Another Web is Woven

Okay, I finally got around to watching Black Widow. The 1954 film noir written by Nunnally Johnson is cleverer than I was expecting and it helped a lot, I think, that I went in knowing very little about the plot. But I'm going to go ahead and tell you a little bit about the plot.

It's a story of high society in New York and there are a lot of nice, on location, exteriors of the city.

The story centres on young Nancy Ordway played by Peggy Ann Garner who, for some reason, gets fifth billing. Maybe it's because the film also stars Ginger Rogers, Van Heflin, Gene Tierney, and George Raft. Most of the film is from Van Heflin's point of view, and he gives voice-over narration. He plays Peter, a successful Broadway producer who meets Nancy at a party one night. He's charmed by her and decides to take her out to dinner--but he makes sure his wife (Gene Tierney) knows all about it.

The dialogue is clever and also has amusingly inside-ballpark writer talk. Nancy is an aspiring writer and she glumly tells Peter that she's been told she "can write like Somerset Maugham" or "like Truman Capote but not both at the same time." And Peter says, "Why don't you do what everyone else does and write like Ernest Hemingway?"

Van Heflin gives the best performance in the film, especially once it becomes a murder mystery and he finds his life unravelling. George Raft plays the police detective and, as usual, doesn't give much of a performance. I thought that was just my opinion but I see on the Wikipedia page for this movie that Nunnally Johnson himself said Raft "learns his lines very well... he's not an actor in particular. He was a personality that was very well fitted for that period." I guess that's true.

Once it became a question of murder, I instantly knew who the killer was. I had no doubts. I said back when I was reviewing Only Murders in the Building I'm not usually good at guessing the killer. Now I'm starting to think I've changed.

It's a good movie but I really don't see how it ties into the MCU.

Black Widow is available on The Criterion Channel.