Tonight's Movie: Black Widow (1954)

This week I finally caught up with a film which has long been on my "to watch" list, BLACK WIDOW (1954).

BLACK WIDOW isn't the 2021 Marvel movie, which I saw and reviewed upon its release, but rather a '50s murder mystery with a terrific cast, including two top-drawer leading ladies.

In a story which is at times rather reminiscent of ALL ABOUT EVE (1950), ambitious young Nancy Ordway (Peggy Ann Garner, A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN) comes to New York and works her way into the circle of several prominent members of the Broadway theatrical community.

Nancy has barely arrived in town when she finagles her way into using the empty apartment of producer Peter Denver (Van Heflin) and his actress wife Iris (Gene Tierney), ostensibly for "writing." Nancy also goes to lunch with Brian Mullen (Reginald Gardiner), the husband of famed stage actress Carlotta "Lottie" Marin (Ginger Rogers).

Nancy's relationship with Peter is innocent on his end, if calculated on hers; he's just a nice, somewhat oblivious guy who lets himself be manuevered into lending out his apartment while he and Iris are away during the day. (It has good light, you see -- you'd think Nancy was an artist rather than a writer.)

Then one day Peter and Iris, who's been away nursing her sick mother, come home to the apartment and...find a body! It's initially thought to be a suicide, but murder is quickly suspected, and Peter seems to be in a heap of trouble, given he'd been letting Nancy visit the apartment on a daily basis. Detective Bruce (George Raft) is on the case.

I'll keep my plot description limited to the above, as there are many twists and turns which I enjoyed watching unfold for the first time.

While the movie might not be a classic, it's nonetheless a very entertaining 95 minutes; how could it not be, with that cast? I had a good time watching it.

The movie was written and directed by Nunnally Johnson, and his script kept me guessing "whodunit" till pretty far into the movie.

The cast are all enjoyable, including Rogers as an over-the-top actress not known for her kindness; Lottie must be a very good actress to stay employed, given her habitual sharpness and sarcasm towards so many people. I also especially liked Tierney as Heflin's kind, patient wife. Iris is also a Broadway star, but with a much nicer personality. Both actresses are great favorites of mine so it was fun to see them costarring in this film.

Heflin does a nice job convincingly portraying a chump who has no ulterior motives when it comes to young Nancy, though his agressiveness "interviewing" Nancy's friend Claire (Virginia Leith, A KISS BEFORE DYING) seems out of character. Perhaps one might chalk it up to desperation?

I especially liked Gardiner as Rogers' rather emasculated husband, living in the shadow of her glory (and on her bank account). Raft doesn't have a dramatic arc and is more of a storytelling device as the investigating detective, but his button-down persona and gravitas are just right for the part.

Garner is annoying in the extreme as manipulative Nancy, who we come to learn uses pretty much every single person she meets as just another stepping stone toward greater glory. Eve Harrington, move over!

Unfortunately Garner and Rogers are both saddled with those awful '50s curly "poodle cuts" which do nothing for a woman except age her. I'll never understand why that style caught on. (Ironically, the femme fatale seen on the movie poster does not have a short haircut!) Tierney also has somewhat short hair but looks better than the other two women, if a tad bit matronly for someone who was only 33 when the movie was filmed.

It's an irony, given the movie's star power, that perhaps the most enjoyable performance comes from a one-scene player, Hilda Simms; Simms plays Anne, a woman Heflin interviews about Nancy while doing some detective work of his own. Simms is extremely natural and likeable, immediately sending me to Google to try to figure out who she was; she did some Broadway work including the title role in the original 1944 production of ANNA LUCASTA.

Additional players in the film include Otto Kruger, Cathleen Nesbitt, Mabel Albertson, and Skip Homeier.

The movie was filmed in CinemaScope by Charles G. Clarke; the format has the advantage of providing plenty of room for the large cast to spread out.

I watched this movie via the Fox Film Noir DVD #22. It comes with nice extras including a commentary track by Alan K. Rode, featurettes on Tierney and Rogers, still and poster galleries, an isolated score track, and the trailer (in which, curiously, Gardiner's name is twice misspelled). Eddie Muller and Foster Hirsch are among those who appear in the featurettes, along with Rode; they look quite young, given that the featurettes were made close to two decades ago.

The movie also had a Blu-ray release from the late, lamented Twilight Time.

I think most fans of mysteries and the cast will like this one, as I did. It's a fun hour and a half.

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