James Mason

Joan Bennett

Geraldine Brooks

Henry O'Neill

Shepperd Strudwick

David Bair

Roy Roberts

Jessie Arnold

Al Bain

Jack Baker

Pat Barton

Holger Bendixen

Gail Bonney

Chet Brandenburg

Peter Brocco

Paul E. Burns

John Butler

Kathryn Card

Claire Carleton

Boyd Davis

Karl 'Killer' Davis

George Dockstader

Charles Evans

Charles Ferguson

Everett Glass

Robert Gordon

Buddy Gorman

Harry Harvey

Virginia Hunter

Danny Jackson

Charles Jordan

Kenneth Kendall

Norman Leavitt

David Levitt

Mike Mahoney

Charles Marsh

Louis Mason

Richard Mickelson

John Monaghan

Sue Moore

Evelyn Moriarty

Pat O'Malley

Joe Palma

Dorothy Phillips

Joe Ploski

Byron Poindexter

Joe Recht

Barry Regan

John Roy

Cosmo Sardo

Celeste Savoi

William Schallert

Ann Shoemaker

Billy Snyder

Glenn Thompson

Frances E. Williams

Harry Wilson

Max Ophüls

Gene Havlick

Robert E. Kent

Robert Soderberg

Mel Dinelli

Hans J. Salter

Henry Garson

Burnett Guffey

Walter Wanger

Elisabeth Sanxay Holding

Carmen Dirigo

Newt Jones

Morris Stoloff

Earl Bellamy

Cary Odell

Russell Malmgren

Frank Tuttle

Jean Louis

Drama

Thriller

The Reckless Moment

Walter Wanger Productions

United States of America

CinemaSerf

What is it about folks in movies who find dead bodies? Rather than just call the police and rely on them to adequately do their jobs, they always find themselves embroiled in silly, self-inflicted plots that almost always cause far more trouble... Here is another such example. Joan Bennett is "Lucia", a rather bored housewife whose husband is always away, and whose young daughter "Bea" (Geraldine Brooks) is having a fling with the rather roguish "Ted" (Shepperd Strudwick). Her mother tries to put a stop to the relationship, be he wants paying off - she tells him to get lost. Next day, he confronts poor old "Bea" with the truth, a tussle ensues and soon "Ted" is down with the fishes, the daughter having tried to cover her tracks. Police find the corpse, and enter James Mason ("Donnelly") and his even more unscrupulous partner "Nagel" (Roy Roberts) who have some incriminating letters and want $5,000 to keep them from the investigation. Mother, determined to save her irresponsible child, tries to accommodate the blackmailer and over time their dynamic changes somewhat... It's quite a quirky story with two good performances - Mason, quite understated and Bennett measured - even when under quite a bit of pressure, and the direction from Max Opuls keeps the pace well. Sadly, he struggles to see it off the rocks of melodrama as we near the end, but even that is a bit different.

English