Noir Bets: There’re more mysteries and moody melodramas from the heyday of the film noir cycle on tap, as well.
Singer Jane Russell’s return to Sin City goes bust, when stockbroker hubby Vincent Price gets into trouble with crooks and ex-flame policeman Victor Mature comes back into her life, in The Las Vegas Story (1952).
Joan Fontaine offers a crackling femme fatale characterization in Born to be Bad (1950), as she wrests wealthy Zachary Scott away from her affianced cousin Joan Leslie, while keeping lover Robert Ryan on the side; Nicholas Ray directs…
Ray was also behind the camera for the inventively stellar meller A Woman’s Secret (1949), following the decidedly odd bond between chanteuse Maureen O’Hara and protégé Gloria Grahame…
Third Man co-stars Joseph Cotten and Alida Valli reteamed for the RKO crime tale Walk Softly, Stranger (1950), where a gambler’s attempts to flee his past and build a new life in a factory town go awry…
Boris Ingster’s underrated film noir Southside 1-1000 (1950) involves a convict who professes to have found religion, but in fact is masterminding a counterfeiting ring from his cell…
Now take a look at a few scenes from 1952’s The Las Vegas Story starring Jane Russell and Victor Mature:
