SpecialsTarget Disturbing yet enthralling

SparkMore n my opinion it was a great movie with some interesting elements, even though having some plot holes and the ending probably was just too messy and crammed together, but still fun to watch and not your casual movie that is similar to all other ones.

Hadrina The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Alistair Olson After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

JohnHowardReid Producer: Hal B. Wallis. Copyright 14 January 1949 by Paramount Pictures Inc. New York release at the Paramount: 12 January 1949. U.S. release: 14 January 1949. U.K. release: March 1949. Australian release: 16 June 1949. Sydney release at the Victory: 27 May 1949. 9,243 feet. 103 minutes.COMMENT: No producer in 1940's Hollywood guided such a formidable collection of permanent classics as Hal B. Wallis: All This and Heaven Too, The Sea Hawk, The Letter, The Sea Wolf, Sergeant York, The Maltese Falcon, High Sierra, The Strawberry Blonde, King's Row, The Man Who Came to Dinner, Yankee Doodle Dandy, Now, Voyager, Casablanca, Watch on the Rhine, Saratoga Trunk, Sorry Wrong Number…One of Wallis's talents was the ability to select the right director for the script — and then to get the most out of him! "The Accused", while it is not one of his major films, is an excellent example of this technique.Ketti Frings at this stage was a writer with primarily a radio and stage background (though she had written the 1940 novel, "Hold Back the Dawn"). This training shows in her screenplay for "The Accused". If you close your eyes you can follow the story perfectly well, for it's written like a radio serial — very skillfully written with essential facts put over with power and subtlety, but it's purely verbal. The script has been wholly conceived in aural rather than visual.With such a scenario on his hands, what does a producer do? 99% would call in another writer — but not Hal Wallis. He assigns the script to a director with a noted visual flair — William Dieterle — who has given the film such a wonderful sheen and style (aided by atmospheric photography and deft film editing). Notice how deep focus framings are inventively utilized for maximum dramatic impact, how the lighting appropriately changes from the chilling murky gray of the flashback sequences to the contrasting brightness of the campus episodes, how long takes are adroitly inter-cut with reaction shots. The director builds up what is essentially a synthetic Loretta Young vehicle into a psychological thriller of considerable suspense and class. ittedly, too much footage is still taken up with the familiar Young heart-burnings and hysteria (she even has a pervading off- camera commentary as well), but many of the sequences (particularly those with Sam Jaffe and Wendell Corey) deliver a taut, tense, powerful impact.While the conclusion is somewhat abrupt and predictable, it's a movie that moves all the way thanks to Dieterle's frequent changes of set, scene and camera set-ups, and his skilled use of tracking shots and similar fluid camera movements.For all its aural orientation, the dialogue has a realistic edge to it which fine actors like Wendell Corey know how to deliver with the right amount of intensity. Corey has a tailor-made part, and receives excellent from character players like Sam Jaffe, Sara Allgood, Bill Mauch (one of the Mauch twins from "The Prince and the Pauper"), Francis Pierlot, Al Ferguson, Charles Williams and Henry Travers (yes, Henry Travers making a surprise unbilled appearance as Jaffe's assistant).Wallis has dressed "The Accused" in great production values, including sets, locations, and a vast crowd of extra players, among whom Bess Flowers can be spotted as a wardress at court. She even has one word of dialogue — "Sure.""I wasn't very happy with Wallis," Dieterle told Tom Flinn. "He used me to try to make something out of very second-rate material." This movie is an intriguing example of that fascinating and entertaining "something".

