source: Framed

Moviecut—Framed

Film noir was Janis Carter, Glenn Ford and Barry Sullivan in the midst of quite an interesting story. Miserable with his wife, played by Karen Morley, Sullivan, a bank Vice President, has an affair with Carter and the 2 plot the demise of a victim, similar in built to Sullivan so that they can abscond with lots of money. Glenn Ford, a miner, becomes their target, but fate intervenes and Carter falls for Lambert (Ford) instead so she bumps off Sullivan. Old prospector, Edgar Buchanan, gets blamed as he had threatened Sullivan when the latter turned down his request for a loan. The twists and turns makes this an interesting film. The only problem here is the rush act that the picture made to end after 1 hour and 24 minutes.

This isn't an exceptional film, but it's a nice little "noirish" picture (it has a good femme fatale, anyway, in Janice Carter) with Glenn Ford as a hard-luck mining engineer (yeah) who rides into a town with no brakes on his truck and soon finds himself in an elaborate setup involving the VP of a local bank (Barry Sullivan). Along the way, he befriends another hard-luck guy, a local miner who's just found a lode of silver (Barry Sullivan). The setup itself is a bit too convenient, too transparent, and we never really believe Ford is going to fall for it. There are scenes where the screenwriter's inventions are laughably inadequate, such as Ford's big discovery of Sullivan's and Carter's tryst via an embroidered robe hanging in the bathroom. Carter is excellent in the film and I wonder why she did not get more attention from audiences and directors. The film does not aim for much, but it's a great bottom of the program picture with a couple good scenes for Ford and Carter.

***SPOILERS*** It was a desperate looking for a job and out of work mining engineer Mike Lambert's, Glenn Ford, great misfortune in being spotted at a local bar by blond sexy waitress Paula Craig, Janie Carter, as he was gulping down his troubles. Paula together with her boyfriend bank vice president Steve Price, Barry Sullivan, have been planning to embezzle the bank that Steven works in for $250,000.00 and all they needed was a fall-guy or pasty to make their plan complete. And it was the luckless Mike Lambert who fit the bill perfectly. Lambert for his part gets somewhat lucky by later landing a job with local silver prospector Jeff Cunningham, Edger Buchanan, who's struck a mother load of the white and shiny stuff and needs an experience's mining engineer to help him work it off. At an estimated yield of some 140 ounces of silver per ton that would make both Cunningham & Lambert ,who's been offered not only a job but 10% of the profits, very rich. The big problem in all that is that it would screw up the plans that both Janis & Steven have for Lambert as being a fall-guy in their plan in that his disappearance would not go unnoticed! With a nobody and friendless Lambert disappearing off the face of the earth which the two's sinister plan calls for! With Steven's bank the only bank in town it's easy for him to deny the never deflating or being late in a payment on a loan Cunningham a loan to buy his mining equipment. With Lambert's job with Cunningham no longer there it makes it easier for Janis & Steven to get him into position to take the fall in the robbery that they both planned. The fall would be in Lambert getting killed in a car crash with Lambert drunk and behind the wheel and burnt to a crisps where he'll be suspected to be Steven Price the guy who robbed his own bank! ****SPOILERS*** It when Janis falls in love with the person that both she and Steven are setting up that things start to unravel for the both of them. That's with Steven the person who's supposed to be killed in a car crash ending up unknowingly taking Lambert's place. That while a dead drunk and out of it Lambert when he finally sobered up thinking that he in fact killed him! What's even worse is that Lambert's friend Cunningham is the person framed in Price's murder when it's discovered by the police that his car accident was no accident at all! It's now up to Lambert to pick up all the pieces in this bizarre puzzle and put them together to get to the bottom to who was behind Steven Prices murder. Not realizing that it's the person closes to him Paula Craig who in fact did him in. And even worse had Cunningham a totally innocent man not only take the rap for his murder but possibly end up paying for it with his very life. It was Lambert's going out of his way to save Cunningham from being framed by Janis that turned the tables on her without him even knowing it. Being the one slated to be murdered by Janis & Steven Lambert in a way felt responsibly to get those who attempted to murder him to face justice. The fact that he survived due to Janis falling in love with him made it also possible for Lambert to prevent his friend Cunningham from taking the fall for Janis' crime that both she and her now dead partner in crime Steven Price unknowingly,by rejecting him a loan and getting Cunningham all heated up and threatening, framed him for.

