The Reckless Moment (1949)

Director:

Max Ophüls

Writers:

Mel Dinelli (adaptation)
Henry Garson (screenplay)

Release Date:

29 December 1949 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Film-Noir

Plot:

After discovering the dead body of Bea Harper's lover, Bea's mother Lucia hides the body under the assumption...

Cast

James Mason	...	Martin Donnelly
Joan Bennett	...	Lucia Harper
Geraldine Brooks	...	Bea Harper
Henry O'Neill	...	Tom Harper
Shepperd Strudwick	...	Ted Darby
David Bair	...	David Harper
Roy Roberts	...	Nagel

Also Known As:

The Blank Wall (USA) (working title)

Runtime:

82 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Recording)

Certification:

UK:12 (re-rating) (2005) | UK:A (original rating) | USA:Approved (certificate #13937) | Finland:K-16 | Sweden:15

Company:

Columbia Pictures Corporation

Quotes:

Lucia Harper: Just once, David, I'd like to see you fully clothed.

Movie Connections:

Version of The Deep End (2001)

The Fragile Surface of Middle-Class Life

Burnett Guffey's fluid camera pulls the viewer into THE RECKLESS MOMENT, grasping and constantly renewing our gaze. Lucia's (Joan Bennett)lakeside house seems impossibly enormous and labyrinthine as the heroine moves through it in a near-somnabulistic state. The camera's grip on the viewer is no less powerful when Lucia goes outside the house: this is because the dangerous outer world has invaded the safe American family home. For 80 minutes, the two worlds will be inseparable.

Others here have praised Joan Bennett's performance. It is also of interest to note that this is Bennett's transitional picture from single woman to matriarch. One year earlier, the actress appeared in THE SCAR, a still-underrated, oppressively dark film noir in which she is not a femme fatale--as she had so memorably been in SCARLET STREET and THE WOMAN IN THE WINDOW--but a lonely doctor's receptionist drawn into the shadowy scheme of her lover/employer. Beginning with THE RECKLESS MOMENT, Bennett would go on to embody several maternal characters: among the most noteworthy would be in the next film, FATHER OF THE BRIDE.

The mother character is important here because it re-casts the family melodrama in Post-War terms. It is the mother, not the absent, disembodied father, who must restore the normality of her household. This is no weak, helpless woman. Lucia demonstrates assurance and bravery from the very beginning, as she enters the seedy underworld of Ted Darby, her young daughter's lover, played brilliantly by a virtually ignored Sheppard Strudwick. Later, when things go horribly wrong, Lucia never tells her husband about it. It is up to her to maintain a grip on the safe veneer of middle-class life.

At every turn, Bennett is matched by James Mason as Martin Donnelly. This a role Mason would be better know for, if this film had any real circulation apart from pirated video copies. For some reviewers, Martin is the most interesting character: his development is far more dramatic and thorough than that of the heroine. Mason is completely inside Donnelly and forces the viewer to believe the transition.

The film's supporting cast has little to criticize apart from David Blair as Lucia's incredibly annoying son. The seemingly ubiquitous Roy Roberts makes a authentically frightening villain. And Geraldine Brooks shows why this actress was so often cast in films during this period. There are several bit players to be noted: Kathryn Card and William Schallert, to name a couple. who, like Strudwick and Bennett herself would go on to later careers on the small screen.

THE RECKLESS MOMENT is badly in need of restoration and distribution on home video.