Slug me with those, Cornell, and I’ll square you off if it takes me the rest of my life. – Vicki (1953)
Vicki (1953)
Most people remember this movie as a minor remake. They’re wrong. This is a bitter, cold-blooded 1953 Film Noir where nobody is innocent, the police are already too late, and the past refuses to stay buried. If you like your noirs lean, nasty, and quietly unforgiving, you’ll want to stick around.
“So, let’s start at the beginning.”
Hello to all of the classic people who are returning. I am glad you are back. I want to welcome any new visitors. Today on Classic Movie Review, we are taking on Vicki (1953). Today’s film is a remake of I Wake Up Screaming (1941), which I have already reviewed. You can check it out by using the link in the description.
This film has a modest 6.5[1] rating on IMDb.com. On RottenTomatoes.com, the film is savaged with no Tomatometer score and only 35 percent[2] for the audience score. Cranky old New York Times film critic Bosley Crowther wrote in a September 8, 1953, review:
“…Meanwhile, the rest of the performers—Jean Peters, as the girl who gets killed; Jeanne Crain, as her misgiving sister; Mr. Reid and several more—make the best of Harry Horner’s brisk direction to make it look as though they’re playing a tingling film. It might be, indeed, if the story were not so studiously contrived and farfetched…“[3]
I like this film, but not as much as I like I Wake Up Screaming (1941). I think it’s Jeanne Crain, as I feel she comes across as haughty or superior. But Jean Peters is amazing, so on we go.
I am initially slotting this film at 254 on My List of All Film Noirs. It is a good film and a good Film Noir, told mostly in flashbacks. However, it is not as good as I Wake Up Screaming (1941). Thus, the rating is at the bottom of the top 25 percent.
Actors – Vicki (1953)
Returning
Jean Peters plays the murdered Vicki Lynn. Most of her story is told in flashback, as most great Film Noirs are. Peters was first covered in the fantastic Film Noir Pickup on South Street (1953).
Richard Boone played the driven police Lt. Ed Cornell. Boone was first covered in the John Wayne extravaganza The Alamo (1960).
New
Max Showalter was cast as editorial columnist Larry Evans. Showalter was born in Kansas in 1917. He came by his interest in acting early, as his mother would take him along when she played the piano for silent movies.
Showalter appeared in 92 shows at the Pasadena Playhouse and moved to Broadway shortly after.
Showalter began working as a character actor in 1949. While he has some bigger roles, I don’t think he would be considered a leading man. His films include a big role in Film Noirs Niagara (1953) and Vicki (1953), both with Jean Peters. He was also in another Film Noir, Naked Alibi (1954).
He had roles in the War film The Naked and the Dead (1958), Elmer Gantry (1960), and the aviation thriller Fate is the Hunter (1964). There is a link to the latter.
His later work includes playing a Reverend in John Derek’s 10 (1979). Twenty-four years after Elmer Gantry (1960), he appeared with co-star Edward Andrews as the two grandfathers in the John Hughes-directed Sixteen Candles (1984). And buddy, that funny film did not age well.
He was also a songwriter and wrote the song “Vicki” for today’s film. Showalter died in 2000.
Jeanne Crain played the role of Jill Lynn. Jill was the level-headed sister of the murdered Vicki. Crain was born in California in 1925. She began acting in junior high and soon caught the bug. Failing on her first screen test, after high school, Crain attended UCLA and studied Drama. She won the Miss Long Beach beauty contest in 1941 and was soon cast in The Gang’s All Here (1943).
Her early films were hit-and-miss, but she became quite successful with Winged Victory (1944) and State Fair (1945). She played the good sister in the Film Noir Leave Her to Heaven (1945). In 1949, Crain appeared in A Letter to Three Wives (1949), The Fan (1949), and Pinky (1949). For the latter, she was nominated for a Best Actress Oscar.
Crain did a great job as the surprised mother-to-be in People Will Talk (1951) opposite Cary Grant. She did well in today’s film, Vicki (1953). Crain hit other genres with Western The Fastest Gun Alive (1956), and the Film Noir The Tattered Dress (1957). She appeared in many television shows. Her final film was the thriller Skyjacked (1972). Crain died in 2003.
