Nora Prentiss

“Nothing ever happens to your father,” says Dr. Talbot’s mother to her granddaughter at the start of Vincent Sherman’s Nora Prentiss; of course, this claim is thoroughly debunked once the action gets rolling in one of noir’s wildest stories. Popular pin-up girl Ann Sheridan shines in the title role, a feisty nightclub singer (“Thanks, I feel like a new man,” she says after a drink) who begins a romance with married doctor Richard Talbot (Kent Smith), a symbol of moral integrity what with his large family and successful career. Despite the title, the lead character here is Talbot, whose expedition from family man to desperate boyfriend to deformed criminal might have been more compelling with a bigger star but is finely rendered by Smith’s juggling of the role’s demands. Set in San Francisco, the film features the legendary Cliff House as a backdrop when a car is set ablaze and pushed over the edge. Famed cinematographer James Wong Howe creates a feast of innovative visuals, including a horrifying car crash from the driver’s point of view, unusual cross-cut transitions during one of Nora’s musical numbers, and a gorgeous final fade-out. Nora isn’t quite a classic femme fatale because she makes no demands of Talbot, nor does she explicitly manipulate him, but she’s a convenient source of excitement — and self-destruction — for a restless, postwar American man.