They Won't Believe Me
directed by Irving Pichel
directed by Irving Pichel
In The Whistler, usually a desperate person or a hardened criminal committed some crime. The person almost got away with it before realizing that he or she had overlooked some minor detail that led to their arrest and conviction, imprisonment, or even execution.
The protagonist would often discover that it had been unnecessary for them to commit the crime. They might learn that even if they got away with it there was no profit to be had.
If I recall correctly sometimes even an innocent person might be wrongly caught up in a web of mistaken identities and wrong place at the wrong time situations. I really like listening to The Whistler. They Won't Believe Me works the same side of the street as The Whistler.
This movie would have worked well as an episode on The Whistler. But it works just as well as a noir movie. The performances by Young and the three (count 'em three!) female leads are just perfect. Everyone is believable.
In fact Cahill suggests that the judge and prosecutor might even think that that Cahill is just swindling Larry out of his money.
Cahill says he understands that pov and that they could be right. But the problem, as Cahill sees it, is that Larry IS innocent. Larry's story is almost unbelievable.
Still, being a cad does not mean that Larry is a murderer. And although the jury might think Larry is no gentleman he's not on trial for being a jerk. So Cahill believes the best way to get at the truth is to just let Larry explain on the stand what happened.
Larry has started seeing his pretty younger naive co-worker Janice (Jane Greer). Both Larry and Janice discover feelings for each other. They intend to run off together.
However Greta knows all about Larry's flings. More disappointed than angry, Greta points out her financial status and offers to purchase Larry a stake in a brokerage, provided he drops Janice. Money means more to Larry than Janice does so he leaves her waiting and heads off to Los Angeles with Greta.
At his new job, Larry starts making time with the va-va voom secretary Verna (Susan Heyward). Unlike Janice, Verna is a mercenary woman. Verna doesn't want any man to waste her time. For Verna love either doesn't exist or costs. She's been hurt before. Men need to pay Verna one way or another. Verna's not sure that she loves or trusts Larry. Once again Greta discovers the affair. Misunderstandings, mistakes, bad decisions, and tragedies lead to Larry's presence in court.
This movie had similarities to The Postman Always Rings Twice. I appreciated that the women were all different. I didn't get what any of them saw in Larry but I liked that Larry was self-aware enough to know that he wasn't good. The film doesn't shy away from showing the glorious insanity of love and the pain of betrayal.
The film could have played to the cheap seats by making Larry's wife Greta an ugly harridan using her money to buy love but she's actually pretty sympathetic. Her weakness is indeed love but that's true of all of the characters.
Larry undergoes both growth and decay. Larry has bad luck. If he hadn't been doing certain things though, he wouldn't have been in a place where he could have bad luck. Again, this was a really good, entertaining, solid movie. The story was unpredictable with plenty of surprises. The three female leads more than hold their own. Watch this film.
This quote from Larry's voiceover is typical of the dialogue.
"She looked like a very special kind of dynamite, neatly wrapped in nylon and silk. Only I wasn't having any. I'd been too close to one explosion already."