The Web (1947)

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

Michael Gordon's suspenseful and fluid direction plus Irving Glassberg's solid camerawork, build up interest and tension to a seat-tingling climax here. It's all in the direction and playing for the plot itself is slight and not nearly as web-like as the title implies. But it is thickly studded with smart lines and wisecracks. And director Gordon gives these lines more edge than they are worth. He's also assisted no end by Irving Glassberg's atmospheric lighting photography. A first-rate cast and solid production values help.In short, "The Web" steadily comes across as an absorbing crime drama, packed with suspense, thanks to a script that delivers with a wallop, plus a number of outstanding acting performances from the likes of Ella Raines, William Bendix, Vincent Price and Edmond O'Brien.

Edmond O'Brien who later starred in such noir classics as 711 Ocean Drive and DOA stars in this film with Vincent Price for Universal. The Web casts O'Brien as a young attorney and Price as a millionaire who is not above outright criminal activity as a way of supporting his lifestyle as we see.Sad to say the film while not bad in and of itself and its conclusion is quite interesting, it starts with one preposterous premise. O'Brien is rather brash and heavy handed and a bit stupid. Just what Price needs to slip into a neat frame. He hires and O'Brien accepts because business isn't too good a job as a bodyguard because an old business associate played by Fritz Leiber is threatening him.Sure enough Lieber shows up at Price's house and O'Brien shoots him to save Price. The police in the person of William Bendix aren't sure, but they can't prove anything. Later on Price commits another murder and this time he frames both O'Brien and his secretary Ella Raines for the crime. Quite The Web that O'Brien and now Raines are in, in this day we call it a jackpot.Granted I've known all kinds of lawyers including some of the stupidest people I've ever met. But I could never swallow a street smart guy like O'Brien being so easily manipulated. It prevents The Web from being a truly great noir film.

Little-known but rather splendid minor Noir with an intricate, ingenious plot (a small-time lawyer takes a job as bodyguard to the tycoon he has come up against in his latest case and is immediately drawn into unwittingly committing premeditated murder on his behalf, being a man who had taken a rap for him but has now come to collect!) – in hindsight, the title is very appropriate – and a top cast (genre stalwarts Edmond O'Brien, Ella Raines and William Bendix and, naturally as the smooth villain, Vincent Price). Universal, who produced this, churned out a number of excellent efforts during the form's heyday – notably several works by Jules Dassin and Robert Siodmak – which, this being made by second-tier talent, may explain how it got to be overlooked in the long run! O'Brien starred in his share of classics – notably the much-remade THE KILLERS (1946) and D.O.A. (1950) – and, in fact, when I went through some genre stuff early in the year, I acquired a couple of his lesser vehicles i.e. TWO OF A KIND (1951) and the self-directed SHIELD FOR MURDER (1954), but they ended up not making the list I eventually checked out (my collection of such items having basically gone out-of-hand in the last few years)! Lovely Raines, then, was the quintessential Noir heroine but, like Jane Greer and Audrey Totter (who were more the femme fatale type), she seemed to be out of her element in other genres, so that her career lasted only as long as the field held sway…but, of course, whenever this kind of film is discussed even now, their names inevitably crop up! Typically, Bendix is the cop smelling a rat: though he was a friend of O'Brien's late father, his integrity does not allow him to make it easy for the hero – especially when the latter becomes the prime suspect of a second murder, which was committed with his gun! Again, the climax delivers a real coup as Bendix announces that the latest victim (Price's live-in secretary, played by the sinister-looking John Abbott) is still alive…so that the real culprit is caught red-handed while attempting to finish the 'job', leading to the traditional shoot-out in a darkened room. In spite of the inherent gloom, the film does not entirely eschew humor throughout – especially when O'Brien confronts Price during a business conference with a bill amounting to peanuts, which is then resumed at the very end, as the hero is about to take what is owed to the former client (whom he had even tried to pass off as an associate of the first murdered party who could incriminate Price – I did say this was complexly-plotted!) before his current employer is taken away, only to be stopped in the act by Bendix who sarcastically asks him to exercise his official profession of lawyer and sue the man!

A nifty little thriller that has lawyer Edmond O'Brien hired as bodyguard for business tycoon Vincent Price. Of course it doesn't take a detective to figure out that someone is setting someone else up, nor does it take a college diploma to figure out who those someones might be. Still, the cast (which also includes Ella Raines and William Bendix) is obviously enjoying themselves here, and if they're not going to take things too seriously, why should you? It's best not to think too hard about the plot developments (like why would a tycoon hire a lawyer to be his bodyguard in the first place?) and just enjoy the slick ride.Grade: A-