Film
What's on at the cinema plus reviews of the latest movie and DVD releases
Bookmark this pageCause for Alarm! (1951)
Director: Tay Garnett
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
A not uninteresting attempt at a suburban film noir, with Loretta Young as a housewife whose bed-ridden ex-serviceman husband (Sullivan), consumed with totally unfounded jealousy, concocts a fiendish revenge plot. Having planted evidence indicating that she and her supposed lover were conspiring to poison him, he then proposes to shoot her, but dies of a heart attack. Although rather too fluttery for comfort, Young gives a good account of the woman's panic-stricken dilemma as, left alone with a corpse in the house and her every move adding to the web of suspicious circumstances, she desperately battles red tape to retrieve an incriminating letter posted to the DA. Unfortunately, the script throws in some heavy-handed exposition (notably a 'meeting cute' scene designed to shed light on Sullivan's mental state), betrays its MGM origins by a tiresome insistence on family values (a moppet next door stands in for the child the heroine yearns for), and contrives a risibly arbitrary happy ending.Author: TM
Cast & crew
Director: Tay Garnett
Producer: Tom Lewis
Cast: Loretta Young, Barry Sullivan, Bruce Cowling, Margalo Gillmore, Irving Bacon, Don Haggerty, Richard Anderson full cast
Genre(s): Film Noir
Duration: 74 mins
Most popular on this site
Top Stories
Has David Cronenberg turned tame?
Has director David Cronenberg veered too far from his radical and bloody roots with new film 'A Dangerous Method'?
The 10 worst date movies
Just in time for Valentine's Day, we present ten of the least romantic films ever made
Where to watch this year's Oscar-nominated films
Find out where to watch 2012's Oscar-nominated films in London cinemas
10 unlikely badboy biopics
Featuring Phil Collins, Jeremy Clarkson, Nick Clegg, David Starkey and a host of other unlikely subjects
Interview: Sean Durkin on 'Martha Marcy May Marlene'
The first-time director of the brilliant new thriller discusses religious cults and robot boxing
Pop-up cinema for Valentine's Day
Side-step romantic clichés with some alternative Valentine’s viewing
What do you think?
Post your review now