Warren Quimby (Richard Basehart) has a problem that he won't admit to: his wife, Claire (Audrey Totter), wants more fun and excitement out of life than the quiet, soft-spoken pharmacist can give her. So she steps out on him regularly, something that Warren refuses to recognize until the day she packs her bags and announces she's moving in with Barney Deager (Lloyd Gough), the flashy, high-living salesman whom she's been seeing on the side. Warren goes to Deager's, to ask her to come back, and
gets beaten up by his rival. The worm suddenly turns in his own quiet way of doing things, and Warren decides he's going to get even -- he's going to murder Deager, but to do it and not get caught, he bides his time. He begins building a new identity for himself, changing his appearance (starting with getting rid of his thick glasses in favor of then-newly-invented contact lenses), and establishing his alter ego of "Paul Sothern" at a new address. He then starts making threatening calls to Deager, identifying himself as Sothern, in order to establish a history of enmity between the two. It's all going according to plan -- he will kill Deager and the blame will fall on "Sothern," who, of course, doesn't exist, and will have vanished. But then he meets Mary Chanler (Cyd Charisse), a neighbor at "Sothern"'s apartment building, and the two become attracted to each other. For every step forward that he takes in his plan for murder, he also finds himself with new possibilities in his life, growing out of his relationship with Mary. Finally, the night comes when he breaks into Deager's home and is about to kill him, when it dawns on Warren that he doesn't need to do this....He awakens Deager and tells him what almost happened and that he's leaving, and Deager is welcome to Claire, and leaves. It seems as though he's averted disaster when Claire shows up later that night, pleading for reconciliation and finally, when pressed, telling him that someone has murdered Deager. The man has been shot, and the police, led by lieutenants Bonnabel (Barry Sullivan) and Gonsales (William Conrad), are hunting for Paul Sothern. Now Warren is scared for his life, having done his best to frame himself, and Claire isn't helping by trying to run interference -- he can't tell if she's trying to protect the two of them, implicate Sothern, or protect herself, and he's too scared to say almost anything at all to the detectives. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi
It rambles from one thing to another in a most unsuspenseful way and ends with a shattering revelation which you can see coming a half-hour in advance.
1949 "tension" is an underrated b picture with audrey totter who made her cameo in "postman always rings twice" as the flirtatious red-head hooks with john garfield, of course, also richard basehart who later archieves international fame in fellini's "the road" in europe right after this picture. it has all the
quintessential noir elements melt with kitsch-like melodrama, but what else you could expect? it's a b picture for aficionados with a quaint knack for noir in various forms.
but its scenarios are grappling in its blatant way: a drug-store nobody who pursues his dream of 50s suburbanite lifestyle by slaving himself over the nightshifts to earn as much as he could to please his harpy wife who only fancies the luxurious goods like mink coats. but this harpy blonde would sneak any chance to cuckold him as soon as she finds some other sucker to take care of her bills, so she elopes with a liquor salesman who is apparently more capable to provide her what she wants. then this miserable nobody still refuses to concede his wife without fighting, so he shows up in the love nest of the wife and the cuckold, but he gets beaten up and sneered as "four-eyed punk"....to reclaim his pride as a man, our protagonist decides to launch a make-over of himself by getting rid of his coy glasses to re-appear as a hunky sheik named paul sothern to assassinate the cuckold...
it has the castrated sap, the ferocious dame with trademarked blonde hair, and the scheming detective copper as the fury who squares for justice. the story wheels along with a detached narrator whose simmering cynicism boils out to resonate audience's nosy by-stander mentality. as noir frequently favors to dichotomize women, there's alawys feminine nurturer to contrast the lady predator who nearly gulps men alive to attain the happy ending after the justice is served.
audrey totter was contracted b actress of mgm studio which recruits her as the bubble-bath blondie to shape another starlet with semi-lana-turner-like aroma, don't totter's hairdo and wardrobe in "tension" somehow reminiscence a bit of "postman always rings twice" in which totter also has a small but impressionable part? but totter's femme fatale may not be as glamourous as turner but definitely much more aggressive here while she glows her lines with comtemptuous mockeries to basehart. the woman characer in "tension" becomes an exaggerated grotesque of femme fatale, since b picture tends to have very limited resources so it must create its dramatic tension by deepening its stereotypes. that's what happens with "tension". it even has a music score for totter's entrance in every scene to enhance the effect as if it's notifying the audience: here comes the sexy bad woman, pretty tacky, isn't it?
(ps)
just like most normally functioning dames in her time, totter chooses to settle for marriage and homelife instead of manuevering her starlet career like a down-to-earth dame, but acting comes like fun for her to tackle ocassionally during intervals. she also leaves another noir classic "the set-up" with robert ryan as the caring brunette girlfriend. "tension" and "the set-up" proves her caliber as an actress that she could play benevolent lily and malevolent wench.
February 17, 2008
Veronique Kwak
Super Reviewer
I know Tension isn't that great but I liked it a lot. The otherwise ignorable Richard Basehart was pretty good (and dare I say enjoyable) as a sap pharmacist husband of the venomous Audrey Totter who is at the top of her game as his no good wife. Barry Sullivan is a straight-up dick as teh investigating copper and a
young Cyd Charisse is nothing short of adorable. Not the best example of film noir but a pretty good one with lots of surprises and a story that never quite goes where you expect it to.
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