The Scarlet Hour

I really don't understand why this Michael Curtiz film is so hard to find. And since so many years. A rather good film noir, in the Warner Bors tradition, except that this time it was produced by Paramount Pictures. And like some other late Curtiz's films, there are no really great stars in this movie. Actors as we could have seen in B pictures. But this is definitely not a B picture.

The usual topic of the triangle: Wife, husband and lover. The gal wants to get rid of her husband with the help of her lover. Characterization, music score, sets by night, everything is very interesting in this authentic and - I repeat - rare gem. Don't miss Nat King Cole singing "Never Let Me Go". A charming movie which reminds me my childhood.

But it is not a masterpiece although.

Carol Ohmart and Tom Tryon are having a little rendezvous on a deserted road, when they overhear three guys plotting to knock over a house and steal $350,000 worth of jewelry. Since Ohmart is trying to ditch her husband (James Gregory), she eventually concocts a plan to rob the burglars, and suckers Tryon into it. The plan almost comes off … except that Gregory suspects the two are getting it on, and follows them. Tryon holds up the burglars, but as he makes his escape, the two burglars fire at him. Meanwhile, as Ohmart waits for Tryon in the getaway car, Gregory confronts her. Ohmart shoots him, and lets Tryon think the burglars hit him by accident. Of course, things slowly unravel from there, and there is also a neat twist involving the owner of the jewels.

There is some talent involved – Michael Curtiz directed, and keeps the pace moving fairly well. The supporting cast is good, and features Elaine Stritch as Ohmart's friend, and E. G. Marshall and Edward Binns as a couple of detectives. Richard Deacon has a bit as a jeweler. David Lewis (who played Edward Quartermaine for so many years on "General Hospital") makes his film debut. As a bonus, Nat King Cole appears and sings "Never Let Me Go." Tryon is acceptable in his role, but that's about it. Ohmart, who was wonderfully treacherous as Vincent Price's wife in House on Haunted Hill, looks great, but her voice is a little too monotone to suit me.

One of the screenwriters is billed as Rip Van Ronkel. Apparently he didn't want to use his real name, Rupert Stiltskin.

Warner Brothers 30s 40s director Michael Curtiz was well past his prime when he made this lower tier work rich in both mood and atmospherics for Paramount. Grazing in Billy Wilder Double Indemnity territory it lacks the first string line-up of Stanwyck, MacMurray and Robinson but the second team acquits itself well enough to make this a pretty suspenseful piece.

"Marsh" Marshall (Tom Tryon) and his boss's wife Pauline are having some illicit recreation at a local lover's lane when they overhear three men planning a major heist. Pauline, the spine in the relationship concocts an idea to rob them after they pull the job. The pliable Marsh (mellow?) blinded by Pauline's sexiness and passion reluctantly goes along.

Well paced Scarlet Hour runs on deception and betrayal with plenty of double cross along the way weaving in the thieves subplot to the major theme of the adulterous leads seamlessly as fatale Pauline must manipulate three men to her grand plan.

Tryon and Ohmarht are fine if inconsistent at times while a supporting cast of hang dog looking pros (James Gregory, EG Marshall, Edward Binns, Elaine Strich, Rene Aubuchon, James Lewis) add sober gravitas.

Special mention goes to the camera work of Lionel Liddon who keeps us in the dark (a majority of the film takes place in the evening) with some bold chiaroscuro compositions that up the noir tenor and elevate Scarlet Hour to an impressive overachiever.

Tom Tryon stars with Carol Ohmart, Elaine Stritch, James Gregory, Jody Lawrence, Edward Lewis, and E. G. Marshall in "The Scarlet Hour," a 1956 film directed by Michael Curtiz.

Tryon plays Marsh (E. V. Marshall even though E. G. Marshall is in the movie) a hunky employee of a real estate firm who is having an affair with the boss' wife Pauline (Ohmart). One night, while parking in a secluded spot, they overhear a man (Lewis) plotting the robbery of $320,000 worth of jewels from a nearby house.

