A good movie

I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but since it seemed to have a decent reputation (it is included in the ‘The Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made’ list selected by the New York Times, among other things), I thought I might as well check it out. Well, after watching a few rather underwhelming movies released in 1940, it was really neat to finally watch something really enjoyable. Indeed, the introduction was just amazing, arguably one of the best intro ever put on the silver screen, and from this point on, I was basically hooked. However, to be honest, everything happening afterwards turned out out to be fairly generic and predictable after all. Indeed, it seems that this movie never managed to top its amazing opening scene but, fortunately, the damned thing still worked fine though. First of all, William Wyler was such a fine director and, even if the story was rather pedestrian after all, it was rather impressive how much he managed to get from it. In fact, he was even praised by Bette Davis who was usually rather dismissive towards her directors. Concerning Bette Davis, I have to admit that I discovered her work only recently but, once again, she was quite fascinating to behold. The funny thing is that she actually plays always pretty much the same character and usually the same way in all her movies and, yet, she is always interesting to behold. Concerning the rest of the cast, James Stephenson was also really solid and I was grateful that his lawyer character didn’t fall in love with his client which is too often the case in this genre. Anyway, to conclude, even if it was maybe not a masterpiece, it was still a really solid film noir and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.