220. The Reckless Moment (1949)

Directed By Max Ophuls

Synopsis

A woman's daughter's boyfriend dies accidentally. The mother finds the body and to protect her daughter disposes of it. The boy is found and soon enough she starts being blackmailed with some letters that her daughter wrote to the guy. But it is a nice blackmailer who falls in platonic love with her. Thing is he has a partner in the blackmailing, and he doesn't want to quit. Good blackmailer kills bad blackmailer in fight and tries to dispose of the body, he crashes against a tree while driving the body and admits guilt to the murder of the other guy letting the woman and her daughter go scot-free.

Review

This film was a bit of a hit and miss, it feels surprisingly modern in terms of direction, and all the merit for that goes straight to the great Max Ophuls, but there are some problems with the story.

It is for example not very obvious why James Mason would fall in love, maybe the film could have been a bit longer than it's 1 hour 18 minutes length and explored that a bit further. We understand that Mason is having an existential crisis, because he feels he has never done anything right in his life, but you don't really feel his motivation enough.

The camera work is great in following characters all around the place, and the film is subdued enough that it feels very modern, there is very little melodrama here, and it is easy to see why a lot of French directors loved Ophuls so much. Not an amazing film, but worth watching.

Final Grade

8/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Bosley Crowther's New York Times 1949 review praised the actors but noted, "But it isn't all right with this picture. Although it is rather well staged, with credible location settings in Balboa and Los Angeles, it is a feeble and listless drama with a shamelessly callous attitude. The heroine gets away with folly, but we don't think this picture will."

Finding the body: