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Did You Feel Any Sympathy for This Character? / Spoilers

posted 18 years ago by Danusha_Goska
16 replies | jump to latest

SPOILERS!!!

Did you feel any sympathy for this character?

Were you supposed to?

Leona -- she's selfish and self deluded.

Stevenson -- he plans his wife's murder.

Evans -- he is weak and allows himself to be manipulated by Stevenson.

The Anne Richards character -- what kind of accent does she have? Her bio says she was born in Australia ... anyway, she seemed too noble to be true, esp. in a noir.

Doctor Alexander. Comes across as bored and lacking in involvement with his patients.

The father -- ew!

I know in noir characters are generally repulsive losers, but some can arouse some compassion.

I was surprised to feel some compassion for Leona, although through most of the movie I kept thinking, "Kill her! She deserves to die!"

Stevenson, the Burt Lancaster character, was too much of a function of the plot. When the plot needed him to be sexy, he was sexy; when the plot needed him to be homicidal, he was homicidal. His character never reached any depth or reality on his own.

I really felt for the poor scientist. i was amazed that that actor -- Harold Vermilyea -- had never made an impression on me before. Leave a message for me at the city morgue, indeed. And that close-up on the painting of horses was a real tear jerker.

The father? I wish he had somehow been killed, as well. What a creepy guy.

[–] FlyingNone 18 years ago

I feel sorry for Leona...she didn't deserve to be killed. When we see her hand go limp it doesn't make me cheer for the killer.

[–] xylonian-1 18 years ago

I always feel a little sorry for Mary Field, the Telephone Operator....She is uncredited in a lot of her movies!!!! I always like her performances though....

I agree that Leona should not have been murdered of course, I felt the most sympathy for Sally Hunt....she just keeps on losing.

Read My Lips!!!!

[–] Beaubelle 17 years ago

I love the perfect punishment for the Burt Lancaster character as he tries, too little and too late, to save his wife. And there's the police at the door of the phone booth at the end. Yummy.

[–] Beaubelle 17 years ago

I agree with Danusha that I wish her father could have been killed somehow....By the by, I do feel some sympathy for Leona in that she became involved and tried very hard to inform the police even before she dreamed that the phone call was discussing her own murder.

[–] mozli 17 years ago

Leona is a tough character for a lot of guys to have empathy for, especially guys from humble beginnings. That character has been given the privilege to lord it over so many people. When it is clear that she has really serious psychiatric problems Leona becomes far more likable.

Henry is pretty much a heel all the way through. Visually a feast but not much going on underneath.

Some people would say that they deserve each other.

[–] liamforeman 17 years ago

I just watched this last night. Okay, she has mental problems which causes her to think she's deathly ill enough that she can't move about her house. Got it. BUT, the fact that she wouldn't even get out of her damn bed to save her life just makes me realize that she was better off at the end.
No sympathy for Leona here.

[–] 17 years ago

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[–] dark_frances 16 years ago

No sympathy, for any character. This must be why the movie felt so special, so different from other noirs: all the main characters were flawed in ugly ways - not in the Bonnie & Clyde romantic style, not even in the poisonously interesting way of Double Indemnity. Here, everybody is just cheaply mean: Leona is an egoistical spoiled brat, her father is the type who got accustomed to pay and bribe his way though life, Henry is somebody who, though vaguely genuine in the beginning, did end up marrying for money and letting himself be stepped on by his wife's money - sure they didn't make it easy for him, but I'm positive there must have been another way out of it except for killing his wife, Dr. Alexander is criminally disinterested in his patient, and Waldo Evans is just a weak old man. There are no important nice features, not even impressive, dramatic faults: everybody is just petty and low. And yet the movie manages to be so gripping, and so intensely human...

Words, Mr. Sullivan, are precious things. And they are not to be tempered with!

[–] 16 years ago

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[–] jcappy 15 years ago

I have full sympathy for Leona Stevenson, Sally Hunt, and Waldo Evans.

At a lesser level, the doctor and the father, are somewhat sympathetic characters.

[–] trupodur 15 years ago

Yes imho everybody are nice in their own ways. Except Harry. Whata greedy bastard. Why in the the name of God didn't he take some other way of self-fulfillment instead of money-making? Astronomy, PO stamps collecting, the possibilities were endless for him!:)

[–] whateveer 13 years ago

I like Leona. She may be selfish but she is also a sick woman. Actually, at the end of the movie I got me hoping she would kill the murderer, lol.

[–] Zuider_Zee 12 years ago

No sympathy here. Leona was a spoiled rich bitch who walked over people and faked illness when she couldn't get her way.

[–] KutWrite (1334) 5 years ago

I agree.

She was so spoiled, manipulative and self-absorbed she helped cause her own death.

My hat was off to the killer, as he didn't accept her offer of a bribe!

No sympathy from me for anyone, except maybe Sally, who had to accept second-best due to Leona's bulldozing of Henry, and maybe Waldo, the scientist. Leaving a message that he could be reached at the morgue told me he'd broken his own moral code & would punish himself for it... protecting Henry, at least from his potential testimony.

Overall, though I didn't root for any character. That made the film almost a waste of time for me.

[–] 12 years ago

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[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) 4 years ago

Leona is definitely hard to like. I would never want to be acquainted with such a person myself. However, I found her and Burt Lancaster's characters really interesting to watch, so it didn't matter that they weren't very likeable.