Three guys in the background include future television producer Aaron Spelling as Harry, a desk clerk, Carl Betz, the dad from “The Donna Reed Show” as Detective McDonald, and Mayberry’s mayor, actor Parley Baer, as an uncredited detective.
Story – Vicki (1953)
The nighttime New York skyline is shown. It cuts to billboards, and each shows a picture of Vicki (Jean Peters). The one with her smoking looks like it is out of Pickup on South Street (1953). The view changes to posters of Vicki plastered on a wall. Around the corner, a mob of cops, reporters, and bystanders is standing by the entrance of an apartment. Someone says the model on the fourth floor has been murdered. A female body is rolled out, and the leg tag reads ‘Vicki Lynn’.
The credits roll over a painting of Vicki that looks suspiciously like the painting of Laura from Laura (1944).
At the Jersey shore, Ed Cornell (Richard Boone) exits a taxi and enters a hotel. There are magazines with pictures of Vicki all over the rack. Cornell tells the clerk that he wants peace and quiet to rest. As the oldest bellboy (Burt Mustin) comes for the bags, a ream of newspapers is delivered with Vicki’s picture and the headline Model Slain!!
Cornell glances over the story. With a look of disgust, he calls police headquarters in New York. He tells the Chief of Homicide (John Dehner) that he is returning and wants the Lynn case. The Chief tries to dissuade him, but Cornell touts his record and is allowed to return from his much-needed vacation. John Dehner and Richard Boone have an outside media connection as Dehner was the radio voice of Paladin and Boone played Paladin in the television series “Have Gun – Will Travel.”
Back at the station, Cornell looks at images of Vicki and a few people who were in her orbit. Cornell decides Steve Christopher (Elliott Reid) is the killer, right then and there. The detectives are already giving Steve the third degree with hot lights, no water, and general rough treatment.
Cornell joins the investigation, and they continue to work on Steve. He denies any wrongdoing. Steve’s story begins in flashback. He and columnist Larry Evans (Max Showalter) are coming back from a play. They generally agree that the play was bad. Evans thinks their friend, actor Robin Ray (Alexander D’Arcy), should get far away from it.
They see a beautiful waitress, Vicki Lynn (Jean Peters), cleaning tables in a café. They enter for coffee. All the time, Steve says that his job as a promoter will keep Robin’s show going, even though it is bad. Vicki is friendly to the duo, and they tell her she could be big. She says she has no talent or ambition. Steve gives Vicki his office address.
Steve says Vicki came to his office the next day, brimming with ambition. That night, he takes her to a fancy nightclub to be seen by high society. Vicki has been given the Eliza Doolittle makeover routine. Evans says he knows Vicki and she will appear in his newspaper column the next day.
Robin comes in and immediately starts making moves on Vicki. Steve dances with Vicki and works on the plan. Steve and Evans walk Vicki to her apartment. The desk clerk, Harry (Aaron Spelling), is rude to Vicki, and Steve gets hostile. Robin shows up, having followed the bunch. Vicki won’t let them go up because she shares an apartment with her sister Jill (Jeanne Crain). Harry gives Vicki the stink eye as she enters the elevator. Steve has another spat with Harry on his way out.
Back in the police interrogation, they are giving Steve a hard time about being rough with Harry. Cornell continues to give Steve the business, but he maintains he is innocent. In another part of the jail, they are interviewing Jill about her sister, but they are much nicer to her. They finally begin to ask her about Steve.
Jill flashes back to the night Vicki returned from her first outing with Steve and company. Jill can’t believe how head-over-heels Vicki is for a new life. Jill is very concerned about Steve’s motivation.
In the morning, Steve comes to the apartment, and Jill is pretty rude to Steve. He shows her the newspaper coverage about her sister. When Vicki sees the paper, she is swept up. Jill continues to describe Vicki’s rise from poster girl to club singer.
Jill continues that after about two months; Vicki accuses Jill of being in love with Steve. Vicki drops a bomb on Steve and company, telling them she is heading to Hollywood after a successful screen test. The guys are bummed, but Vicki doesn’t understand why. She won’t honor the contracts Steve had already signed for her.
In the interview room, Steve says that he was mad but didn’t kill Vicki. Steve, Evans, and Robin go drinking. They find that they all have the same engraved knife from Vicki.
During her interrogation, Jill describes an odd man watching Vicki through the café window. The man is shown to be Lt. Ed Cornell. Vicki is not worried, and Jill says the man was watching on other occasions.
