Cause for Alarm! (1951)
Directed by Tay Garnett
Written by Larry Marcus, Mel Dinelli, & Tom Lewis
Starring Loretta Young, Barry Sullivan, & Bruce Cowling
This film mixes camp and noir, so purists may not like it, but I enjoyed it. Loretta Young’s character Ellen Jones does everything wrong. She dotes over her sleazy husband even when he turns maliciously unstable. She changes from doormat to victim when he accuses her and his doctor best friend (and her former suitor) of attempted murder in a letter. Jones spends the majority of the film vainly attempting to retrieve what becomes an increasingly incriminating accustation. Young starts out the picture of the perfect housewife only to descend into sweaty, hysterical desperation by film’s end.
