Okay – this
is a bit out there, but bear with me.
.
 |
| Wendell Cory and Barbara Stanwyck |
The File on
Thelma Jordon exists at a rare intersection.
It is both a Film Noir and a “Woman’s Movie”. And only Barbara Stanwyck could pull those
off consistently. Sure Mildred Pierce
works 80% of the time, but the other 20% is pure camp. Barbara Stanwyck never lets the silliness of
the story pull her out of it for a moment.
The most famous of these types of movies is “Sorry, Wrong Number”,
but it doesn’t really work for me. The
director has Barbara be too much over the top.
.
The best
of these is “Double Indemnity”, but that is too famous for this list. A close second on her best list (from this
period) is “The File on Thelma Jordon”.
Barbara is Thelma – a girl with a record, a thing for the wrong guy and
a heart too quick to love.
 |
| Corey, Stanwyck and Richard Rober |
.
Sit opens with Thelma as a crook who shows up to trick an unhappily married District Attorney. Sparks fly, affairs are started and things go downhill from there. But they go down oh so beautifully. Until the end when Thelma – in the tradition of all Film Noir, has to pay for her crimes. The moral and legal ones. No one does it better.
