Vicki

There was no way to improve on H. Bruce Humberstone’s 1941 screen adaptation of Steve Fisher’s mystery novel, I Wake Up Screaming, but 20th Century Fox tried it again twelve years later with Harry Horner’s Vicki, a far inferior but still solidly entertaining retelling of the murder of the titular “glamor girl.” In the title role, Jean Peters plays an ambitious cafeteria waitress in New York City who, after being “discovered” by publicity agent Steve Christopher (Elliott Reed) and his partner Larry Evans (Max Showalter), quickly becomes a glamorous celebrity model sought after by Hollywood talent scouts. When Vicki goes behind Christopher’s back to accept a contract in Los Angeles, the relationship turns sour, and she ends up bludgeoned to death. Her grieving sister and roommate Jill (Jeanne Crain) is interrogated by the growling, semi-psychotic Lt. Ed Cornell (Richard Boone), whose misplaced confidence that Jill, Christopher, or both of them plotted Vicki’s death brings emotional turmoil and further violence. A goofy-looking Aaron Spelling, who would go on to become one of television’s most successful producers into the 21st century, plays Vicki’s mischievous doorman Harry Williams. While prolific noir cinematographer Milton Krasner is on hand, the film boasts very little visual innovation, but at least it doesn’t suffer from the original’s overuse of “Over the Rainbow.”