But there is no reality where 24 year old Lana Turner is married to 48 year old Cecil Kellaway.
He's not super wealthy, and the "explanation" given in the setup doesn't compel you to believe she would marry this middle aged, dumpy man.
Throughout this movie, this idea just ran though my mind.
Sorry for those of you who love this film, but this is a near fatal flaw in the believability of the film.
This is one of my favourite films but you are, of course, absolutely correct! It is quite unbelievable that a gorgeous looking woman like Lana Turner would even look at someone like Cecil Kellaway (no disrespect to him, he's a great actor, but unfortunately grossly miscast in this), let alone marry him! I suppose it's one of those flaws you just have to overlook if you're going to enjoy the film. I guess he was under contract at M.G.M. at the time and wasn't doing anything, so they assigned him the role of Nick.
I think one of the problems (aside from his looks of course) is the fact that he basically has a sweet personality, so when attempts to be nasty about going to look after his sick sister it just doesn't ring true.
That being said, the chemistry between Lana and John Garfield is fantastic!
The genre of film-noir is full of these little unbelievable details. But who cares? Their part of it and the true film fanatics won't question them, never. Almost all film-noirs are predictable and some twists wouldn't even convince the naivest children. But the one who is troubled by these hasn't yet understood the essence of the genre. Or perhaps film-noir isn't just a genre for a person like that. I for one love film-noir but didn't enjoy this as much even though it was a good film. Visconti's adaption is without a doubt the best -- Ossessione (1943).
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