Tight Spot (1955)

So much average

best movie i've ever seen.

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

TIGHT SPOT features an A-list cast, however none were A-list at the time, with Brian Keith about to rise to solid star status while Ginger Rogers and Edward G. Robinson were on the downhill side of heights that Keith would never approach. Which is not to say that anyone's abilities had seriously flagged. TIGHT SPOT remains a B-picture, but the performances elevate it to a strong 'B', and that's a lot better than some dreary high budget production. Is it a noir? Columbia likes to think so, and the Brian Keith character makes this a reasonable claim, but the movie centers around Ginger Rogers' Sheri Conley, and Sheri isn't a femme fatale, not by a long shot.Ginger's performance is rather controversial. Sheri is an over-the-hill model who appears to have taken as her own role models the kinds of brassy dames common in the films of her adolescence and played by actresses such as Joan Blondell and Glenda Farrell and...well, Ginger Rogers. It would be a natural thing for someone like Sheri to do, and it must be said that director Phil Karlson must have agreed with Rogers in this interpretation even if it didn't exactly fit into the typical noir milieu (near the end of her film career, Rogers certainly didn't have the power to overrule her directors in such matters of interpretation). She'd played a character in a similar situation in a polar opposite fashion in STORM WARNING only a few years earlier, tight and withdrawn rather than outgoing and wordy as here. I'll go so far as to say that you'll like TIGHT SPOT to the degree that you like Ginger's interpretation of her role. In any event, she provides energy to a film otherwise lacking in it.Edward G. Robinson was one of the finest actors that the screen has ever seen, and he's letter perfect here even if he's somewhat wasted. Brian Keith is as solid as always, as is the rest of the cast, with special kudos for Lorne Greene in a small role as the heavy. Phil Karlson was generally a better director than his material (KANSAS CITY CONFIDENTIAL being his one real masterpiece), but he seems caught between a rock and a hard place here, either dissipating the claustrophobic atmosphere by opening it up too much or staying in that hotel room until tedium ensued (many scenes undeniably go on too long, with way too many words).TIGHT SPOT is a decent film, and with two of the genuine greats of cinematic history in its cast, it's one that shouldn't be missed.

Tight Spot is an odd attempt at film noir featuring Ginger Rodgers as a tough dame whom District Attorney Edward G. Robinson is trying to persuade to testify against a mob boss. She vacillates over whether to testify while falling in love with the police officer assigned to protect her. Although the film keeps your attention, it suffers from a serious case of mood whiplash.Simply put, the film cannot decide until late in the game whether it is a comedy or a film noir. It alternates frequently between witty repartee by Ginger Rodgers and tense scenes of violence and conflict. For example, a shoot out in which an innocent character is killed is followed immediately by the cop teasing some witnesses. Similarly, the film opens with a shooting, but rapidly shifts to Ginger Rodgers making jokes while in prison. This indecision undermines the film's tension.Robinson and Rodgers do well with the characters they're given, and the film manages one clever twist towards the end that I didn't see coming. Nevertheless, this is a sub-standard, B-level programmer.

"Tight Spot" is a crime drama about the events that take place during the period in which a district attorney tries to persuade a female convict to testify against a ruthless gangster in a deportation case. The woman's life is constantly under threat and the attorney is desperate or her to co-operate because, if she doesn't, he knows he won't be able to do anything else to curtail the activities of the notorious mobster.Lloyd Hallett (Edward G Robinson) is the D.A. who arranges for Sherry Conley (Ginger Rogers) to be removed from prison and transferred to a heavily guarded hotel room where Detective Lieutenant Vince Striker (Brian Keith) takes charge of ensuring that she remains alive long enough to be able to testify in the case against Ben Costain (Lorne Greene).Sherry had been on Costain's yacht with her friend Pete Tonelli (Alfred Linder) somewhere in the West Indies when another foreign gangster that Costain had illegally brought into the U.S. was also on board. Costain had been very smart in ensuring that he couldn't be directly linked to any of his various crimes and so the opportunity to get him deported for breaching the terms under which he was allowed into the country, was the best option open to Hallett. Sherry, however, isn't open to persuasion and her decision not to cooperate is reinforced when she learns that Tonelli had been gunned down by Costain's men after he'd agreed to testify.During her time in the hotel room, Sherry survives a couple of attempts on her life and also enjoys ordering expensive food as well as flirting with Striker who's also attracted to her. The extremely determined Lloyd Hallett attempts to get Sherry to change her mind by conscripting the assistance of her sister but this approach also fails badly. Will the offer of having her sentence commuted finally be enough to induce Sherry to testify or will some other development be critical in enabling Hallett to achieve his objective? "Tight Spot" was based on the play "Dead Pigeon" by Leonard Kantor and looks stagy as most of the action takes place in one location (the hotel room). The advantage of this type of presentation, however, is that it emphasises very naturally, how trapped Sherry remains even when she's out of prison and makes her situation seem even more dangerous because she can neither avoid the attentions of those who want to kill her or escape from her surrogate prison cell.The best feature of this movie is the quality of its cast who through their performances elevate a rather ordinary story into something more entertaining than it would otherwise have been. Ginger Rogers is very brash and loud-mouthed as the ex-model and gangster's moll who fell foul of the law through being a "chump" and Edward G Robinson has a great on-screen presence. Lorne Greene looks very imposing and dynamic in his role and Brian Keith does a great job as Striker, who is cynical, corrupt and conflicted and eminently more interesting than any of the other characters. When he starts to unravel, the torment that he goes through is palpable.Although it's not one of the best movies of its kind, "Tight Spot" is still very enjoyable, primarily because of its talented cast.

Ginger Rogers' performance (straight out of "Roxie Hart") makes this film. Others have found Ms. Rogers to be too old for the film. I think that the fact that she is a bit "past her prime" adds to her character, which has (let's face it) been "around the block" a few times. She and Brian Keith (doing his patented tough-as-nails copper) make a potent team. It is a pity that they did no more work together. The film itself is a strange mixture of Rogers' comic sass and Karlson's brand of hard-hitting melodrama. Ultimately, the film is sunk by an unbelievable plot contrivance that leaves the audience feeling betrayed. However, the performances (including, of course, Robinson's) make this a worthwhile experience.