Joan Bennett was certainly the most versatile of her acting sisters. Starting out as a beautiful blonde ingenue, she was a compliment to any actor who was lucky enough to play opposite her. Twenty years later she was still dazzling. After a few femme fatale roles, she turned up as a bespectacled, harassed mother, juggling doing the nightly accounts with coping with her teenage daughter's first love affair. "The Reckless Moment", unappreciated at the time, was a story of blackmail, skilfully directed by Max Ophuls.
The film opens with Lucia Harper (Joan Bennett) driving over to the mainland from Balboa. It isn't a shopping trip - she is going to meet her daughter's lover, to persuade him to stop seeing Bea. Bea is played very intensely by Geraldine Brooks, an under appreciated actress. Bea refuses to give him up and will not believe that he was willing, for the right kind of payment. On top of this Lucia's husband, Tom, rings, to say he will not be home for Christmas. That night Bea meets Ted Darby (Sheppard Strudwick) secretly in the boathouse. They have a fight and Bea mistakenly thinks she has killed him. The next morning, while walking on the beach, Lucia finds Darby's body. In an amazing and suspenseful scene she somehow gets the body into their rowboat and leaves it on another beach.
Lucia then gets a visit from Mr. Donnelly (James Mason) - a blackmailer who is acting on behalf of Mr. Nagle, who has some indiscreet letters that Bea wrote to Darby. Donnelly is drawn into Lucia's world and is instantly attracted to her and her family (the type of life he has never known). At one point he says something like "your kids are lucky to have a mother like you" - she replies "everyone has a mother like me". She doesn't believe there is a third party - a Mr. Nagle, but there is and he is nasty.
The film follows Mrs. Harper as she desperately tries to raise the $5,000, from the bank, to a humiliating interview at a loan office and finally a pawnbrokers where she raises $800 on her jewelry. When the police arrest a man for the murder, Donnelly, who has been increasingly reluctant about taking her money - tells her she doesn't have to find the money anymore. Nagle has other plans and visits Lucia at the boat house to threaten her.
A lot more happens but the ending where Lucia, surrounded by cage-like wooden bannisters, is talking to her husband on the phone - you get the feeling that she will put all that has happened behind her and try to go on with her day to day life.
Highly Recommended.
The film opens with Lucia Harper (Joan Bennett) driving over to the mainland from Balboa. It isn't a shopping trip - she is going to meet her daughter's lover, to persuade him to stop seeing Bea. Bea is played very intensely by Geraldine Brooks, an under appreciated actress. Bea refuses to give him up and will not believe that he was willing, for the right kind of payment. On top of this Lucia's husband, Tom, rings, to say he will not be home for Christmas. That night Bea meets Ted Darby (Sheppard Strudwick) secretly in the boathouse. They have a fight and Bea mistakenly thinks she has killed him. The next morning, while walking on the beach, Lucia finds Darby's body. In an amazing and suspenseful scene she somehow gets the body into their rowboat and leaves it on another beach.
Lucia then gets a visit from Mr. Donnelly (James Mason) - a blackmailer who is acting on behalf of Mr. Nagle, who has some indiscreet letters that Bea wrote to Darby. Donnelly is drawn into Lucia's world and is instantly attracted to her and her family (the type of life he has never known). At one point he says something like "your kids are lucky to have a mother like you" - she replies "everyone has a mother like me". She doesn't believe there is a third party - a Mr. Nagle, but there is and he is nasty.
The film follows Mrs. Harper as she desperately tries to raise the $5,000, from the bank, to a humiliating interview at a loan office and finally a pawnbrokers where she raises $800 on her jewelry. When the police arrest a man for the murder, Donnelly, who has been increasingly reluctant about taking her money - tells her she doesn't have to find the money anymore. Nagle has other plans and visits Lucia at the boat house to threaten her.
A lot more happens but the ending where Lucia, surrounded by cage-like wooden bannisters, is talking to her husband on the phone - you get the feeling that she will put all that has happened behind her and try to go on with her day to day life.
Highly Recommended.