The Accused

"The Accused" is a pretty good movie with some good acting turns by some reliable Hollywood stars. It is not a film noir but primarily a love story with some melodramatic moments. It is also too long and could have used a heavier hand in the cutting room.

Having said all that, I was tempted to stop the DVD player as I didn't think it was my cup of tea (the action is minimal) but the story became more absorbing as it unfolded. Right off the bat, in the opening scene, we find out that Loretta Young kills one of her students while fighting off an attempted rape. The rest of the picture involves a cat-and-mouse game between her and Police Lieutenant Wendell Corey, with lawyer Bob Cummings trying to pick sides.

The picture moves along spasmodically (as I said, it's too long) to its eventual denouement but spiked with some genuinely interesting plot turns.I must say I always felt Wendell Corey was a bit of a stiff but here he shows some depth, and Bob Cummings is the opposite of his usual feckless, irresolute self. But the film is Miss Young's and her legion of fans will not be disappointed - plus, she's beautiful as always. I have to think this was released as an 'A' picture, as they hired Victor Young to write the music - it doesn't get any better than that.

This movie really is worth watching but don't go out of your way - unless you're a Loretta Young fan.

In The Accused, Loretta Young plays a psychology professor who kills an amorous male student in self-defense, then spends the rest of the movie covering up her crime. William Dieterle does an excellent job with the familiar material, and Miss Young gives a sympathetic performance. This is one of several crime pictures that Hal Walls produced in the late forties and early fifties, many of which fall into the noir category. Most of these films concern people with conflicted or tortured sexual urges, dysfunctional families, inadequate or just barely adequate men, with the women often hysterical or scheming. At the time this must have seemed daringly modern and contemporary. Now it just seems quaint, a waystation in the breakdown of small-town American values, with the action taking place in a netherworld between Andy Hardy and Tennessee Williams.

The movie is surprisingly sympathetic toward Miss Young, who, though on the cusp of middle age, still looks pretty damn beautiful. Robert Cummings is stronger than usual as her "suitor", while Wendell Corey is his inscrutably poker-faced self, as always, hinting between the lines, that had his character been better written he'd be more than up to the task. If this was so, I believe him. In a smaller role, Sam Jaffe is positively mephistopholean, delivering his lines as tartly as Corey, and in his lab scenes photographed to resemble a Dwight Frye hunchback from the thirties. A nice touch. The Accused is filled with nice touches, as Dieterle and most of his cast are much better than the script, breathing real life into it at times, which makes watching the movie a pleasure. There are no real surprises here, but lots of good scenes.

This is actually a love story and, as is usually the case with noirs of the 40s, a very well written one, especially since it deals with some rather tricky psychological matters, of which guilt complex resulting in fear approaching the borders of possible schizophrenia is just one. What makes this film more than average of classy noirs of the 40s with a romantic and seriously psychological intrigue is the interesting peripatetic moment of the boxing match, when Loretta Young unintentionally gives herself away, and how very interestingly Robert Cummings as her lawyer and lover reacts to that. The acting is superb throughout, the story is credible and convincing, the dilemma of unintentionally having killed someone and the natural urge to avoid the consequences and take responsibility for what was not intended, anyone can understand and relate to. To all this comes Victor Young's endearing score fashioning the experience with a golden frame, the beauty of which increases all the time. In brief, this is a much underrated, unjustly forgotten and deeply human and interesting film, that deserves some intention after having been more or less buried alive since 50 years.

Here is as "quiet" a suspense film as you are likely to encounter. That is all to the good, as beneath its placid surface crackle psychological crosscurrents that generate tension throughout. Each of the main characters is an interesting study, with ambivalent emotions that alternately spark and grate against those of the others. Additionally (and ironically), these characters are all involved in recognizing and dealing with such behavior, being a psychology professor, a detective and a lawyer respectively. A bit verbose at times, and resolved with a glib, less-than-satisfying ending, this picture nevertheless deserves a wider audience - if it has any at all nowadays. The performances are rock-solid and properly understated for the most part (even by Robert Cummings) in keeping with the conservative small town atmosphere; but there are effective contrasting performances as well, in the smaller roles of the few relatively unbalanced characters, as played by Douglas Dick, Suzanne Dalbert, and especially Sam Jaffee.

A college professor (Young) commits murder while defending against an over-amorous student.

That noirish opening scene of a dark figure struggling along a deserted nighttime highway is iconic, especially when followed in flashback by deserted city streets and a lonely all-night bus. But once the flashbacks end, the movie settles into a fairly routine game of cat- and-mouse with strong psychological overtones. I'm also tempted to say the movie becomes a vehicle for Young, who gets to transform from dowdy career woman to fashionable beauty. However, the male roles (Cummings & Corey) are too large and well acted to allow that. Nonetheless, the film remains a Young showcase where the diva even gets to do the little fashion pirouette that distinguished her TV series.

Note a convention of the time: namely, that a woman can't have a career and be beautiful at the same time. Thus, Wilma (catch the plain-Jane name) as a professor is both grim and repressed. It's only after she essentially drops the career role that her appearance flowers. Young handles the demanding transition pretty well, without going over the top. Nonetheless, the number of close-ups leaves no doubt who the star is. My money, however, is on the rather exotic Wendell Corey (Det. Grogan). He's such an icy presence, it's hard to keep your eyes off him. Too bad that alcohol got the best of this unusual actor.

All in all, the pace may drag at times, but the movie still features enough points of interest to keep the momentum going.