Showing posts with label Martha Vickers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Martha Vickers. Show all posts
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| John Bromfield |
Valerie Bancroft (Martha Vickers) doesn't know that her doctor [whom I wouldn't trust to diagnose a dog!] has told her secretary-companion, Marsha (Eve Miller), that she has a weak heart and only a few months to live. While Marsha bonds with Valerie's new doctor, Peter Kirk (Robert Hutton), Valerie is quite taken with a sexy dark-haired fellow named Ricardo De Villa (John Bromfield), who is already involved with an attractive dancer named Fritzie (Rosemarie Stack). Ric romances the very wealthy widow Valerie even as he keeps time with Fritzie and tries to avoid the latter's jealous husband, Don (Eddie Bee). Then he cooks up a scheme to get his hands on all that loot with a smitten Fritzie's help ... The Big Bluff is not a world-beater but it holds the attention and Bromfield and Stack give flavorful performances. Vickers' performance is mediocre, but Miller and Hutton are better. The ending is ironic if unconvincing. Robert Bice is the original doctor who makes the fatal diagnosis. Handsome Bromfield usually starred in movies like this and Curucu, Beast of the Amazon, but he also appeared in The Furies with Barbara Stanwyck and other better-known films in smaller roles. Stack, originally known as Rosemarie Bowe [as she's billed in this picture], married Robert Stack the following year, but she didn't use his last name professionally until the 70's. Vickers was better in Alimony.
Verdict: Like an extended TV mystery but it's fun. **1/2.
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| Dumbrille, Lind and Vickers set a scheme in motion |
Composer Dan Barker (John Beal) relates the story of a woman he was once in love with, Kitty Travers (Martha Vickers), to her estranged father (James Guilfoyle), who hasn't seen her in years. Show biz aspirant Kitty stayed in the same boarding house with Barker, who was affianced to pretty Linda (Hillary Brooke). But Kitty works her wiles on Dan, who is just about to sign to do a Broadway show, and before long the man has dumped poor Linda in favor of Kitty. Unfortunately for Dan, the Broadway deal comes a cropper and Linda is soon off looking for greener pastures. But even when Dan and Linda are finally married, Kitty comes back into their lives because she was the inspiration for a song Dan composed that becomes a big hit [and isn't that memorable]. Again Dan acts like a complete jerk, Kitty a total skank, and as for dopey Linda ... let's just say that Alimony is the kind of irritating melodrama where a perfectly nice and attractive woman is treated abysmally by her man but still seems to think only the other woman is to blame. Neal, Vickers and Brooke give good performances, as do Douglass Dumbrille as an oily lawyer who works with Kitty and her friend Helen (a snappy Laurie Lind, who was introduced in this picture and never made another movie) and Marie Blake (AKA Blossom Rock of Hilda Crane) who plays the landlady of the boarding house. The title refers to the fact that Helen and Kitty marry or try to marry wealthy older men so that they can divorce them and collect you-guessed-it.
Verdict: Nice actors and premise but this is forgettable. **.