The Man Who Cheated Himself (1950)

Directed by Felix E. Feist; produced by Jack M. Warner

A woman (Jane Wyatt), fearful that her husband (Harlan Warde) is planning to kill her, frantically calls her lover, a veteran police detective (Lee J Cobb). He arrives at Wyatt’s house just as the husband returns to implement his plan. In a panic, Wyatt shoots her spouse dead. Thinking that a cover-up would be less dangerous than the truth, Cobb dumps the body at the airport, and, being the leading investigator, hopes to make the death seem a violent robbery. What he doesn’t count on is the involvement of his brother (John Dall), a new detective, whose intelligence and instinct are, in this case, unnervingly accurate.

In a vein similar to The Big Clock, The Man Who Cheated Himself creates suspense by allowing the viewer to see the crime, and then see the criminal feel the squeeze of justice closing in. In this instance, the criminal is a decent man, with whom the viewer may very well sympathise. Character and story predominate here, though the acting drives both very well.

The relationship between Cobb and Dall, as the younger sibling, is entirely credible. One can really believe that they are brothers, despite the completely different personalities. This creates an interesting and rare aspect in the story, as Cobb watches almost with pride as Dall tightens the noose about him. Both are smart men. It may be argued that Cobb’s initial blunder - deciding to cover up the shooting rather than report it - is foolish. Undoubtedly this is the case. But, though he is too tough to display it, a kind of panic seizing him is certainly believable. One can feel his regret very soon after, as the complications pile up. Just as sharp, though with less opportunity to show it, is the younger brother’s wife (Lisa Howard, who built a very successful but tragically short second career as a newswoman).

The writing is quite good, and almost equal to the acting. It offers foreshadowing of Cobb’s troubles (such as Howard’s reference to a “blue coupé”) and a few good lines (at one point, Dall asks his brother “how he is doing” in his first major investigation; Cobb dryly replies, “Any better and I’ll be out of a job…”) There was obviously some research done for the story, too: Cobb observes that there are only “six ways out of town” (San Francisco), which made me wonder if that is still the case. Satisfactory use is made of a city that is very familiar to movie-goers. The climax is a bit too extended for the film’s good, but that is a minor problem.

The Man Who Cheated Himself is a neat little thriller, with an unusually sympathetic antagonist, a smart protagonist and very good acting to hold it all together. And if you think Cobb can only do hard-talking tough guys, watch the last scene between him and Wyatt, when the camera lingers for nine or ten seconds on his face. There are half a dozen emotions there, all of them realistic and all of them clear as a bell, all shown without Cobb twitching a muscle.