Tension (1949)

The Clark Kent Conundrum.

Tension is directed by John Berry and adapted to screenplay by Allen Rivkin from a story by John D. Klorer. It stars Richard Baseheart, Audrey Totter, Cyd Charisse, Barry Sullivan, Lloyd Gough and William Conrad. Music is by Andre Previn and cinematography by Harry Stradling.

Tight and compact noir pot boiler that finds Baseheart as a drugstore manager married to bitch babe Totter. Planning to do away with her lover, Baseheart is stumped when someone beats him to it. But he of course is still the main suspect, so creating a new identity for himself he sets about trying to unravel the mystery before hard coppers Sullivan and Conrad jump on him from a great height.

Totter files in for classic femme fatale duties as Tension thrives on the post-war period of change as many Americans yearned for a better life away from the disillusionment of their current existence. Baseheart is the classic sap, dreaming of some picket fence nirvana with his vixen wife, only to have his illusions shattered by her callous clambering for the finer things in life, including a more alpha male suitor in the imposing form of Lloyd Gough. But wait! Baseheart has some brains, he has ideas above his station to commit the perfect crime, but inventing a new identity, which is basically just using contact lenses instead of glasses, it opens up a new avenue for him in the shapely form of Cyd Charisse.

Rivkin’s screenplay gives Totter licence to bitch up big time, with abuse of her sultry charms and a viper tongue delivering barbs, Totter’s Claire Quimby is very much a quintessential femme fatale and subsequently Totter walks away with the movie. Elsewhere isn’t bad though, it’s a roll call of stoic noir performers, from Sullivan’s hard-nosed detective and Conrad’s doughnut twirling menace, to Gough’s looming presence and Charisse’s vulnerable beauty, it’s a very well cast picture. Sealing the deal is Berry’s unfussy direction, Stradling’s atmospheric photography and Previn’s musical score that puts the tense in Tension.

Some of it’s daft, such as the Clark Kent line of character invention, and you don’t have to be a genius to know who committed the foul deed, but this is a good un’ for sure. 7/10