great performance by Joan Bennett!!
This is another great performance by Joan Bennett in this film. It is one of her best.. at least in the top two or three of her career.
shareabsolutely true. what an actress, though i intended to watch this movie cause of ophüls and mason but bennett was as impressive as these fellows. have to look for some other movies with her, would like to see "scarlet street".
shareJoan Bennett was superb in The Reckless Moment. It's one of my favourite female performances of the 1940s and certainly one of the most sadly underrated. She was also terrific in Scarlet Street and The Woman in the Window, both of them opposite Edward G. Robinson, for anyone who hasn't seen those movies.
I loved her prim little housewife hairdo and horn-rimmed glasses in The Reckless Moment. She worked so well with the always excellent James Mason in this movie. They had such a steely, antagonistic sexual tension that slowly but surely gives way to a strangely intimate chemistry as the film progresses.
It's a testament to her skills that she went from a hot number in the 1948 SECRET BEYONG THE DOOR to the matronly housewife of THE RECKLESS MOMENT the following year. I can't help but wonder how happy Lucia's marriage to Tom Harper is, that she should fall in with Donnelly so easily. I have visions of Tom Harper being as deadly dull as actor Kent Smith.
BTW, in life, Joan Bennett was blind as a bat, and wore glasses constantly off screen.
"Don't worry. I'm not on the side of the saints yet."
"Scarlet Street" was a good film, but I liked "Woman in the Window" and "The Woman on the Beach" as well as "Man Hunt" better.
Was rather disappoinred by "Hollow Triumph" although I'm a Paul Henreid fan since I discovered the wonderful movie "Now, Voyager!".
I would love to finally see Joan Bennett in "The Wife takes a Flyer", "Navy Wife" and "Desire in the Dust". I'm checking TCM every 3 months for these 3 Bennet movies, but since April 2007 no luck...
I can not believe Joan Bennett was not nominated for any awards for her performance in this film. She was outstanding!
shareI agree, Bennett would have deserved an Oscar!
It's my favorite film noir and there are only a few other noirs like "My Name is Julia Ross", "Conflict" and "Dark Passage" that can compel me as much as "Reckless Moment" can.