Classic Films in Focus: THE DARK CORNER (1946)

Henry Hathaway directed the very solid Fox noir, The Dark Corner (1946), which features genre standouts like Mark Stevens, William Bendix, and Clifton Webb, but most viewers will be drawn to the picture for Lucille Ball, an actress not normally known for noir roles but perfectly at home as the loyal heroine of this romantic detective mystery. The love story between the private eye and his secretary lightens the overall mood in a tale of betrayal, deception, and revenge, but we get plenty of hard-boiled action thanks to Stevens' scenes with Bendix, who knows how to make the most of a tough guy role. With plenty of double crosses and twists to keep the audience guessing, The Dark Corner has everything a noir fan could want, even if it doesn't spin as nasty a plot as some of the genre's darkest gems.

Mark Stevens stars as private detective Bradford Galt, who's trying to rebuild his life after a frame job by a crooked former partner in San Fransisco stuck him with a two year prison sentence. He's making good progress with his new office and his attractive secretary, Kathleen (Lucille Ball), at least until it looks like his old foe, Jardine (Kurt Kreuger), is back to torment him again. Galt's efforts to to learn the truth about his latest string of bad luck set him on the trail of Jardine, a shady henchman (William Bendix), and a wealthy art collector named Hardy Cathcart (Clifton Webb), whose beautiful wife is Jardine's latest conquest.

Stevens is well cast in the detective role, which requires him to shift between hard-boiled violence and budding romance with Ball. His good looks and jawline make him an attractive leading man, and he's equally capable of making eyes at his leading lady and throwing punches at his male costars. Ball, of course, already has that star power about her, and her Kathleen quickly emerges as a very compelling character, practical but good-hearted, and smart enough to be the detective herself. Too often noir detectives ignore Kathleen's type in favor of smoky-eyed femme fatales, but luckily for Kathleen she doesn't have any competition in that department. It's always fascinating to see Lucille Ball in her roles before TV stardom made her an icon; we think of her now as a goofy comedian, but she can be glamorous and serious when the role allows.

The supporting players spread out our attention between them fairly evenly, partly in order to keep us guessing about their motives and relationship to Galt's predicament. Kurt Kreuger is suitably smooth as the blackmailing serial adulterer who makes wealthy married women pay for falling in love with him, and Clifton Webb oozes his trademark sinister charm as the art lover who has acquired a much younger and very alluring wife. Cathcart's obsession with his wife, Mari (Cathy Downs), recalls that of Robert Browning's speaker in "My Last Duchess," particularly when we see him pull back a curtain to reveal a portrait whose subject looks remarkably like her. If Mari read more poetry she might know better than to tempt Cathcart's jealous wrath. Bendix enjoys a little more screen time than his fellow cast members because he handles the dirty work of persecuting Galt, but he's so good as a heavy that the audience can't complain. Reed Hadley drifts into the picture for a few scenes as policeman Frank Reeves, a local cop who wants to make sure Galt sticks to the straight and narrow path of legality after his prison stint.

If you like Lucille Ball in The Dark Corner, be sure to see her in Lured (1947), in which she plays a dancer who turns detective to help Scotland Yard catch a serial killer. Mark Stevens' other noir films include The Street with No Name (1948), Between Midnight and Dawn (1950), The Big Frame (1952), and Time Table (1956). William Bendix earned an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his role in Wake Island (1942), but be sure to see him in Lifeboat (1944), The Blue Dahlia (1946), and, for contrast, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1949). Don't miss the scene-stealing Clifton Webb in Laura (1944), The Razor's Edge (1946), Sitting Pretty (1948), and Cheaper by the Dozen (1950). Henry Hathaway was primarily a director of Westerns, but his other notable noir films include Kiss of Death (1947), Call Northside 777 (1948), and the outstanding Marilyn Monroe noir, Niagara (1953).

