Shockproof (1949)

Director:

Douglas Sirk

Writers:

Helen Deutsch (writer)
Samuel Fuller (writer)

Release Date:

25 enero 1949 (USA)

Genre:

Crime | Film-Noir | Drama

Plot:

Jenny Marsh, still dangerously attractive after 5 years in prison for killing a man in defense of her shady lover Harry...

Comentarios de los usuarios:

Interesting noir with distinctive Sirkian twist

Cast

Cornel Wilde	...	Griff Marat
Patricia Knight	...	Jenny Marsh
John Baragrey	...	Harry Wesson
Esther Minciotti	...	Mrs. Marat
Howard St. John	...	Sam Brooks
Russell Collins	...	Frederick Bauer
Charles Bates	...	Tommy Marat

También conocida como:

The Lovers (USA) (working title)
Más fuerte que la ley (Spain) [es]

Duración:

79 min | Germany:80 min

País:

USA

Idioma:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sonido:

Mono

Clasificación:

Finland:K-16 | Sweden:15

Company:

Columbia Pictures Corporation

Movie Connections:

Featured in Los Angeles Plays Itself (2003)

Interesting noir with distinctive Sirkian twist

Released from prison after five years for killing a man to protect her gambling lover (John Baragrey), hard case Patricia Knight comes under the purview of parole officer Cornel Wilde. Trying to keep her from the clutches of the still-infatuated Baragrey, Wilde moves her into his household as companion to his blind, widowed mother. Inevitably they fall in love and wed secretly, since marriage is a violation of parole. Not one to read a Dear John letter lightly, Baragrey attempts to blackmail Knight with old billets-doux but is shot in a struggle. Wilde, on the verge of turning her in, relents, and, in a long sequence that was reprised almost exactly two years later in Tomorrow is Another Day, joins her on the lam, making ends meet as a day-laborer and living in shacks. But the strain of poverty and fear of apprehension begin to corrode....

Douglas Sirk, later to reach fulfilment in lushly overwrought melodramas like Written on the Wind, shows a nice flair for the conventions of noir in this well scripted and acted film, which maintains its integrity until its rabbit-out-of-the-hat ending -- surely not the one penned by co-scenarist Samuel Fuller. (The title, by the way, seems basically meaningless but to have been chosen for its purely abstract, noirish resonance.)