The Web (1947)

Directed by Michael Gordon; produced by Jerry Bresler

Bob Regan (Edmond O’Brien) is a small-time but conscientious attorney, rather resigned to taking on unambitious cases for poorer people. One brief, however, brings him into contact with the rich and powerful Andrew Colby (Vincent Price), who is in fear of his life. Colby offers Regan a huge sum for an unorthodox task: to be his bodyguard. Admitting that he could use the money - and because the position would bring him closer to Colby’s beautiful secretary, Noel Faraday (Ella Raines) - Regan accepts the offer. Little could he guess that within twelve hours, he would exercise his duties as bodyguard, and be pitched into dangerous waters quite over his head.

The Web provides a pretty good premise, and an adequate plot. What it doesn’t give the audience is a main character that it can care about. This is not because Regan is unlikeable; quite the opposite. He is a decent man who genuinely cares about his clients, little people who can’t get help from any other source. He’s a cocky man with the ladies, but is fully aware that, as Churchill described Attlee, he is a modest man with much to be modest about.

The trouble is two-fold: Regan, despite being a good fellow, isn’t very interesting. Colby, with his machinations, Noel, with her sharp mind and Lieutenant Damico, the cop on the case, involve one more in the story. Secondly, everyone appears smarter than Regan. Colby is the spider at the centre of the web of the movie’s title, while Damico has a magician’s mind behind the face of a pugilist. Noel may not catch on to every ploy her boss uses, but once she does, she’s smarter than Regan in guessing what will happen next. The viewer might express more frustration with Regan than sympathy.

While the script inadvertently damages the main character’s appeal, there is nothing wrong with the performances that bring its words to life. O’Brien is always watchable, whether as a secondary character or a lead; hero or villain.

In films such as this, Price reminds us that he was not always stereotyped in horror movies. Indeed, his height and handsomeness could have steered him into the role of romantic lead, while his charm added a less obvious villainy than could be found in his later parts. Raines usually does well projecting a strong, smart personality.

The surprise is William Bendix as the detective. Not normally playing the brainy type, here he is the antithesis of most of his roles, the policeman who, if only in retrospect, may be seen always to be thinking. He uses his words carefully to goad others when necessary; he spends his evenings in a small restaurant playing chess.

The depiction of Bob Regan was indubitably intended by the writers, meant to show a man whose ambitions, even as limited as they are, could get him into trouble. But if it introduces a unique approach to a rather standard story, it also has its disadvantages. The Web is certainly not a bad movie, but neither is it outstanding in its genre.