The File on Thelma Jordon

1950 "...SHE'LL LIE...KILL OR KISS HER WAY OUT OF ANYTHING!"
6.9| 1h40m| NR| en| More Info
Released: 18 January 1950 Released
Producted By: Paramount
Country: United States of America
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website:
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Cleve Marshall, an assistant district attorney, falls for Thelma Jordon, a mysterious woman with a troubled past. When Thelma becomes a suspect in her aunt's murder, Cleve tries to clear her name.

Genre

Drama, Thriller, Crime

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Director

Robert Siodmak

Production Companies

Paramount

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The File on Thelma Jordon Audience Reviews

Hellen I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much
Tedfoldol everything you have heard about this movie is true.
Odelecol Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.
Roxie The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;
rodrig58 Great beautiful actress Barbara Stanwyck, always very credible and convincing in her roles. In this one too, not an easy part to play. Wendell Corey convincing too in the role of Cleve Marshall. Same Joan Tetzel in the role of the wife. All the cast is very good. Again, Robert Siodmak doing a very good job. He made also "The Killers" with Burt Lancaster and Ava Gardner, "Pyramid of the Sun God"(which enjoyed my childhood) and many others good films.
mark.waltz Barbara Stanwyck had some great lines during her lengthy film career, but one stands out that describes practically every character she ever played. "Maybe I am just a dame and didn't know it", she tells the D.A. (Wendell Corey) whom she has convinced of her innocence in the murder of her aged aunt (Gertrude Hoffman) and has fallen in love with in spite of being involved with a no-good jewel thief (Richard Rober). While that line here is used pretty much as a throw-away, the way Stanwyck says it makes it stick. She's obviously setting him up for further use, having discovered him drunk in his office while reporting an attempted robbery at her aunt's gloomy mansion. Thelma Jordan, like "Double Indemnity's" Phyllis Diedrickson and the titled character in "The Strange Loves of Martha Ivers", is tough on the outside and just as calculating, but unlike the evil Phyllis and the doomed Martha, she has just a bit more conscience as she faces trial for murder and finds that underneath her own desires is someone who wants more than what life has given her. Yet, how can you escape what has been molded into you after years of wanting more without heading down that road towards doom that Barbara Stanwyck's film noir dames always seemed to be driving towards. Corey is married to daddy's girl Joan Tetzel, and becomes involved with Stanwyck only after realizing that his seemingly perfect domestic life bores him to bits. Wendell Corey was never one of the more exciting leading actors. He was acceptable as Joan Crawford's husband in "Harriet Craig" because it was obvious that she could cuckhold him into doing her bidding. He was also believable as Kirk Douglas's right-hand man in "Desert Fury" because there was an underlying sense of devotion with slightly obvious gay overtones. Opposite Stanwyck in "The Furies", he may have been her leading man, but was secondary to the fury between Stanwyck and her on- screen father (Walter Huston). Here, he's bland enough to be believable as the local assistant D.A., but as the subject of Stanwyck's passion, that never becomes believable.This is a film noir where characterization is the most important element of the plot, and there, it is Stanwyck's film all the way. Even though it is obvious that she went out of her way to get the crime she's accused of committed, there's also a sense of reluctance and regret which only Stanwyck could infuse into a character like this. The screenplays for "Double Indemnity" and "The Strange Loves of Martha Ivers" were excellent, but "Thelma Jordan's" is simply just average, made better by Stanwyck's presence in it. Gripping photography, editing and music also help, but somehow, it lacks in becoming the classic it could have been had more thought gone into the other characters rather than just Stanwyck and Corey's. Paul Kelly is excellent as Corey's boss, involved in political upheaval in the D.A.'s office that is not fully developed, but the way in which Kelly's character deals with the outcome shows an understanding character who must be tough and ruthless in the courtroom even though he's much more aware of human frailties through dealing with his own. The lack of screen time for the aged Hoffman as the aunt/victim doesn't develop a true motive for her murder other than robbery, unlike Judith Anderson's domineering matriarch in "The Strange Love of Martha Ivers". Hoffman, who had some great moments in the women's film prison drama, "Caged", needed at least one meaty scene to establish why a woman near death's door anyway had to be killed in such a violent way. Tetzel's wife and mother to Corey is too good to be true, especially when she learns of her husband's infidelity. This had the potential to become a film noir classic, but is missing the one key ingredient that completes it on its psychological journey. Still, it's a missed opportunity that should not be missed for film noir fans and for Stanwyck aficionados like myself.
Ben Larson Wendell Corey had a long career in film and television. In this film he plays Cleve Marshall, an assistant DA who is staying late at the office to avoid going home on his anniversary because his father-in-law (Minor Watson) is there.While he knocking back shots as fast as he can pour them, in walks Thelma Jordan (Barbara Stanwyck) looking for help. Now, one would certainly be suspicious if a beauty like that immediately began a relationship, but our intrepid hero is too drunk to notice, and, after all, he wants to go out and find a dame. He is no better the next day when his wife (Joan Tetzel) takes the kids to the beach house, and leaves him alone during the week.As one would expect in film noir, everything is not as it seems. Cleve gets himself into hot water and uses all his wits to get out. I have to admit the ending was a big surprise.
Robert J. Maxwell Not entirely without interest, this is a rather dark story of Wendell Corey, an Assistant D.A. alienated from his wife and two children, who bumps into Barbara Stanwyck by accident and falls for her. They have a secret affair. Then Stanwyck's wealthy old auntie is shot and killed during a burglary and the evidence all points to Stanwyck, who is brought to trial. It seems like an easy case for the D.A.'s office except that the records show that Stanwyck has been receiving phone calls from a man who continually identifies himself by different names, although he never says, "Is Miss Jordon there? This is Wendel Corey". Corey's boss, Paul Kelly, names the mysterious caller "Mister X", and worries that the defense may introduce reasonable doubt using Mister X as the fomenter.Now, Corey is in an uncomfortable position, to say the least. He's assigned to try the case, convict his lover, and send her to the gas chamber. But he has all kinds of problems. Not only is he devoted to her, not only is HE the mysterious Mister X, but he believes Stanwyck when she tells him she's innocent. He winds up sending her notes, advising her on who to hire as defense counsel, and he sends her five thousand bucks to manage expenses. Corey also decides to bungle the case in as nuanced a way as possible.I ask you, the experienced viewer of old black-and-white crime dramas, is she innocent or is she setting up Corey as the fall guy? Stanwyck is set free. And Corey discovers there is another man in the picture. There have probably been OTHER men, as well. If he is Mister X, there was first a Mister A, then a Mister B, and then .... Mister n. (That's the way you denote a finite string of variables of unknown length in statistics.) Stanwyck spills the beans to Corey. This is known as "cooling out the mark". But she does a very clumsy job of it, leaving Corey in a state of humiliation and despair. Stanwyck has shown no remorse so far. But as she is driving away towards a new life with her Greaseball boyfriend behind the wheel, she decides to coagulate his eyeball with the car's red-hot cigarette lighter and, well, there is a fiery plunge off a cliff, and she winds up dying on a hospital bed. After she makes her final confession to Paul Kelly, she passes away peacefully, the vehicular catastrophe not having disfigured her in any way, her hair and make up impeccably done. Not even her false eyelashes have been disturbed.This movie must have been made after "Double Indemnity" because it follows the same trajectory, more or less. I much prefer the original, or even the remake, of "Double Indemnity," but this isn't an insulting copy, only a less original one. Use caution, though. You have to sit through a sappy soap opera for the first half hour, directed at a glacial pace and completely lacking in conversational sparkle.