The Reckless Moment

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Cast & Crew

James Mason
Martin Donnelly

Joan Bennett
Lucia Harper

Geraldine Brooks
Bea Harper

Henry O'Neill
Tom Harper

Shepperd Strudwick
Ted Darby

David Bair
David Harper

Roy Roberts
Nagel

Frances E. Williams
Sybil

Paul E. Burns
Desk Clerk

Danny Jackson
Drummer

Claire Carleton
Blond

Billy Snyder
Gambler

Peter Brocco
Bartender

Ann Shoemaker
Mrs. Feller

Virginia Hunter
Girl

Max Ophuls
Director

Mel Dinelli
Writer

Henry Garson
Writer

Elisabeth Sanxay Holding
Writer

Robert E. Kent
Writer

Robert W. Soderberg
Writer

Walter Wanger
Producer

Hans J. Salter
Original Music

Burnett Guffey
Cinematographer

Gene Havlick
Film Editing

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Audience Reviews for The Reckless Moment

• Mar 15, 2021

  An interesting bit of 1950s style overwrought melodrama as a teen gets mixed up in a murder and her mother (Joan Bennett) is therefore forced to some decidedly underhanded work to keep scandal at bay. A smooth blackmailer gets involved forthwith (James Mason with a credible Irish brogue) and what soon develops is an under-the-table romance, only hinted at. She gets a break from the all too intrusive family life and he gets a touch of the decent side of the tracks. Filmed in many Newport Beach locations this stew makes it abundantly clear how constricting "normal family life" can be.
  Super Reviewer
• Jun 10, 2014

  Some obvious Hayes Code constraints keep this film from being meaner and more twisted, but all in all, not a bad story about a mother trying to keep her family's respectable name out of the muck when her reckless daughter gets in involved with a hustler, and attracts a blackmailer (James Mason glows in this role.) Credible, well-structured, and well-conceived, The Reckless Moment is a cut above the usual fare.
  Super Reviewer
• May 16, 2012

  The last of director Max Ophüls' Hollywood films, The Reckless Moment doesn't necessarily distinguish itself other than Joan Bennett's intense performance. It's actually a rather unconventional film noir starring Bennett as the well-to-do mother of a teenage daughter who's gotten herself mixed up with the wrong sort of man. The mother goes to confront this man and he offers to stop seeing the girl in exchange for a payoff. When he comes snooping around late one night, the daughter rejects him physically, and the man winds up dead. Desperate to keep her daughter out of trouble, the mother covers up the any evidence the dead man was ever there and and dumps his body off somewhere else. Soon afterward, a blackmailer (James Mason) enters the picture, threatening to expose the girl's love letters to the deceased man if he's not given $5000. In spite of a somewhat ridiculous storyline, Bennett shines as the no-nonsense, unbending woman who fights to protect the cozy home she's created. The father is completely out of the picture, of course, and it's up to the strong mother figure to keep this structure of civility from crashing down around their ears. James Mason as the charming villain meets the only end he can possibly meet within the film's circumstances. It's a shame for such a strong woman to have to go without the love of a man. Duty tells her to remain faithful to the disembodied voice over the telephone, rather than run off with the charming and dangerously foreign blackmailer, but standards and morals of the 1940s dictates this more forcibly than the heart does.
  Super Reviewer
• Jan 23, 2012

  Taut drama with the always underrated Joan Bennett great as the panicked mother and James Mason just right as the conflicted anti-hero. Wonderfully directed by Ophuls and atmospherically shot this was updated as The Deep End with Tilda Swinton also a fine film but this has a distinct allure of its own.
  jay n Super Reviewer