A Life at Stake

Are you ready for another Summer of Angela (Lansbury) post (with Lisa from Boondock Ramblings)?
Today we got "A Life at Stake" from 1955 on the menu.
Take a look at Lisa's post here. She plans to have two more movies, by the way, but for me this will be the last one.

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The plot (spoiler alert!).

Architect Edward Shaw, broke, unemployed, and in a lot of debt thanks to a gambling business partner, gets a business proposal from ex-real estate agent Doris Hillman. She will buy up land, he's supposed to build houses on it.
Her wealthy husband who is the one who will put up the money for this, though, insists on a key-man insurance for Edward in case something happens to him.
The situation is complicated by the fact that Edward is drawn to Doris - and she to him? I think you already get the idea, so I don't have to beat around the bush.
Edward is getting suspicious because he thinks the Hillmans are just after the insurance money. When Doris's younger sister Madge (who's in love with him) tells him that Doris's first husband died in an accident, he's even more convinced about them trying to kill him.
As the police doesn't believe him even though he has been drugged by Hillman and hardly survives an accident, he and Madge plan to pull Doris on their side. Doris, however, lures him to their mountain cabin and shoots him when he wants to leave. Next, her husband turns up and wants to shoot her to make it look like a murder-suicide, but Edward hits the gun out of his hand before being knocked down. Doris picks it up and shoots her husband who tumbles towards her and pulls her down with him through a clifftop doorway.
Just when Edward stumbles outside, the police and Madge arrive, and Edward is taken away in an ambulance with Madge by his side.

The only surprise about this movie was Angela Lansbury as femme fatale again (after Please Murder Me!). She did that surprisingly well, but not good enough to save this movie for me.

"A Life at Stake" is a film noir, but I don't really know that much about film noir. I doubt this movie is playing in the big league, though. It has its moments, but not even those really grabbed my attention.

I just didn't manage to feel any connection to the hero at all at the start or during his affair with Doris whatever exactly that was supposed to be. Throwing Madge into the mix didn't do anything for me, either. Edward, what did you want and what did you expect to come of this whole thing? Getting rid of Hillman - how? - and run off with Doris? Where to? Writing Madge a card every, now and then?
There are some other things I didn't understand.
Why would you dance with your coat on?
How did you make it out of that car without any injury? And how did you get home (always an important question for me)?
Who on Earth would build a cabin with a door leading right down a cliff? "No one felt comfortable on the porch", so instead of putting up some bricks or whatever and a window they just locked the door? Which opened to the outside? How do you even close it again? "One day I'm going to put a big picture window there." Couldn't the guys who took down the porch - how? - have done that right away? One day - after throwing someone down there?

Of course everyone knew something was going to happen there, but at that point I didn't really mind anymore who of them was going to fall down.

If you look around for reviews, you will see that some people say that it's a very decent independent film noir or you have the ones who feel like me.
That's fine, not everyone likes the same things. This may not be a movie for me although it was easy enough to watch (the runtime of only 76 minutes helped with that), but maybe it's one for you.

Please Murder Me!

For today's Summer of Angela (Lansbury) movie Lisa from Boondock Ramblings chose "Please Murder Me!" from 1956.
Here is Lisa's post.

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Here's the plot (with spoilers).

Defense lawyer Craig Carlson buys a pistol at a pawn shop leaving it in his office desk with a file. Then he records a message saying that he will be dead in exactly 55 minutes and telling a story ...

It starts with Craig telling his best friend Joe that his wife Myra wants a divorce. The man she's in love with is Craig. Joe says he will need some time to think.
A few days later, Joe gives his business partner Lou a letter to mail, then calls Myra to tell her he wants to discuss something with her at home.
When he comes home, he confronts Myra, closes the door, and there's a gunshot.
Myra claims Joe attacked her and she shot him in self-defense.

In court, prosecution argues Myra killed Joe in cold blood because she wanted his life insurance, not because he attacked her for her wanting a divorce.
In his closing argument, Craig reveals that he's the man Myra is in love with, and the jury finds her not guilty.

Lou arrives at their celebration party and gives Craig the letter he forgot to mail. In the letter, Joe tells him that Myra had married him for the money and that she had been in love with artist Carl Holt all the time.

Craig, seeing everything in ruins for him anyway, decides to save Carl from Myra and make her pay for it all by having her murder him.
He sets up an appointment with her at his office. He keeps the tape running and hides the microphone before letting her in. Then he shows her the file and puts the gun on the desk. When he threatens to call Carl, she shoots him and tries to make it look like a suicide.
Craig had also made an appointment with Willis, the district attorney, though, shortly after the one with Myra. Myra tells Willis that Craig shot himself, but Willis plays the recording and she knows the game is over.

It's not hard to categorize this as a B movie.
Everything is quite simple including the sets, but the film is still pretty easy to watch, especially since the runtime is only about 75 minutes.

Practically every review I browsed mentioned this movie obviously being a test run for Raymond Burr's role as Perry Mason, and that's no surprise if you look at the court scene.
Mason's closing arguments usually convince me more, though.
The plot really has its moments, but I just can't believe a jury or court would go for a sudden "oh, by the way, I'm the new man, so the prosecution's money argument doesn't count"  - in the closing argument! I couldn't help but finding that very weak.

While I found the plot twist rather interesting, I thought Craig's decision to sacrifice himself in order to save Carl from the "disease" that Myra was (according to Joe's letter) was a little over the top. Okay, a lot over the top.
So his heart was broken over the loss of the woman he loved - that should heal quickly knowing what kind of woman she was - and broken over the loss of his friend - I get that, but he didn't plot to kill him - but he was certainly not the first lawyer who got duped into believing in a client's innocence. Not good for the career maybe, but definitely not its death penalty.
Burr played it with conviction, though.

I think Lansbury could have put a bit more passion in her femme fatale and I wonder if that was a decision of hers or the director, but it was nice to see her in such a different kind of role than probably most of us are used to.

The plot idea was intriguing, but with some more money I think they could have made more out of it, for example come up with a better reason for Craig to give up his life.
Nevertheless, it was fascinating to see Burr and Lansbury in this film noir.