"THE MAN WHO CHEATED HIMSELF" (1950)

[rmichaelpyle]

I wanted to watch noir, so I put in a little thriller called "The Man Who Cheated Himself" (1950) with Lee J. Cobb, Jane Wyatt and John Dall. It's a good premise, and should have been a much better film, but there are strings left dangling which bothered me, though only slightly. The film comes off well, though the chemistry between Lee J. Cobb and Jane Wyatt couldn't work in a million years. It's supposed to be a sort of clandestine affair from the beginning, but even when the murder of Wyatt's husband occurs, the ongoing "chemistry" isn't. A couple of supposedly steamy scenes with kissing just seem more like the melodramatic stuff one might see in some bad silents. The police parts - and both Lee J. Cobb and John Dall are policemen and brothers in the film - are well done and the ironic things that happen noir wise are really good. I'll always see John Dall as the aggressive student killer in Hitchcock's 1948 "Rope", and his part here is definitely a step forward; indeed, he's better than Lee J. Cobb, though Cobb's good, certainly not great. Wyatt plays against type, and she's just a tad off base, but still comes off okay - but that's as far as I'll go. All in all, a fine way to spend an hour and a half, but anybody who sees this will wonder where in the world the writers and the editors were when the film was made. Some of the writing - especially near the beginning - and almost all of the editing could have been much, much better. The scenes at Fort Point, had they been filmed by a master like Hitchcock, would have become classics. Even as they are they are very good. All the San Francisco scenes are well done and add more than the actors at times.