A different way of telling a story

Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

Don't you think that Richard Conte was terribly miscast here in the role of the psychoanalyst husband? The usual tough actor is meek by comparison to his other films and his persona as such an analyst never fully comes off. Though Jose Ferrer came through with a solid performance as the sinister hypnotist, I could have possibly seen Conte in this part instead. Conte was certainly not like Tony Bardeman in I'll Cry Tomorrow six years later.It is true that Gene Tierney seems to be hypnotized throughout the movie. As Mrs. Sutton, her desire to being a kleptomaniac becomes somewhat incredible here.Barbara O'Neil is given little to do here other than getting strangled. Charles Bickford, as the head detective, shows his usual grit, but there is some compassion in his role.

Turgid screenplay that starts off well, but gets more obscure as the plot develops. Clearly director Preminger is hoping to repeat the allure of Laura (1944), but lacks the coherent story material. There's a lot of what critics call pscho-babble in the dialogue, which would be okay if the story gelled better. The one good part is the little mystery surrounding who killed Mrs. Randolph. Under the circumstances, there's no obvious culprit. Unfortunately, the rest of the story has Ann (Tierney) bouncing between two psychologists, the arrogant Korvo (Ferrer) and her husband (Conte) who's trying to help her overcome her kleptomania.Maybe I've seen too many gangster movies of the time, but tough guy Conte appears miscast as a highly educated professional. At the same time, Ferrer as the dislikable Korvo manages to load his elevated vocabulary with an obnoxious amount of cultivated sarcasm. And, of course, there's the gorgeous Tierney pretty much putting on the same mask she wore in Laura. All in all, the movie slows down too much of the time, given Preminger's penchant for lengthy scenes along with the turgid script. Good thing the always reliable Charles Bickford is along to provide some spark. Still, the movie amounts to a disappointment given the big studio (TCF) pedigree.

Otto Preminger hit something of a speed bump in his career when he did Whirlpool. A nice cast and the makings of what could have been a good story is undone by a really incredible and unbelievable premise.Gene Tierney is the wife of psychiatrist Richard Conte who has her own issues, to wit she's a kleptomaniac. Jose Ferrer who plays a quack hypnotherapist spots her and was probably stalking her waiting for a moment to catch her stealing from a department store. He's got a fine line in blackmailing and another of his victims is Barbara O'Neil.With a little hypnosis Ferrer gets Tierney to go to O'Neil's home where she's been strangled and have the police discover her. Here's where the rub is, Jose has an iron clad alibi. I won't go any further, but ain't no way he could have done the deed given his situation. How he did it is just too much for the viewer to swallow.I will say that Ferrer does steal the film with a portrait of pure evil. Still it was a performance wasted in a mediocre movie.

Film Noir to me is dark, with evil deeds and especially unhappy endings. This was before I began thinking about it and determined that noir is more a type of film making rather than film content. A film like "Double Indemnity is noir even tho we do have some happy in the ending (the daughter and boyfriend reconcile). Sunset Boulevard has Norma so bonkers she thinks things are happy and so they are. So, this noir is a happy noir. Gene Tierny is hypnotized by Jose Ferrer and he makes her do things to help him murder a former sucker who turned on him. Jose is so good at hypnosis he even google-eyes himself after gall bladder surgery so he can get about knocking off people and listening to records. Gene's husband is a shrink himself, but legitimate and somehow he connives that Jose is not on the level. He believes her, then he doesn't, she's nuts, she's not, oh dear, what to do, what to do. Cut to murder scene and Jose hiding in the wings with a guy he finally Jose tries to get Gene to cover for him while hubby and a cop are searching a closet. Failure and good wills out, happiness and joy, cut. This movie is so contrived, I wanted to hypnotize myself in to shutting it off but stayed to course to see how lousy a top notch cast/production could screw up. Pretty bad.