One of the great things about film noir is that even though the key ingredients are over-familiar, if cooked up right they still taste fresh. A case in point is Framed, with a storyline straight out of chapter One of "Let's make a Film Noir". Down on his luck drifter meets a conniving dame who thinks he's just the ticket to act as the fall guy in her murderous scheme. Except that the potential patsy is way ahead of her and saved by his suspicion of dames that are just a tad too eager to help a total stranger they barely met. He almost falls for her obvious charms, but pulls away from the abyss just in time to turn her over to the law. No way he's gonna take the fall for her. When his partner is falsely accused of murder, he's supposed to do something about it, right? (Thanks,Bogey!). Yes, you've seen it all before in better and worse movies than this, but this one has everything we like about noir and served up in just the right way. Enjoy!

Glenn Ford, young and brittle, plays an unemployed, hard-drinking mining engineer saved from ten days in the hoosegow by a blonde waitress with evil in her eyes; turns out she and her partner need a fall guy once they swindle the local banker. Crosses and double-crosses in a mostly predictable vein, though just about saved by excellent directorial touches and intriguing noir detail (the wrench in the backseat, the poisoned cup of coffee). Ford isn't really convincing playing drunk and reckless--and it doesn't sit well with us having him cast as the possible dupe--yet he cuts a solid presence on the screen and the picture would be nothing without him. ** from ****

"Framed." A great title. Plus there is Glenn Ford, who brought so much torque to the role of heedless avenger in "The Big Heat." Then there is the plot, involving embezzlement, attempted poisoning, drunkenness, betrayal, murder, and playing doctor. The narrative is really too twisted to go into in any detail but the general idea is that Barry Sullivan is a banker who pretends to lend the grizzled old prospector, of which there is no other kind, a quarter of a million dollars, then steal the money himself, murder the old prospector, and frame the innocent mining engineer, Glenn Ford, for the crime. After that, Sullivan and his girl friend, Janice Carter, will take the loot and leave town. I hope I got that right. Sadly, although it looks like a neat noir thriller, it's just an ordinary, rather slapdash story of greed and treachery. Example of "slapdash." There's a scene towards the end in which Janice Carter realizes that Ford suspects her of the murder of which she is, in fact, guilty. She offers to make him some coffee. Alone in the kitchen, she reaches for a bottle of poison in the spice rack. Now, this bottle deserves some attention. It's not labeled "rat poison" or "weed killer." It's just labeled in bold black letters "POISON", as it would be in a Laurel and Hardy short. Add to it that the bottle is simply tucked in among the sugar and condiments -- probably alphabetized, just after "paprika" and just before "rue." She dumps some in his cup of coffee. Anyone who imagined how, say, Hitchcock would have handled this scene must have wept. Ford does little to help the narrative along. He's sullen and intense throughout, though capable of a much better display of skills. Janice Carter may have been a genuinely nice lady in real life -- kind to children and small animals. And she was a singer too. But her every expression, each utterance, each movement, are variations on the theme of perfidy. She telegraphs what she's thinking, and she does it with the subtlety of a traffic light. This is "worried." Now I'm "plotting." Here is "lying." Edgar Buchanan gives what is, for him, an animated performance. He's good natured and trusting, but dignified and practical too. He's a delight in a solemn movie like this.

FRAMED - 1947 I have had this one laying around for several years gathering dust so i decided it was time for a viewing. What a great little film noir it turned out to be! Glenn Ford, Barry Sullivan and Janis Carter headline this classic femme fatale ditty. Ford is a man who gets set up to take the fall for a bank robbery. The bank manager and his girl, played by Sullivan and Carter, plan to help themselves to $250 grand of the bank's cash. They plan to liquor Ford up, plant Sullivan's id on him and stick him behind the wheel of Sullivan's car. Then off a cliff and let the fire take care of the rest. Sullivan however has underestimated just how much Carter wants the cash. She applies a monkey wrench to the back of Sullivan's head instead of Ford. She then lets Sullivan take the spin off the cliff. Carter then sets Ford up as Sullivan's killer. Needless to say Carter's perfect plan is anything but. Carter comes across as a Joan Crawford clone in this one. A cold and calculating femme fatale if ever there was one. A brisk and to the point noir with cast and crew all shining. Great time-waster. (b/w)

Glenn Ford plays a stranger who drifts into town one day. However, he soon finds himself in a tiny bit of trouble and a beautiful lady (Janis Carter) comes to his rescue. However, this is NOT a kind lady but a femme fatale with an evil plan. Her and her married lover (Barry Sullivan) plan on murdering him in order to cover up some embezzlement. However, two huge monkey wrenches are tossed in--Carter's character is evil more evil than you might expect and Ford's is not nearly as stupid as she hoped. While the plot is decent (not great), the film is ultra-stylish, smoking hot and full of femme fatale badness--exactly what I like in a film! Not quite as hot and exciting as Ford's later film, "Gilda" but still quite good. It makes you wonder why Carter never really took off as an actress--she was exquisitely nasty and hot.