Pauline sees this as a way to leave her husband Ralph Nevins (Gregory) - she wants Marsh to do the robbery and steal the jewels from the criminals. Then they can go away together.

Things don't go as planned. First, Marsh is totally against doing it. Then he decides he will. Meanwhile, Nevins is suspicious of both of them. Pauline has given herself an alibi as she is out with friends -- but Nevins, in a rented car, follows her from the club.

Marsh gets the jewels but the robbers shoot at him as he escapes. Pauline, meanwhile, has tangled with her husband, who winds up dead from a gunshot wound, supposedly from the robbers' crossfire. In the fight with Nevins, Pauline drops a bracelet her husband had designed for her.

It all becomes a tangled mess with suspicion for the murder falling on Marsh, Pauline, and even Nevins' secretary Kathy (Jody Lawrence). And Pauline, alone in her big house, becomes desperate.

Good movie with beautiful singing by Nat King Cole performing "Never Let Me Go," and Broadway star Elaine Stritch early in her career as a friend of Pauline's.

Three small points - Billy Gray is listed in the film, but I didn't see him; and I swear that the cops were talking about Pauline's bracelet at one point, although it was the crooks who picked it up - I could be wrong.

The third thing only a few will notice. When Marsh walks into the boss' office, Kathy is transcribing from a reel to reel tape to her typewriter. Gregory, on tape, was speaking at a normal speed. You cannot transcribe what a person says as they talk without a foot pedal to stop and catch up, the ability to slow down the tape, or if the person is speaking slower than normal. I can attest to that having spent 40 years transcribing and typing well over 100 words a minute. It's a pet peeve of mine, as is recording someone and putting the recorder on the other side of the room or in your purse.

Ohmart was "introduced" in this film. She was a sultry blonde with a beautiful figure and a sexy voice. She worked until she retired in the '70s.

The handsome Tryon had a decent career in films but wound up a highly successful author. Jody Lawrence had a spotty career. Of interest, her stepmother took in a foster child, Norma Jean Baker (Marilyn Monroe) and Lawrence and Monroe actually roomed together briefly.

Well worth seeing, not up there with the great Curtiz films but certainly very good.

The Scarlet Hour is directed by Micahel Curtiz and written by Rip Van Ronkel, Frank Tashlin and John Lucas. It stars Carol Ohmart, Tom Tryon, E.G. Marshall, Elaine Stritch, Jody Lawrance and James Gregory. Music is by Leith Stevens and cinematography by Lionel Lindon.

It has been a hard to locate film noir for may a year, which when you consider it's directed by such a titan of classic cinema comes as a surprise. The plot dynamics are very familiar to noir fans, and coming as it does late in the original film noir wave it does lack a bit of freshness, but there's little deviations in the shenanigans of the principals to at least give this its own identity.

We essentially have an abused wife (Ohmart) having an affair with one of her husbands (Gregory) employees (Tryon). They plan to run away together but need money to do so. As it happens, during one of their love sessions in a parked car they over hear crooks planning a jewelry robbery and she convinces her man to hold up the thieves so as to take the jewels for themselves. In true noirville form this becomes a road to nowhere and danger lurks on every corner, with dodgy alibis, unrequited passions and a few twists and turns to keep the narrative perky.

This is no shoddy production either, it comes out of Paramount and the presence of Curtiz shows you that the studio wasn't merely making a contract filler. Though the absence of chirascuro from Lindon is a shame, we do get some nifty sequences such as violence enacted that we only see via shadows. There's moments of humour as well, while there's also a musical surprise as Nat King Cole turns up to croon Never Let Me Go. Cast are fine, Ohmart has classic fatale looks and legs from heaven, but her character trajectory is a little muddled in the writing. Tryon plays the dupe competently, Lawrance sparkles in a secondary role, as does the scene stealing Stritch.

I'd stop at calling this a hidden gem, as some other amateur reviewers have, though it does rather depend on how many other similar noirs you have seen previously. This doesn't come close to Double Indemnity, The Postman Always Rings Twice or Thérèse Raquin, but that doesn't stop it being a good film, because it is and for sure it's well worth noir fans tracking it down. 7/10