The recent resurgence of interest in the film noirs of the 1940s and 1950s has led to the unearthing of many mediocre examples of the genre but has also revealed some unjustly forgotten gems. This little-known 1947 thriller from Universal-International, never released on tape or disc before, is one of the genuine finds.
Directed by Michael Gordon, it stars Edmund O’Brien, just coming off The Killers and with White Heat soon to follow, as nickel-and-dime New York lawyer Bob Reagan, who bursts into a corporate meeting to demand that wealthy Andrew Colby (Vincent Price) pay a $68 settlement to one of his clients.
Impressed by Reagan’s chutzpah, Colby offers him a well-paying job as his bodyguard: he says that his former partner Kroner (Fritz Leiber) who was convicted of embezzlement from their company has just been released from prison and threatens revenge. Reagan, not only in need of money but infatuated with Colby’s private secretary Noel (Ella Raines), accepts the job, and soon afterward kills Kroner. Kroner’s daughter Martha (Maria Palmer) seeks revenge against Reagan for killing her father.
Lieutenant Damico of Homicide (William Bendix) suspects that Kroner’s death was a set-up and that Reagan might be guilty of murder. Fearing that the detective might be right and he could have been a patsy, Reagan, with Noel’s help, begins to look into Kroner’s case, believing that Colby might have been the actual perpetrator. That causes the cunning Colby to be suspicious of them both, especially since Noel has clearly begun to reciprocate Bob’s feelings. With the help of his sinister lackey Charles (John Abbott), he schemes to frame them for robbery.
The convolutions of the plot are farfetched, but they culminate in a satisfying—if implausible—last-minute twist in which justice prevails. Gordon’s direction combines with Irving Glassberg’s atmospheric cinematography to create a properly suspenseful mood, and though O’Brien and Raines hardly make a charismatic couple, Price’s oily villainy is peerless, Abbott is amusingly sleazy, and Bendix makes Damico both hard-nosed and clever.
The Web might not rank with the established classics of film noir, but it is an enjoyable second-tier example of the genre, undeserving of the obscurity into which it has fallen. Extras include eight theatrical trailers, including one for The Web, as well as an audio commentary by film scholar Jason A. Ney. Recommended, especially to devotees of film noir.