The Reckless Moment (1949)

Directed by Max Opuls; produced by Walter Wanger

Lucia Harper (Joan Bennett) is a middle-aged housewife with a full life caring for her family while her husband is building a bridge overseas. Trouble arises when her daughter, Bea (Geraldine Brooks), becomes involved with ne’er-do-well Tom Darby (Shepperd Strudwick). Lucia attempts to buy off the cad, but he soon visits Bea surreptitiously. The two argue and fight, Bea striking Darby with a flashlight. In the aftermath and left alone, the stunned man stumbles and dies in the fall. The next morning, Lucia discovers the corpse and hides it. Her problem is just beginning, however: a blackmailer (James Mason) arrives with letters Bea had written, and which would implicate her in what the police are treating as a murder.

The Reckless Moment has many of the elements of a successful suspense film – except suspense. This, I think, is the fault principally of the script, but aided by the direction.

The director is better known as Max Ophüls, who has a distinguished reputation, especially in technical expertise. I noted several scenes that were very interesting to watch; in particular, in the snatches of conversation and background images that could be observed, actually irrelevant to the story. But there was little tension or drama, as opposed to melodrama, evident.

The script is mundane. The initial scene with the bounder whose death instigates the blackmail is meant to show that he is open to being bought off by his girlfriend’s mother, but it merely suggests it, and could be seen as the man simply trying to understand how far the woman will go to disrupt his romance. When Darby is with Bea, prior to their fight, he intimates that, while he does need her mother’s money, they could take it and still be together. Though his character is later implied to be base, the audience is not shown enough for them to believe he received his just desserts. (And can he really be so well-known as to have his name given in a newspaper's headline when he is killed?)

On the other hand, Bea, a seventeen year old who thinks she’s far too wise for her mother, smartens up abruptly – too abruptly – during her argument with Darby. Lucia is not made sympathetic enough. This may be the coldness of Bennett’s performance, but is likely a problem with the script, too. Along with suspense being missed, so is a principal character we care about.

Mason does a good job as the reluctant blackmailer – he’s the one who comes across as sympathetic, even noble – but his decision to help Lucia any way he can comes too swiftly, and, after an alleged lifetime of bad deeds, seems too cinematic a change to be realistic.

Later tv stalwart William Schallert appears unbilled as a police detective, and a super-star of the silent-film era, Dorothy Phillips, appears in a tiny part, though I couldn’t tell anyone which.

The Reckless Moment is hampered not by a bad plot or indifferent acting, but by unconcentrated writing, and direction that doesn’t create the right atmosphere or a depth of tension. For a movie founded upon a similar theme but with sympathetic characters, a more intelligent script and a good plot twist or two, see Mr. Denning Drives North, and skip over The Reckless Moment.