Framed (1947 film)
7 /10 1 Votes
Story by John Patrick Screenplay Ben Maddow, John Patrick Country United States | 6.9/10 IMDb Genre Crime, Film-Noir, Drama Duration Language English | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Cast (Mike Lambert), (Paula Craig), Barry Sullivan (Steve Price), (Jeff Cunningham), (Beth), (Jack Woodworth)Release date March 7, 1947 (1947-03-07) (United States) Writer Ben Maddow (screen play), John Patrick (story) Similar movies Focus , The Big Sleep , Double Indemnity , The Asphalt Jungle , Out of the Past , The Postman Always Rings Twice Tagline Let's get things straight about you and me and him.... | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Truck driver Mike Lambert (Glenn Ford) is a down-and-out mining engineer searching for a job. When his rig breaks down in a small town, he happens upon Paula Craig (Janis Carter), a venomous seductress. When Craigs boyfriend, Steve Price (Barry Sullivan), robs a bank, they intend to frame Lambert, but Craig murders Price, takes the money and convinces Lambert that he killed Price in a blackout. Lambert is ready to skip town, until he learns a friend is set to take the fall.
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Framed is a 1947 American black-and-white film noir directed by Richard Wallace and featuring Glenn Ford, Janis Carter, Barry Sullivan and Edgar Buchanan. The B movie is generally praised by critics as an effective crime thriller despite its low budget.
Mike Lambert, seeking a mining job, instead becomes the patsy for a femme-fatale's schemes.
Plot
Mike Lambert takes to driving a truck when he falls on hard times. When his rig brakes stop working in a small town, he runs into the car of Jeff Cunningham and is arrested. A total stranger, barmaid Paula Craig (Janis Carter), pays his bail, and Mike is quickly drawn into a criminal plot devised by the seductive femme fatale.
Paula talks a married man, Steve, into robbing the bank that he manages. The two then drug Mike, intending to frame him for the crime. Paula proceeds to kill Steve take all of the stolen cash. She is able to convince Mike that he is the one who killed Steve in a drunken rage and that she has covered up for him, thereby implicating herself. She begs him to run away with her. Mike considers her offer until he learns that Jeff, who has become a friend, has been accused of the killing—and that Paula intends to pin the robbery that Steve committed on Jeff to give the police a fall guy for the crime.
Paula is tricked by Mike into opening a safe-deposit box where the stolen money is, and the police quickly place her under arrest.
Cast
Critical response
Critic Mark Deming called the film, "[a] superior low-budget film noir."
Film critic Dennis Schwartz liked the film and wrote, "Janis Carter gives a very sexy and dangerous performance, which plays off very well against Glenn Fords very earnest one of the good guys who cant get a lucky break. Even when he finds someone he could love she turns out to be poison, someone who was about to poison his coffee until she was reassured that he does not know something incriminating about her role in the crime. It was an entertaining B-film that ably caught how an honest but desperate man reacts after hooking up with a falsehearted woman. The good performances overcame the cheap production values and slight story."
Similar Movies
Glenn Ford appears in Framed and Human Desire. Janis Carter appears in Framed and Night Editor. No Questions Asked (1951). Loophole (1954). Cry of the Hunted (1953).
Noir analysis
Film critic Hans J. Wollstein wrote, "These silly censorship rules aside, Framed remains a thrilling example of 1940s film noir at its best: economically told, atmospherically photographed (at, among other places, Lake Arrowhead) and more than competently acted. Carter, especially, is a revelation and it is too bad that she was mostly used by Columbia Pictures for decorative purposes, a sort of second-tier Rita Hayworth."
References
Framed (1947 film) WikipediaFramed (1947 film) IMDbFramed (1947 film) themoviedb.org