The Tattered Dress

The Tattered Dress
Film poster by Reynold Brown
Directed byJack Arnold
Written byGeorge Zuckerman
Produced byAlbert Zugsmith
StarringJeff Chandler
Jeanne Crain
Jack Carson
Gail Russell
Elaine Stewart
CinematographyCarl E. Guthrie
Edited byEdward Curtiss
Music byFrank Skinner
Distributed byUniversal-International Pictures
Release date
  • March 14, 1957 (1957-03-14)
Running time
93 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Box office$1.43 million (US rentals)[1]

The Tattered Dress is a 1957 American CinemaScope film noir crime drama released by Universal Pictures and directed by Jack Arnold, starring Jeff Chandler, Jeanne Crain, Jack Carson, Gail Russell and Elaine Stewart.[2]

Plot

Michael Reston, a wealthy man in a Californian resort, is angry with his wife Charleen, because her tattered dress betrays that she’s having an affair. He drags her into a convertible, forcing her to direct him to her lover Larry Bell, a bartender. Michael shoots Larry down on the sidewalk.

He hires James Gordon Blane, a high-priced lawyer from New York. Blane says goodbye to his wife Diane and his two little sons. On the train he has a conversation with newspaper reporter Ralph Adams, who's following the case.

When Blane arrives, he's regarded with mistrust by the local people. His skilful cross-examination of sheriff Nick Hoak results in Reston being acquitted.

Hoak decides to get even. He pressures juror Carol Morrow, his ex-lover, into claiming that Blane bribed her. Blane goes on trial. His wife Diane and his friend Billy show up to help him, but after collecting crucial evidence Billy is driven off a cliff. While defending himself, Blane begins to feel remorse over having won acquittals for so many guilty clients.

Blane ultimately is found not guilty based on the prospect the sheriff framed him in retaliation for his successful defence of Reston. Enraged by the acquittal, the sheriff intends to kill Blane as he goes down the Court-House steps. Before he can he is shot by Morrow. As she is arrested, the Blanes reconcile and leave town for good.

Cast

Production

Chandler's casting was announced in June 1956.[3] Zugsmith later recalled Chandler "was becoming a bit difficult and he was their (Universal's) second biggest star at the time. I guess one of the reasons was he was their biggest, and then Rock Hudson came along!"[4]

Filming started on August 13, 1956.[5] Shooting took place in Palm Springs.[6]

Reception

The Los Angeles Times wrote that Chandler "does the best acting job of his career" in the picture.[7]

Critical appraisal

Leonard Maltin called The Tattered Dress "slowly paced but watchable" and gave the film two-and-a-half stars (out of four);[8] while Clive Hirschhorn, in his 1983 history of Universal Pictures, dismissed it as "a perfunctory piece of pulp fiction."[9] But the British Film Institute Companion to Crime praised its noir visuals and saw it as a stylish precursor to Orson Welles' Touch of Evil, whch was also produced for Universal by Albert Zugsmith the following year.[10]

Blake Lucas, in Film Noir: An Encyclopdic Reference to the American Style, also praised its "noir elements" but maintained "the main interest of the film... is the visual style of Jack Arnold. The desert setting recalls certain of his horror films, such as It Came From Outer Space and Tarantula; and it reveals that in this wasteland he finds a certain beauty that is very modern and strangely affecting. It is cleverly contrasted to the contemporary decors in which the characters exist and expresses a moral, as well as physical, desert."[11]

Biographer Dana M. Reemes in Directed by Jack Arnold (1988) writes that the production provided “opportunities for considerable directorial creativity…The best example of this is without doubt the film’s prologue, which is very cinematic and utterly without dialogue.”[12] Reemes writes: “It is a gripping scene, relying entirely on careful, intelligent staging and camera work. It is an example of Jack Arnold at his best.”[13]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Top Grosses of 1957", Variety, 8 January 1958: 30.
  2. ↑ The Tattered Dress at the AFI Catalog of Feature Films.
  3. ↑ Oscar Godbout (July 17, 1956). "Warwick To Make 2 Films In Africa: Company Plans Productions of 'Adamson of Africa' and 'Golden City,' a Musical M-G-M Misses One of Four". The New York Times.
  4. ↑ Flynn, Charles; McCarthy, Todd (1975). "Albert Zugmsith". In Flynn, Charles; McCarthy, Todd (eds.). Kings of the Bs : working within the Hollywood system : an anthology of film history and criticism. E. P. Dutton. p. 417.
  5. ↑ Thomas M. Pryor (July 25, 1956). "Warners Readies Incentives Policy: Stockholders to Vote on Film Company Plan to Grant Options to Executives M-G-M in Full Swing Of Local Origin". The New York Times.
  6. ↑ Dorothy Manners (August 19, 1956). "It's Matter Of Degrees -- 113 Of Them". The Washington Post and Times-Herald.
  7. ↑ Philip K. Scheuer (March 3, 1957). "'Tattered Dress' Chandler's Best". Los Angeles Times.
  8. ↑ Maltin, Leonard (2003). 2003 Movie and Video Guide. Signet (New American Library). p. 1384. ISBN 0-451-20649-5.
  9. ↑ Hirschhorn, Clive (1983). The Universal Story. New York: Octopus Books (Crown Publishers). p. 241. ISBN 0-517-55001-6.
  10. ↑ Pulleine, Tim (1997). The BFI Companion to Crime. University of California Press. p. 318. ISBN 0-520-21538-9.
  11. ↑ Lucas, Blake (1979). Film Noir: An Encyclopedic Reference to the American Style. Woodstock, New York: Overlook Press. p. 281. ISBN 0-87951-055-2.
  12. ↑ Reemes, 1988 p. 88-89
  13. ↑ Reemes 1988 p. 91-92

Sources

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