Classic Films in Focus: CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN (1950)

Tolstoy might have thought that happy families are all alike, but he didn't live during the era of Hollywood family films like Cheaper by the Dozen (1950), where the sheer diversity of happy families generated picture after picture about different domestic clans with their own unique stories. Thus we have movies like Meet Me in St. Louis (1944), Life With Father (1947), and I Remember Mama (1948), as well as many others, often adapted from non-fiction memoirs or thinly veiled autobiographies. Cheaper by the Dozen is no exception; based on the popular memoir by Frank B. Gilbreth, Jr., and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey, the original movie has nothing beyond its title in common with the purely fictional 2003 remake starring Steve Martin and Bonnie Hunt, and it certainly outshines the later picture in charm, poignancy, and inoffensive family amusement. While Cheaper by the Dozen is not among the greatest classic films ever made, it offers a very entertaining view of family life in the 1920s that both children and adults can enjoy, and its nostalgic presentation of parents as thoughtful, funny, and understanding people provides a welcome tonic to the way in which mothers and fathers are so often depicted in "family" films today.

Directed by Walter Lang, the movie stars Clifton Webb and Myrna Loy as the Gilbreth parents, whose own work in industrial engineering and efficiency has not prevented them from generating a family of twelve children, six boys and six girls. Jeanne Crain plays their eldest daughter, Ann, whose transition to womanhood creates some drama and humor within the family, as poor Ann is the first of the offspring to have to persuade her parents to let her grow up. The story of the family's life, leading up to a major event that alters it forever, is told through a series of vignettes spread out over several years.

Like many films of this sort, the vignette model for story-telling leaves something to be desired in the plot department; the sketches that we see are interesting and funny but don't really build the story's tension to a climactic height. If you have seen a number of family stories, or if you already know the history of the real Gilbreth family, you can see the major event of the movie coming, but the earlier parts of the film don't necessarily emphasize a movement in that direction, and the film uses the event as an endpoint rather than a climax. Some of the best scenes are the shortest and least consequential ones, like the father's interview with the principal at the children's school or the family's acquisition of a dog in spite of their patriarch's objections, but they demonstrate the family's love for one another and the father's intense pride in and devotion to his numerous brood. Even the smallest families will recognize the affectionate truth about parents and children living together in these scenes, and they may well prove productive starting points for conversations about important family decisions and situations.

Classic movie fans will appreciate Cheaper by the Dozen primarily for its leads; this is a chance to see Clifton Webb and Myrna Loy, both strong performers with illustrious careers, in some rather different roles. Webb rose to fame as the urbane villain of Otto Preminger's noir hit, Laura (1944), but he was also well known in the late 1940s as the snippy title character of the Mr. Belvedere films (which inspired the later television series). Webb's performance as the benevolently eccentric Frank Gilbreth makes for an interesting contrast with these other roles, and his version of the old-fashioned pater familias rounds out those of Leon Ames in Meet Me in St. Louis and of Willam Powell in Life With Father.

Loy, who began her career in silent films, was a major star in the 1930s whose biggest role came when she played Nora Charles opposite William Powell in The Thin Man movies. By the end of the 1940s, she had aged out of the vampish parts that opened her career and was playing more mature characters, including the loving war wife of The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) and the career-minded older sister in The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer (1947). As the Gilbreth matriarch, Loy combines her ladylike bearing and visible intelligence with the soft, angelic vision of maternity so often associated with motherhood in these sorts of films. That she does it without becoming a wan sort of martyr to domesticity is a testament both to her own acting talent and to the real Lillian Gilbreth, who held a doctoral degree in industrial psychology and was tremendously influential in her field, so much so that she is sometimes called "The First Lady of Engineering" and even had a US postage stamp issued in her honor as a Great American in 1984.

If you enjoy movies about large families or Americana, Cheaper by the Dozen offers a good choice that the entire family can watch together. If you find yourself really interested in the story of the Gilbreth family, you'll be happy to know that the first film was popular enough to warrant a sequel, Belles on Their Toes (1952), adapted from the follow-up memoir written by the Gilbreth children. Both of the memoirs are currently available in print, and those who want to know more about Lillian Gilbreth might enjoy Jane Lancaster's 2006 biography, Making Time: Lillian Moller Gilbreth - A Life Beyond "Cheaper by the Dozen." For more from director Walter Lang, try the Shirley Temple version of The Little Princess (1939), the musical classic, The King and I (1956), or the Tracy and Hepburn comedy, Desk Set (1957).

An earlier version of this review originally appeared on Examiner.com. The author retains all rights to this content.