gordonl56 THE ACCUSED - 1949 Loretta Young, Bob Cummings, Wendell Corey and Sam Jaffe headline this rather dated noir.Psychology professor Young has a student who is a bit on the forward side. He is always pushing his attentions on Miss Young. Young finds this a bit on the awkward side and suggests he cool it.The young man, Douglas Dick, agrees to behave himself. After class, he offers Young a ride home after seeing she missed her bus. Young accepts but the ride goes nowhere near her place. They end up out on a secluded seaside lover's lane. There Dick becomes rather forceful with his advances. While fighting him off, Young bashes in his head with a handy iron bar. She then makes it look like an accidental death by dumping Dick off a cliff.Soon everyone seems to be knocking on her door, starting with Bob Cummings. Cumming is a lawyer who works for the dead man's family. Cummings is just checking about Dick's grades etc with his instructors. Several days later the body is fished out of the water and a coroner's inquest held.The death is ruled an accident which off course makes Young happy. Police Detective Wendell Corey is not quite so sure and decides to look deeper into the death. Young spends the rest of the picture trying to make sure she covered her tracks, as well as falling for Cummings. Cummings likewise takes a shine to Miss Young.Hanging around being a pest is Detective Corey. He slowly puts together a collection of clues that start to point at Young. Nothing solid, but lots of little clues that keep the cop digging. Helping him in this is forensic expert Sam Jaffe.To cut to the quick, Cummings also tumbles to Young being the killer. But he could care less as he is head over heels for her. Corey charges her and presents his case but knows it is going nowhere with a jury.The film is good looking, but somewhat lacking in the suspense area. The basic story has worn rather thin since 1949. Young as the bookish teacher etc. is old hat now. We know she was only defending herself which eliminates the femme fatale angle.Director William Dieterle did better work on his other film noir, ROPE OF SAND, DARK CITY and THE TURNING POINT. The film is still worth a look, but one is not likely to give it second viewing.

Emmjewels Guess I was the only one here who really enjoyed the characters of Warren Ford (Robert Cummings) and Wilma Tuttle (Loretta Young), as I looked beyond the fact that their 'circumstances' were what brought them together in the first place, to why I still consider this to be a true film noir despite it. Loretta's character was dead on in the way she 'handled' what happened to her with Bill Perry (Douglas Dick), because I've seen the same 'incidents' in other movies during the 1930's and 40's done almost in the exact same manner, and I won't have really expected anything different here to keep the storyline moving along. Wendell Corey (Lt. Ted Dorgan) was like a thirty bloodhound with a 'clue' that he didn't want to let go of, until he'd gotten exactly what he'd come for, and his 'quips' made it that much better to keep you watching just to see if he finally 'got his man'. Sam Jaffe (Dr. Romley) at times reminded me of a 'detective version' of 'Doctor Kildare', or even a lab coated version of 'Columbo', with the way he went about doing his 'job'. As for Douglas Dick (Bill Perry), what can you say about character who thinks he's the 'cats meow', is slicker than a bottle of 'Brylcreem', feels that all women are fascinated by him, but refuses to take 'NO' for an answer? "Don't you just love how some of these pretty boys end up"? So, all in all, I guess it just goes to show you that there are some of us out there who really "did" thoroughly enjoy viewing this movie (enough that I wouldn't mind seeing it available VHS or DVD for my own viewing pleasure.), and wouldn't mind seeing it again very soon. And my answer is 'yes', I do believe the plot of this film 'could' work by today' standards, 'if' it isn't changed too much in the long run.

bmacv The twist on what we now call sexual harassment lingers as the most interesting aspect of The Accused, an innocuous suspense story with some effective moments. Another lingering aftertaste is the midcentury stereotype of the female academic that's foisted on star Loretta Young -- and the viewer.Psychology professor Young (!), guarded and old-maidish (she's even saddled with the glamourproof name Wilma Tuttle), becomes the object of the unhealthy attentions of one of her students (Douglas Dick). On the pretext of diving for abalone shells off Malibu, he spirits her off to a secluded lover's lane one night and forces himself on her. She bashes in his skull and fakes his death to look accidental.Then she begins to attract more attention -- from Robert Cummings, a lawyer friend of the dead boy's family (he falls for her), and Wendell Corey, a dogged homicide cop. In the acting department, there's no contest; Cummings stays his usual namby-pamby self, while Corey delivers a strong, unsentimental performance, among his best.Much of William Dieterle's direction shows a practiced hand. Especially well handled are the opening sequence of Young fleeing the crime scene, a boxing match where she suffers a flashback, and the ghoulish reconstructions of the murder by forensic pathologist Sam Jaffe.But a glaring structural flaw keeps The Accused lukewarm. We know from the outset that Young acted in self-defense, which pretty well leeches all the suspense out of Corey's implacable pursuit; the tightening case against her packs no impact because it's safe to assume she won't be spending any time with those harpies from Caged. Consequently the film focuses more on her emergence from a cocoon of droopy skirts, a bun in her hair, sleeping pills and swooning spells into a seductive butterfly flitting into Cummings' net.Dick, as the young narcissist, calls to mind such amoral charmers as Robert Walker in Strangers On A Train and John Dall in Rope (a film in which Dick also appeared). It's he -- not young nor Cummings -- who supplies what faint erotic spark this movie, about a sexually-based murder, dares to kindle.