I don't have a long record of gawking at accident victims, but surely Ann Sheridan is the hottest-looking near-corpse in the history of car-pedestrian smashups.
She gets bumped by a delivery truck in the opening moments, then tended to by the square family doctor played by Kent Smith as he's leaving his office for the evening. She's got a contusion just above her knee. If I had to apply that bandage my hands would be trembling.
The camera cuts from Smith to Sheridan getting up off the examination table, cigarette dangling from her mouth, blouse just slightly off kilter, and then back to Smith for the reaction shot. You can actually feel him gulp.
Then he has to go home to his stuck-in-a-rut domestic life and his perfectly pleasant wife. Next day Smith drops by for a concussion checkup, and she more or less invites him to come see her sing at Club Ooh-La-La or whatever, or at least that's how he interprets it. Cut from the Three Clowns on stage to a spotlight on Sheridan launching into her solo routine in a top that might just cause a gasp.
One thing leads to another, and before you know it they're driving off to Smith's cabin in the woods. Wood-burning fire in the evening. Smith playing Chopin's lullaby Berceuse on the piano. And we're off to the races.
A beautiful, talented actress, Sheridan should have been launched into super-stardom by this movie. In reality, MGM released her the following year. Instead, movie-goers had to endure repeated exposure to American terrier Bette Davis, Inanimate Carbon Rod Greer Garson, Easter ham Susan Hayward, and - worst of all - world-class mutt June Allyson.
Kent Smith knocks it out of the park as the repressed family physician who transforms into something quite different. Rosemary DeCamp is Smith's super-understanding - and might I say middle-age cute and dignified - wife. Bruce Bennett turns in a solid performance as Smith's medical partner. Even John Ridgeley as the doomed heart patient and Robert Alda as the nightclub owner nail their roles.
The problem is the second half shows Smith isn't a man of action after all, but rather is as much a snivelling coward as he was at the start of the movie. I started to get annoyed that Sheridan stuck with him, especially since Robert Alda was a more viable alternative.
Anyway, that first half hour is amazing. Watch it and fall in love with Ann Sheridan. It wouldn't be the first movie in history that drove itself off a cliff in the second or third acts.
She gets bumped by a delivery truck in the opening moments, then tended to by the square family doctor played by Kent Smith as he's leaving his office for the evening. She's got a contusion just above her knee. If I had to apply that bandage my hands would be trembling.
The camera cuts from Smith to Sheridan getting up off the examination table, cigarette dangling from her mouth, blouse just slightly off kilter, and then back to Smith for the reaction shot. You can actually feel him gulp.
Then he has to go home to his stuck-in-a-rut domestic life and his perfectly pleasant wife. Next day Smith drops by for a concussion checkup, and she more or less invites him to come see her sing at Club Ooh-La-La or whatever, or at least that's how he interprets it. Cut from the Three Clowns on stage to a spotlight on Sheridan launching into her solo routine in a top that might just cause a gasp.
One thing leads to another, and before you know it they're driving off to Smith's cabin in the woods. Wood-burning fire in the evening. Smith playing Chopin's lullaby Berceuse on the piano. And we're off to the races.
A beautiful, talented actress, Sheridan should have been launched into super-stardom by this movie. In reality, MGM released her the following year. Instead, movie-goers had to endure repeated exposure to American terrier Bette Davis, Inanimate Carbon Rod Greer Garson, Easter ham Susan Hayward, and - worst of all - world-class mutt June Allyson.
Kent Smith knocks it out of the park as the repressed family physician who transforms into something quite different. Rosemary DeCamp is Smith's super-understanding - and might I say middle-age cute and dignified - wife. Bruce Bennett turns in a solid performance as Smith's medical partner. Even John Ridgeley as the doomed heart patient and Robert Alda as the nightclub owner nail their roles.
The problem is the second half shows Smith isn't a man of action after all, but rather is as much a snivelling coward as he was at the start of the movie. I started to get annoyed that Sheridan stuck with him, especially since Robert Alda was a more viable alternative.
Anyway, that first half hour is amazing. Watch it and fall in love with Ann Sheridan. It wouldn't be the first movie in history that drove itself off a cliff in the second or third acts.