Sun Jan 4th
: I am vastly falling in love with William Bendix. His overall cadence and choices are quite fascinating. Not in a quirky way, but in a lived in Spencer Tracy sort of naturalism way. Finding him in these lil noir films are awesome lil gems. Similar kudos can go towards Vincent Prices performance as well. Kind of in the Hitchcock well played Villain Prototype. He had a very low key charming energy in this film that carried throughout the entire picture. I nice counterpoint to his always solid work that almost veers into his Vincent Price-isms. A parody of himself ala Christopher Walken. Which is not bad at all. I dig him and his Price-y ways. This was just a nice discovery.
The film has a strong noir premise. An attorney acting as a body guard, apparently kills a man in defense of his employer’s life, and later believes the victim was set up to be murdered. A simple premise that could spiral out of control. It lacks an energy though. Led by Edmond O’Brien (a noir staple ) it doesn’t have the manic pace or energy that. I think it should. It seems quite casual. Perhaps cause the O’Brien character who is a lawyer should be smarter and making better decisions along the way with his gal Friday Ella Raines. Who is Price’s secretary and long time friend. To be fair the calm charm or Price and his web of deceit are hard for everyone to grapple with. The shiny prize of money does blind many. As does Ella Raines performance. It wasn’t necessarily lacking. I just did not find her interesting at all. And she is the bridge between the supposed good and evil characters. It all seemed very surface level. For a film called the web, and its premise it seems like it could’ve delved far deeper and spiraled out of control creating a nice frenzy of manipulation and crisis cross’s. Speaking of O’Brien. He is solid in this as his is in many things. I just wasn’t compelled by his perforce or watching him blindly keep going forward. Again for such a supposedly intelligent selfaware lawyer character he doesn’t really come off as someone making smart decisions based on the information he says. He numerous times mentions how not smart he is while playing somewhat simple to get information but it doesn’t really play given the circumstances.
Nothing really to offer in terms of noir atmosphere or stylized storytelling. Pretty tame. Lots of actors that I dig but comes up pretty flat.
5/10 Jan 4th 2026
The chemistry and dialogue between attorney Bob Regan (Edmond O’Brien) and secretary Noel (Ella Raines) drive much of the energy of Michael Gordon’s The Web, an enjoyable yarn with a compelling premise: a bodyguard gets tricked into murdering his client’s enemy. A small-time lawyer stuck on small-stakes cases, Regan accepts the lucrative bodyguard role for wealthy industrialist Andrew Colby (Vincent Price) whose secretary (Raines) plays hard to get with Regan’s efforts at charm (when asked what she does on Saturday nights, she responds, “play marbles with the girls next door”). After less than 24 hours on the job, Colby’s former partner, just out of prison, is discovered attacking Colby upstairs, so Regan springs into action and is forced to fatally shoot the intruder. When he learns that his old pal, police lieutenant Damico (William Bendix), suspects there’s more to the attack than meets the eye, Regan recruits Noel to help him unearth the truth before he’s arrested. The camera work and compositions are nothing dazzling, but Gordon keeps the pace hopping while incorporating occasionally unusual shots: when Regan arrives home to an unexpected visitor, note the extended camera pan from behind the intruder, only a shoulder and pistol visible to the viewer for nearly a full minute for maximum anticipation.
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