A Shame

It´s a shame.

There are not so many bogart-bacall films (4) and this one is just lame. There are some good moments but overall it does´nt work in any ways other than an oportunity to watch two noir stars working a noir movie.

The Worst: The plot. You start thinking it´s mysterious and then you discover it´s just plain stupid. Every character is stapled to each other without any grace. All the thrilling situations are boring or just laughable.

The Just Bad: The acting. Bogart looks as if he was just passing by through the movie. Perhaps he knew his character was nonsensical but he could have made a little effort. The secondary characters were all as lame and stupid and most of them were played by not so good, uninspired, too constricted or just plain bad actors (Moorehead excluded).

The Wrong: The first third of the movie was shot in a POV style. It didn´t work but I guess it´s ok to fail trying something new in 1947. The thing it´s they should have noticed it didn´t work and then change it so it only last ten minutes or so but they didn´t care and I´m sure Bogart didn´t want to make any extra work for this movie.

The Good: Bacall looks gorgeous as always and it´s the only one who tries to make this movie watchable. Her character is as stupid as any of the rest (perhaps the most stupid, mind you!) but she tries anyway to make it interesting. When she is in the screen you may believe that the movie is worth something, she isn´t most of the time though.



6/10