Tied for the best movie I have ever seen

a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

If you're expecting a true film noir, "Manhandled" might disappoint you. If you view it as a parody, you should really enjoy it.In the middle of the complicated plot with double and triple crosses galore, confusing flashbacks and stylized violence, the police detective and his assistant have a running gag about the brakes on their squad car.Dan Duryea steals the show as an over-the-top wiseguy who out-thinks himself in a needlessly complicated theft and attempted frame. Dorothy Lamour is gorgeous as always, and plays the opposite of a femme fatale. Alan Napier plays a "sophisticated" Englishman who confesses to dreaming about killing his wife with just the right level of snobbishness and ennui. And a very young Sterling Hayden plays the romantic interest for Lamour."Manhandled" is not just a parody of noir films but also sophisticated detectives like the "Thin Man" series.

Man goes to a psychiatrist because he has dreams about murdering his wife with a perfume bottle. Then his wife is murdered. With a perfume bottle. Was it him? I ain't saying boo.This is a decent suspense movie carried by the greasy charm of Dan Duryea, who makes his sociopathic character (almost) sympathetic. Note to police officers: whenever a suspect in a murder investigation offers to help you solve the crime, it's pretty much a sure bet that he's the man you're looking for.Enjoy this breezy noir and steer clear of husbands holding perfume bottles. (Incidentally, you know what would be a great name for a perfume? Manhandled.) GRADE: B-

One thing about Manhandled there are no shortage of suspects for the murder of Irene Hervey. About three quarters of the way through the murderer is revealed. It's what happens after that which gives Manhandled a rather unusual twist.What's really odd about the film is that other than being a leading man and someone for Dorothy Lamour to take an interest in, Sterling Hayden has very little to do with the solving of the case. Hayden plays an insurance investigator whose company sends him in to help the police solve the case and recover the stolen jewels. But usually in these films it's the private investigators who show up the slow witted cops. That's not what happens here, lead detective Art Smith is very much on the job, more so than the audience is lead to believe all through the film.I'm thinking that Paramount and Sterling Hayden were about to come to an unfriendly parting and Paramount did not want to exhibit Hayden in any kind of good light. He did two films before his war service and this was the third of three afterwards. Still Hayden did do well with what little to do he was given.Manhandled is made by the host of character actors in the film playing some interesting parts. There's Alan Napier, Hervery's husband who has been having recurring dreams about killing his wife. There's Harold Vermilyea the psychiatrist Napier was seeing about said dreams and who Dorothy Lamour works for. There's Dan Duryea who is a private detective who's been seeing Lamour. Finally there's Philip Reed who Hervey's been seeing on the side.So when Hervey is murdered the suspects are a plenty. I will say this that the actual culprit is someone who thinks fast on their feet. But it turns out the cops have not been as dumb as the culprit suspects.Paramount as a studio did not do much in the way of noir. But when they did do it, the results were pretty good like Manhandled.

A stuffy novelist (Alan Napier) suffers recurring nightmares that he bludgeons his rich jewel-horse of a wife (Irene Hervey) to death – with a `quart' bottle of cologne. That's bad enough, but what's worse is that he confides his dreams to a shrink (Harold Vermilyea). Didn't he know that it was the 1940s, when psychiatry was little more than a hotbed of scheming quacks? So when his wife inevitably winds up dead (and her diamonds stolen), he becomes the prime suspect, even though she had been out clubbing with another man (Philip Reed).That's the uptown side of Manhandled; there's a seedier angle as well. The psychiatrist's transcriptionist (Dorothy Lamour) not only sits in on his sessions but later climbs the stairs to her Manhattan walk-up and spills the beans to her neighbor Dan Duryea, an ex-cop now doing repo jobs and divorce frame-ups. So much for codes of confidentiality. But when a signet ring she found while vacuuming her sofa and then pawned brings the police to her door, along with insurance investigator Sterling Hayden, it starts to look bad. It doesn't help that she just blew in from Los Angeles with forged letters of reference....Manhandled unfurls an elaborate, and none too plausible, mystery plot competently enough, even with a few skillful touches (in its final quarter, it takes a sharp turn toward noir, and better late than never). Director Lewis Foster, however, failed to optimize the solid cast he was handed: Hayden's part never comes into clear focus and Lamour plays little more than a bland patsy. Duryea dominates, with his familiar two-faced persona as the cheery suck-up who likes to slap women around; Art Smith, as the comic relief of the police detective, becomes, after Duryea, the movie's most memorable character. It's not a bad movie, despite a couple of clunky flashbacks. But in better hands, it could have become one of the better noirs. As it stands, it merits that dark and honorable designation only by the skin of its teeth.