Cheap The Dark Corner (DVD) (Henry Hathaway) Price

Related Products

Customer Reviews of The Dark Corner

Light Weight but Still Good
"Dark Corner" is not up to the level of "Kiss of Death", "Laura", or "He Walked By Night" considering its excellent cast. It remains a decent film with a likeable lower profile lead in Mark Stevens. There's no way for me to ever accept Lucille Ball as the slightest bit sexy. She's Lucy, however she does do her part successfully to move the script along. She's really not asked to be a sexy p.i. secretary or a femme fatale, so, for me, she works well as a Gal Friday. I've said this in other reviews....William Bendix never gives a poor performance.

Good "Laura" Wannabe
It's no secret that producer Darryl F. Zanuck tried to make his later film noir entries (although, of course, they were not called that way then) look like his 1944 hit Laura. Nowhere is that more obvious than in The Dark Corner, where Clifton Webb plays a variation of his character in Laura (an older man obsessed with a younger woman who has fallen for a young man "unworthy" of her beauty) and there is a portrait of the woman he loves (in this case it only resembles her) at the center of the story. Here, however, that storyline is combined in rather improbable way with that of a private investigator (Mark Stevens) and his secretary (Lucille Ball). Still, the story is involving, and the film's lack of credible plot (and of an interesting leading man, Mark Stevens is the film's weakest link) is made up with the superb black and white cinematography and the fun wisecracking dialogue (well delivered by Ball in an otherwise thankless role, despite the top billing) that one has come to expect of the best noirs. And Webb, although seemingly reprising his "Laura" star-making role, is always fun to watch.