The detectives accuse her of killing Vicki to get Steve for herself. They have Cornell come into Jill’s interrogation. She is shocked to see that he is the man who was watching her sister. Cornell admits that he was watching her because it was his district and job.
Cornell asks about the final meeting between Vicki, Jill, and Steve. They went for a drive. Vicki asks Steve to drive her to the airport the next day. Finally, Vicki alludes to Jill’s love for Steve. Her phrasing was that “you will be glad to get rid of me”.
Around 5 pm the next day, Jill arrives at her apartment. Music is playing loudly, and Steve is kneeling over Vicki’s dead body. Jill called the police.
Cornell goes back to Steve and asks about the you will be glad to get rid of me line. He then accuses Steve of murder before physically attacking him. The Chief requests that Steve be sent to his office. Cornell is sure Steve is guilty.
Jill is in the Chief’s office, and the Chief apologizes for the arrest. He says they now believe the killer is Harry, the clerk. Harry has been missing since the time of the murder.
Steve chases Jill down, but she wants nothing to do with a man who was accused of killing her sister.
Steve has a fitful sleep and wakes up to find Cornell in his room staring at him. Steve orders him out, but Cornell is calm and shows evidence that he found a cigarette butt in Vicki’s closet. Cornell says he has never made a mistake, and they are wrong about Harry being the killer.
The Chief brings in Cornell for a butt-chewing. The Chief says Harry is no longer a suspect and that Cornell is nowhere on the case. Cornell is still locked in on Steve as the murderer. The Chief insists that he bring in Robin.
Robin is terrified when he is brought in for questioning. Robin and Steve are brought into a dark room and are shown a film of Vicki singing. Robin demands they stop the film. The Chief has him brought to his office.
Robin says he fell in love with Vicki. He told her, and she laughed at him. Cornell has an alibi for Robin, as he was with another woman. Cornell tells Steve he is still IT. Both men are released.
Jill returns to her apartment, and no one is at the desk. She finds the door to her apartment, and Harry is inside packing Vicki’s clothes. Jill is horrified. Harry says he visited his parents for a couple of days, and the police said he was no longer a suspect. Steve calls for Jill, but Harry gives him the brush at Jill’s request. Harry almost steps on a doll he dropped and then becomes really weird.
At her new apartment, Jill sorts through Vicki’s things. She finds a note to Vicki, written on Steve’s paper that says, after the way you acted last night, the sooner you are out of the way, the better. The doorbell rings, and Jill hides the note in a book. It is Cornell at the door, and Jill tries to prevent him from entering, but she can’t. Cornell reacts oddly to the doll from before. He accuses Jill of hiding information about Steve because she is in love with him.
Jill calls Steve and sets up a meet for that night at her new apartment. As they head out, posters of Vicki are plastered on the wall. Cornell is hiding around the corner watching the pair.
Steve and Jill go dancing. She asks him if he was in love with Vicki, and he says he was not. He asks Jill to trust him and says he feels bad for pushing Vicki into the business so quickly. Jill tells Steve about the note and takes him back to her apartment, where she shows it to him. As soon as the note is in Steve’s hand, Cornell comes through the door and takes the note.
Cornell cuffs Steve at gunpoint. He then gives Steve a beating. Real tough guy beating up a handcuffed suspect. Cornell shows some brass knuckles that he claims came from Steve’s apartment. Cornell is about to hit Steve with the brass knuckles, but Jill clubs him over the head to stop the attack.
Jill and Steve go to the roof and escape the police who are surrounding the building. Steve says he will spend the night in an all-night movie. Jill and Steve admit they are in love and kiss. Steve asks Jill to meet him at a repair shop so he can cut off the handcuffs.
Cornell wakes up from the knock on the head and calls in an all points for Steve.
Cornell and some other cops arrest Jill outside the repair shop. The cops don’t find Steve, who is hiding under a car. He goes inside and eventually cuts the cuffs off with a hacksaw.
Cornell encourages the other cops to shoot Steve if they get a chance. Cornell leaves for his home. On the way, he walks by the café where Vicki used to work. He looks in the window and seems nostalgic.
