The Velvet Touch (1948)

Where did you get your luck, Valerie? Or does God pity the wicked?

The Velvet Touch is directed by Jack Gage and collectively written by Leo Rosten, Walter Reilly, William Mercer and Annabel Ross. It stars Rosalind Russell, Leo Genn, Claire Trevor, Sydney Greenstreet and Leon Ames. Music is by Leigh Harline and cinematography by Joseph Walker.

Ah, now then, is this a murder mystery in reverse? At the beginning we are shown the crime of murder, so we know the main character is guilty. The rest of the picture thrives on if Valerie Stanton (Russell) will either get caught by the law, own up, or become a victim of crime herself? The screenplay contains a flashback and that grand old devil of someone else being pegged for the murder. There's witticisms abound, with some wonderfully choice lines delivered with relish, while the cast turn in decent shows - Greenstreet doesn't show up till the 45 minute mark, but promptly waddles in and steals the film!

Set to the background of the theatre it's unsurprising to find this is something of a theatrical drama rather than a film noir of the era. It has found its way into a couple of film noir reference books, without really being film noir as such. Certainly the photography is appealing to noir fans, and there's a dark passage of play that definitely comes out of noirville, but really it's a marginal entry. But hey! It's still a very good film that's recommended. 7/10

This is a very glamorous, but rather cyclical, drama about a theatrical impresario "Dunning" (Leon Ames) who discovers "Valerie Stanton" (Rosalind Russell) and turns her into a star of latter day stage equivalents of soap operas. Of course, there is their simultaneous romance that has long since lost it's sparkle and is now just the source of constant rancour between the two who now only need the other for financial reasons. Enter Walter Kingsford who offers her a much meatier part and Leo Genn as a British architect with whom she has actually fallen in love and the story builds to a rather predictable, messy, development. Up to this point, the on-off, up-down relationship/rivalry melodrama rather drags it all down a bit - despite Russell looking like the proverbial million dollars; and it is really only now with the arrival of Sydney Greenstreet as the deceptively charming investigating detective "Capt. Danbury" that the story becomes a little more interesting - he is a theatre buff, but can he see through the façade?