action loses that undercurrent and instead focuses on a much more direct level, not allowing us the generalizations common with so many other films of its type. It is alarming first off that this film has been so hard to come by, but an excellent DVD from Second Sight in the UK is well worth the import. It remains another one of many studio gems that may never see the light of day on American soil because most of the multinational corporations that own studio vaults aren't even aware of film. 

The plot is somewhat simple. A woman finds that her daughter (Geraldine Brooks) has fallen for a no good art dealer (Shepperd Strudwick) and she vows to do what it takes to prevent them from seeing each other. The man asks for money and when Bea discovers that her boyfriend is the louse that her mother told her about the two get into an altercation. In a freak accident Ted falls off the deck of their boat house and lands on an anchor, dying instantly. The next day the mother finds the body and without asking any questions puts it in her boat in a rather long extended scene with no music, sails out to sea and dumps the body. He turns up and so do some letters Bea wrote to him. In comes Donnelly (James Mason) an Irish thug who has the letters and blackmails Lucia. 

So there is your conflict, rather simple in all regards. What isn't simple is Ophuls' staging. His few films in Hollywood allowed for a very professional and refined approach to his directing, and there is a light breeze to the whole film. The producer Walter Wanger (who was married to Bennett) originally wanted Jean Renoir to direct the film and you can almost sense Ophuls tapping into that mode. Both directors liked to stage in depth and Renoir's brother Claude was certainly one to let his camera roam. Burnett Guffrey did the cinematography here and in case you're wondering I've never heard of him either. The picture was designed largely to help ease Bennett's transition between femme fatale and endearing mother, a role she would perfect in Vincente Minnelli's Father of the Bride and it's sequel. She seemed poised to step into this role and her role allows her to fit into each category, providing a convincing amount of attraction to Donnelly in much the same way Crawford's Pierce was a little of both. Make no mistake though she's no seductress and her quietly suffering mother would be echoed in films for years afterwards. 

Now for the film noir checklist. There is a murder, there is an investigation, there is a wrong man accused of the crime, there is a criminal underworld, a slight taste of forbidden love, and of course enough shadows to make Val Lewton happy. The relationship between Mason and Bennett grows very gradually and there is no evidence of incrimination on the part of Bennett. The two grow towards each other, and as the film progresses Donnelly becomes more and more likable. It's easy to be on Mason's side as a performer and its hard to see him as the blackmailer, even when playing a gangster in Odd Man Out he managed to achieve a saintly martyrdom. His fate is very much the same here, taking the motto that a degenerate lifelong criminal can finally do something right in his life in death. A great sentiment that allows us to feel a general relief when the father of the family calls home wishing them a Merry Christmas. 

Grade B