In the morning, Cornell decides to use a butterfly-collecting technique: releasing a female to lead them to the male. He has Jill turned loose against the advice of Detective McDonald. Jill goes home, and Cornell is watching from outside. She finds a letter from the Rosedale Cemetery, along with the cards from the flowers delivered to Vicki’s grave. They say things like, “until tomorrow” and “because I promised.”
Jill heads across the rooftop and goes to find Steve in the all-night theater. More about that in the conclusion. She finds Steve, and he says he has seen the movie four times, and the butler was the killer. Of course, that is a line associated with those big cast-who-done-it mysteries where no one suspects the butler until the reveal.
Steve says that until tomorrow is how Evans signs off his newspaper column. Steve goes into Evans’ apartment and asks about the flowers. Evans tries to pull a gun on Steve, but Steve gets the drop on him.
In flashback, Evans says that he was with Vicki on the day of the murder, and she left her key behind. He and she went to the apartment building, but all of her keys were missing, as was the desk clerk, Harry.
Evans climbs the fire escape and opens the apartment for Vicki. He quickly lets her inside, and she flirts with Evans. She asks if he will soon forget her. He says he will remember her for 2 weeks and send flowers every day for 14 days. She makes him promise. Evans leaves, and as he goes, the door to the closet opens from the inside by an unseen person.
Back in the current time, Evans finishes his story. Steve questions him further and learns that Harry was not at the desk when he left, and that the bedroom smelled of cigarette smoke. Steve remembers that Jill found a burning cigarette in the ashtray when she went back to get Vicki’s things.
Steve surprises Detective McDonald by poking a gun in his back. Steve tells the detective he needs just half an hour and surrenders the gun.
Harry is asleep at the desk. The switchboard buzzes, and the female voice on the end of the line says it’s Vicki and asks Harry why he killed her and if he loved her. He hangs up, but the female keeps calling back. Steve runs in and confronts Harry. He runs down the entire story. Finally, Harry confesses.
Harry tells that he confessed to Cornell and was told to forget about it and go back to work. Detective McDonald arrests Harry. Jill was the one making the call from the apartment. Steve asks for five minutes with Cornell, and Detective McDonald agrees.
Cornell arrives at his apartment carrying flowers. Steve knocks the cop down and pushes him inside. The apartment is a shrine to Vicki with flowers, candles, memorabilia, and pictures. Cornell is moving like a zombie. He takes a small pill. He says he went after Steve because he took Vicki away from him. But that really was only in his fantasy world.
Cornell had one cup of coffee with Vicki, found this apartment, and planned to marry her. Of course, Vicki didn’t feel that way. Steve said Vicki called him a vulture. Cornell tries to get Steve to shoot him, but he won’t. Jill comes in with Detective McDonald, who takes Cornell into custody.
Jill and Steve walk down the street and kiss. Vicki’s posters are being removed as the world moves on to the next thing.
Conclusion – Vicki (1953)
The movie Steve was watching when Jill found him was Laura (1944). Like today’s film, Laura (1944) also features a cop investigating the murder of a woman, with the single first name, as the title, the investigation looking into her group of male friends, and one of these was also a newspaper columnist who promoted people. He also used his column to destroy careers. It is a great movie and well worth watching.
For a bit of connections, Jill (Jeanne Crane) enters a theater where Laura (1944), featuring Dana Andrews and Gene Tierney, is playing. Crane appeared in four movies with Andrews, who also appeared in five movies with Tierney.
In I Wake Up Screaming (1941), Frankie Christopher (Victor Mature) showed his connection with the local street area, and it seemed more likely that he would know where he could cut off a pair of handcuffs. Steve Chrisopher (Elliott Reid) was not given a background like this.
In I Wake Up Screaming (1941), Detective Ed Cornell (Laird Cregar) came across as much creeper and more menacing than Lt. Ed Cornell (Richard Boone). Also, Boone’s character took the pill as did Cregar’s character; however, Cregar’s suicide was shown, and Boone lived and got arrested.
All in all, Vicki (1953) is good, but I Wake Up Screaming (1941) is a much better film and a strong contender for the title of the first classic Film Noir.
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[1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0046515/
[2] Vicki | Rotten Tomatoes
[3] THE SCREEN IN REVIEW; ‘ Vicki,’ a Rehash of Old Murder Movie by 20th Century-Fox, Is Newcomer at Roxy – The New York Times
