This appears to be an attempt by MGM to reproduce the noir style that the smaller studios like RKO and Universal were perfecting around this time. They've added a high-powered, all-star cast, but it isn't especially the right kind of cast for this type of film. And the film itself is rather inauthentic and heavy handed.
I can't really say why a lot of things in the film don't work. Even the song Ava Gardner performs (dubbed), "Situation Wanted," is a dog.
Robert Taylor is good enough as Rigby, the hard boiled protagonist and narrator of the piece. But I don't especially sympathize or identify with him, which I think is a must, in this kind of film. You should feel like you want to live the situations along with the main character. His ride becomes your ride, in a good thriller, which this really isn't. In fact it's more of a potboiler. Though the ending is full of action and, literally, pyrotechnics.
These kinds of films were often written and/or directed by people who had some kind of affinity for the material. Marguerite Roberts and Robert Z. Leonard, the scenarist and director of The Bribe, don't seem to have had that particular affinity.
I can't really say why a lot of things in the film don't work. Even the song Ava Gardner performs (dubbed), "Situation Wanted," is a dog.
Robert Taylor is good enough as Rigby, the hard boiled protagonist and narrator of the piece. But I don't especially sympathize or identify with him, which I think is a must, in this kind of film. You should feel like you want to live the situations along with the main character. His ride becomes your ride, in a good thriller, which this really isn't. In fact it's more of a potboiler. Though the ending is full of action and, literally, pyrotechnics.
These kinds of films were often written and/or directed by people who had some kind of affinity for the material. Marguerite Roberts and Robert Z. Leonard, the scenarist and director of The Bribe, don't seem to have had that particular affinity.