A pretty good and suspenseful B melodrama thriller with
juvenile delinguency and some noirish elements, and a welcome
dramatic role for the Queen of the Swimsuits, Esther Williams.
The former elite swimmer that 20 years old signed a film
contract with MGM in 1941 to do Sonja Henie type of films. Henje, the
famous Norwegian figure-skater was a huge film
star then doing show numbers on ice in nowadays forgotten movies. As
i remember Henie films have never been shown
ever on Swedish TV so i haven't seen any of them, but Esther Williams
films, musicals with elaborate show numbers in the
swimming pool - i guess the prototype for synchronized swimming - were
shown a lot when i was a child .... yes, some
years ago now, but still .... and i remember seeing them and liking
them. I also remember being attracted to her as she
for sure was a beautiful woman and a likeable actress. So, just like
Henie and Belita (read about her on my Film Noir page
and the film Suspense) Esther did a lot of high quality Show Numbers
in her films.
In this film however Esther changed lane and did a dramatic
role in a suspenseful thriller, and she's good. She was still only
35 years old when doing this but soon afterwards she left the movie
business for marriage duties to some stuck-up asshole.
You freak, keeping her for yourself locked up into some fu--ing mansion.
Esther looked great in this film, HOT, and proved
that she really was a fine actress. Her asshole husband should've persuaded
her that she would continue playing interesting
roles like this. But, probably she soon wouldn't have got any great
parts any way due to the nasty youth orientated film
business where middle-age women are considered obsolete, cooked and
done and don't get any good parts anymore

Esther Williams having a serious
talk with a young John Saxon
Esther plays Louise Conway, a music teacher in a small
town Highschool. There has been a series of assaults on women
near the school, with one ending in murder and the police are surveying
the area. Attractive 1950's bullet bra voluptuos
Louise (a strange fashion as women's breasts looked like cones pointing
straight out) does get some annoying unwanted
attention from one of her male students. She receives nasty threatening
notes with a sexual undertone to them, and she is
even molested one night. The guilty perp is Leonard Bennett (John Saxon)
the school's big sports star, the football hero
and the principal (Les Tremayne) don't really want to believe her when
she tells him about Leonard's actions.
The Police however, they do and inspector Graham (George Nader) is interested
in young Leonard as a possible suspect
for the attacks and the murder .... yes, and he obviously also wants
to get into the panties of the Hot music teacher
Edward Andrews, Les Tremayne and Esther Williams
in a nasty scene - poor Louise
But, even though Leonard is guilty as hell he denies,
and soon the blame is put on Louise. The school gossip starts
and the rumour says she's the one stalking Leonard, an unmarried woman
.... tssst, so unsuitable in the male
chauvinistic 50's, there must be something wrong with her. And, then
there's Leonard's father, Mr. Bennett, played
by the GREAT Edward Andrews and boy does he steal this
film, WOW! An AMAZING performance that don't
resemble any other i've ever seen on film. Such a fucked up misogynistic
mess of a monster father.
In every scene he appears the air itself in the room you sit trembles
with tension and unease, an unforgettable and
quirky performance. The Scene at the almost end of this film are really,
REALLY suspenseful even though the
absolute last scene with an un-appropriate happy end sucksPresented
in
widescreen 1.85:1 english audio mono, no extras as this is an archive
edition and made on order