Crappy film

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

.Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

Claudette Colbert and Robert Ryan are both too old for this screwy tale of a wedding interrupted by the claim that the bride is already married. She looks far too matronly-sensible to be driven insane, as she is, by a lot of suborned witnesses (or actors) who, apparently, wait at home for Colbert and Ryan to come calling on them (and who somehow manage to ensure that they will be in a certain hotel room rather than any of the others). He is a far too interesting actor to waste on a script that has him either rushing around after clues or consoling Claudette. And why is she a successful concert pianist? We expect that, or at least her sensitivity to sounds and music, to have something to do with the story, but it is just a pointless detail.So terrible is the writing that we never find out who killed the murdered man or how! (He was alone in a room with Claudette when he was suddenly shot dead. Did the instigator of the plot pay him so much that he was willing to kill himself?) And, if you are still suspending disbelief, the movie cuts it loose in the final scene, in which Claudette, who has been incarcerated in a high-security mental institution, has managed to escape, to travel at least several miles back to her home, and to acquire a loaded gun! The movie aims to start on a cute note by showing Ryan walking into the house where he is to be married and being refused admission because he does not have an invitation. He meekly goes out and tries to get in the back way, but a security guard blocks him there too. Why on earth doesn't he say he is the groom and prove it with some ID? The writers may have been pleased with their supposedly humorous idea, but it's not funny because it doesn't make any sense. Who except Caspar Milquetoast would behave that way? Certainly not Robert Ryan!

Is Ellen (Colbert) losing her mind—is she already married? The trouble is what she remembers happening is not what a bunch of other people remember. So what's going on.About half way through, the movie turns from high-key lighting into noir. But then Ellen's fiancée is the great noir icon Robert Ryan. Except here, he's basically a good guy, although those inventive opening scenes where he can't get into his own wedding prove he's a quirky sort. Colbert gets to show her acting chops by running through about every emotion in the book. And I couldn't help thinking of the previous year's The Snake Pit (1948) as I watched her breakdown.It's a tense, riveting mystery as we try figuring out what's going on. Ellen seems so convincing, but then so does the damning evidence against her. The screenplay effectively draws the noose ever tighter around Ellen's sanity up till the end. Then the script nosedives with some ridiculous motivation that's just too implausible to fly (without giving it away). Too bad, since the movie could have excelled without this unfortunate lapse.There's one scene that intrigued me. Hoping to unravel the mystery, Ellen and David enter what looks like a spacious, well-lit livingroom. There, what only can be described as a cutting-edge jazz ensemble is laying out the cool sounds of the time. Draped languorously across a couch is an equally cool-looking blonde. It's a highly suggestive scene, and clearly an effort at creating exotic atmosphere. But, the banal setting and the high-key lighting drain the needed visual impact. It's almost like someone (director Ferrer, the producers?) was afraid of too much "atmosphere", (contrast with the super-evocative jazz scene in the classic DOA {1950}). Thus, a potential highlight is allowed to pass by.All in all, it's unfortunate that the fine acting, inventive touches, and genuine suspense are challenged by a key lapse in the plausibility of the screenplay. Otherwise it's an effective little thriller.

Claudette Colbert is a wealthy woman driven to near insanity in "The Secret Fury," also starring Robert Ryan and Jane Cowl. On her wedding day, a man appears who claims that an heiress, Ellen (Colbert), is already married. An investigation ensues, and the evidence is against her. When her "husband" is murdered in her presence, she is put on trial.This looked to me like a B movie, and it made for very compelling watching. My only quibble with it - and it's not a minor one - is that I was very disappointed with the ending. The motive for the crime seemed preposterous.Robert Ryan plays Ellen's fiancé, and it's a different role for him. Here he's heroic and likable rather than villainous.One of the most interesting things about the film is Vivian Vance in a small but showy role. She's excellent as a hotel maid who recognizes Ellen and verifies that she was indeed married before. It was a treat to see her do something besides Ethel Mertz.Claudette Colbert is very good as the troubled woman. She's not a natural fit for the role, being more at home in comedy, but she makes it work. She's very believable as an older woman seeking happiness only to have it snatched from her at the last minute.Mel Ferrer directed this very well, and I recommend it, though I wasn't crazy about the ending.

The Secret Fury, in many ways a run-of-the-mill romantic suspense drama (directed by Mel Ferrer) boasts top-notch principals in Colbert and Ryan; it stays puzzling if not quite gripping until towards the end, when implausibility conquers suspension of disbelief -- as so often it does in this genre. But for some viewers the film's highlight will be the portrayal of blowsy Leah by Vivian Vance -- the immortal Ethel Mertz on "I Love Lucy." Oddly, Vance had very few film roles; her true home was Broadway, where (among other gigs) she understudied for Ethel Merman. Here she contributes a winning turn as a chambermaid suborned to play a minor part in a nefarious scheme; watch her half-heartedly trying to wave away the smoke when she's puffing a furtive cigarette in the hotel's linen-storage room -- a transgression for which she ultimately pays the supreme penalty.