A sales manager (Gary Cooper) fingers coworker (Ray McAnally) for the murder of his boss and theft of a large sum of money. After the trial, Cooper tells wife Deborah Kerr that he is purchasing a business with a large sum of money he made from a killing in the market. With the prodding of blackmailer Eric Portman, Kerr grows increasingly suspicious that her husband was guilty of the murder and theft. Cooper was horribly miscast: He was too old for this role - he looked ridiculous next to Kerr discussing how they were struggling to make it. Coop at the time was around 60 years old and looked much older; by contrast Kerr was about 40 and looked younger (and was lovely to boot). Thus he's never believable in the role. The direction of this movie left much to be desired. The scenes become tedious replaying themselves over several times. Music blares at points when high suspense is supposed to build. The courtroom scenes were stagy and failed to build any drama. The ending was less than satisfactory feeling rushed and not tying in the loose ends. Nevertheless, the cast is good and turned in fine performances with the exception of Cooper, who struggled with the dialog, and Michael Wilding who is mostly wasted. And the plot is interesting enough but the script and execution are lacking. Some of the cinematography of London is very good and in general the film has an appropriate dark noirish atmosphere. However, there's a good reason why this is a forgotten thriller.
Review of The Naked Edge
