The Web

Director: Michael Gordon Michael Gordon

Overview

The Web is the definitive film noir title; the film itself is not quite as definitive, but is one of the better second-echelon examples of its genre. Attorney Edmond O'Brien and police lieutenant William Bendix join forces to trap a suspected murderer. The culprit is above-suspicion industrialist Vincent Price, who is behind two murders and a million-dollar robbery. O'Brien gets himself hired as Price's bodyguard, falling in love with the suspect's secretary Ella Raines. As the story progresses, Price contrives to use O'Brien as a fall guy for another murder--and it looks like he'll get away with it. The Web was the first directorial job for Michael Gordon, who spent the rest of the 1940s turning out above-average mellers for Universal.

Product Details

Release Date:	07/13/2021
UPC:	0738329254131
Original Release:	1947
Rating:	NR
Source:	Kl Studio Classics
Language:	English
Time:	1:27:00
Sales rank:	13,495

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Edmond O'Brien	Bob Regan
Vincent Price	Andrew Colby
Ella Raines	Noel Farraday
William Bendix	Lt. Damico
Maria Palmer	Martha Kroner
John Abbott	Charles Murdoch
Fritz Leiber	Leopold Kroner
Howland Chamberlin	James Nolan
Tito Vuolo	Emilio Canepa
Wilton Graff	District Attorney
Robin Raymond	Newspaper Librarian
Ed Begley	Man
Joe Kirk	Plainclothesman
William Haade	Plainclothesman
Ethan Laidlaw	Plainclothesman
Audrey Young	Secretary
Pierre Watkin	Mr. Griswold
Alex Frazer	Medical Examiner
Jack G. Lee	Maintenance Man,Maintenance Man
Lorin Raker	Assistant
Lee Phelps	Policeman
Ted Stanhope	Clerk
Robert Allen	Office Boy,Office Boy
Jack Gargan	Ticket Man
Gino Corrado	Waiter
Lee Shumway	Cop
Ralph Montgomery	Photographer
Howland Chamberlain	James Nolan
Russ Conway	Mike, Fingerprint Man
H.J. Salter	Composer

Technical Credits

Bertram Millhauser

William Bowers

Jerry Bresler	Producer
Michael Gordon	Director
Bertram Millhauser	Screenwriter
William Bowers	Screenwriter

Editorial Reviews

The Web is a seminal film noir title, and one of the more unjustly underrated films in the genre. Indeed, it's a marvelous juggling act on the part of writers Harry Kurnitz and Bertram Millhauser (whose credits also include some of the better Basil Rathbone/Nigel Bruce Sherlock Holmes movies at Universal) and director Michael Gordon, who manages to keep several interlocking and intertwined relationships and story components in the air at once, and pulls them all together so neatly in the finale that the viewer scarcely realizes what's happened until it's over. There's a tremendous amount that's right with this movie, from the little touches of decadence surrounding Andrew Colby (Vincent Price) and the world he lives in, up through the earthy, lusty relationship that develops between Edmond O'Brien's Bob Regan and Ella Raines' Noel Faraday. O'Brien's basic honesty as an actor meshes with Raines' exceptional good looks and cold, cool acting style to strike sparks in their talk, and there's a seduction scene (interrupted, alas, by a shooting) played to the last movement of the Brahms "Symphony No. 1" that's pretty neat in all of its not-too-veiled lustiness. And then there's the relationship between Regan and William Bendix's Lieutenant Damico, which is a strange mix of friendship and suspicion -- and Bendix's carefully nuanced portrayal of a hardened New York City police detective. Gordon pulls all of this together around a pretty fair mystery and plot, and the result is a quietly scintillating example of the film noir genre, with some refreshing elements. For once, not only is the hero not the smartest (or the second-, or even the third-smartest) character in the plot, but the police seem to know what they're doing and who they're dealing with. However, it's also realistic enough to acknowledge that in the absence of evidence to back up what he suspects, even a good cop might try and take the easy route and pick up Regan and Faraday if it comes to making a pinch on a murder and conspiracy case (but he'd rather arrest the right guy). The ending may seem a little predictable 50-plus years on, because the particular plot device has been used so many times in movies and on television since, but if one can put aside memories of Peter Falk's Lt. Columbo et al., it still works and shows surprising sophistication for its period.