best movie i've ever seen.

It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

Sure, there was Martha Ivers. But for quite some time after her electrifying performance in Double Indemnity, Barbara Stanwyck, as one of Hollywood's great femme fatales, became an actress in need of a suitable follow-up to Phyllis Dietrichson. This time, she's found it with Thelma Jordon, the title character of a picture where she is allowed to be even more dangerous and even more sinister than that earlier incarnation of evil. Miss Stanwyck's work as an up-to-no-good dame is first class, and audiences are in for quite a few jolts. Such a thrilling performance is guided by Robert Siodmak, whose direction is on par with Billy Wilder's best efforts.The File on Thelma Jordon is apparently a rather extensive one. In its most gripping moments, the film provides a powerful examination of the justice system-- a cautionary tale, if you will-- showing how someone can get away with murder and manipulate the system to her own ends. We see this when Miss Stanwyck's character is on trial, and it is rather clear she's not going to hang for her misdeeds. There is a long tracking shot as bad-girl number one is brought over from the jail to hear the verdict. Siodmak shows her marching along the street, up the steps and into the courtroom, almost as if it were a victory parade.All throughout this process, Stanwyck shows us the harder edges of the character while suggesting shades of humanity and vulnerability. Another benefit of this production is a special quality that Wendell Corey adds, expertly playing a pansy lawyer who gets sucked into her schemes to evade justice. The actors could easily chew the scenery in this one, but they wisely avoid the temptation to indulge in such theatricality. Thelma Jordon may be guilty of many things, but she is innocent of that.

Not entirely without interest, this is a rather dark story of Wendell Corey, an Assistant D.A. alienated from his wife and two children, who bumps into Barbara Stanwyck by accident and falls for her. They have a secret affair. Then Stanwyck's wealthy old auntie is shot and killed during a burglary and the evidence all points to Stanwyck, who is brought to trial. It seems like an easy case for the D.A.'s office except that the records show that Stanwyck has been receiving phone calls from a man who continually identifies himself by different names, although he never says, "Is Miss Jordon there? This is Wendel Corey". Corey's boss, Paul Kelly, names the mysterious caller "Mister X", and worries that the defense may introduce reasonable doubt using Mister X as the fomenter.Now, Corey is in an uncomfortable position, to say the least. He's assigned to try the case, convict his lover, and send her to the gas chamber. But he has all kinds of problems. Not only is he devoted to her, not only is HE the mysterious Mister X, but he believes Stanwyck when she tells him she's innocent. He winds up sending her notes, advising her on who to hire as defense counsel, and he sends her five thousand bucks to manage expenses. Corey also decides to bungle the case in as nuanced a way as possible.I ask you, the experienced viewer of old black-and-white crime dramas, is she innocent or is she setting up Corey as the fall guy? Stanwyck is set free. And Corey discovers there is another man in the picture. There have probably been OTHER men, as well. If he is Mister X, there was first a Mister A, then a Mister B, and then .... Mister n. (That's the way you denote a finite string of variables of unknown length in statistics.) Stanwyck spills the beans to Corey. This is known as "cooling out the mark". But she does a very clumsy job of it, leaving Corey in a state of humiliation and despair. Stanwyck has shown no remorse so far. But as she is driving away towards a new life with her Greaseball boyfriend behind the wheel, she decides to coagulate his eyeball with the car's red-hot cigarette lighter and, well, there is a fiery plunge off a cliff, and she winds up dying on a hospital bed. After she makes her final confession to Paul Kelly, she passes away peacefully, the vehicular catastrophe not having disfigured her in any way, her hair and make up impeccably done. Not even her false eyelashes have been disturbed.This movie must have been made after "Double Indemnity" because it follows the same trajectory, more or less. I much prefer the original, or even the remake, of "Double Indemnity," but this isn't an insulting copy, only a less original one. Use caution, though. You have to sit through a sappy soap opera for the first half hour, directed at a glacial pace and completely lacking in conversational sparkle.

A woman with an unsavory past lures a troubled, married assistant D.A. into an adulterous affair; when her aunt is murdered, she's accused of the crime and her lover tries to sabotage the prosecution's case with tragic results.Dissatisfaction with the suburban American Dream is an undercurrent in a few Films Noir and this one is reminiscent of Andre de Toth's PITFALL in that respect. There's also a doomed romanticism that recalls Siodmak's earlier CRISS CROSS with its all-too-human femme fatale along with a curious, mixed-message moral ambiguity: trying to change what he was cost Cleve Marshall dearly -but when Thelma Jordon tried to change what she was, it proved fatal. Breaking out of private traps is a futility in Film Noir and is shown to good effect here. Barbara Stanwyck's Thelma is a Phyllis Dietrichson with heart and she plays well off the weaker Wendell Corey's Cleve. Authority figure Paul Kelly is always a welcome presence and daddy's girl Joan Tetzel is appropriately sympathetic as Cleve's neglected wife. THE FILE ON THELMA JORDON may be a minor entry in the canon that's not very impressive on a visual or technical level but this Hal Wallis/Paramount production is still worthwhile for those addicted to the genre.

THE FILM ON THELMA JORDON is a very good example of Film Noir and it's extremely reminiscent of Barbara Stanwyck's earlier success in DOUBLE INDEMNITY. In both films, she plays a lying and conniving femme fatale that is able to wrap a man around her finger in order to get what she wants and by the end of the film, both are ruined. However, instead of her target being an insurance investigator, in THELMA JORDON, she pursues an assistant district attorney (Wendell Corey).The film begins with Corey having an argument with his wife and he's getting drunk and feeling very sorry for himself. Soon Barbara Stanwyck's character appears and before long they're having a sleazy romance--as both are married. It's very hard to care about either one of them at this point and it's not hard to guess that Stanwyck is just plain bad! Where exactly the film goes from there, I'd rather not say--after all, it would spoil the film's many nice twists and turns. At the end, there is a nice little twist in particular that probably will satisfy many, though to me it just didn't ring true. After all, a REAL femme fatale would NEVER have a pang of conscience! Overall, it's a very interesting and well acted film. I really have no severe complaints, though at times the film was a tad predictable--so much so that you just have to assume that Corey's character is an idiot!! Still, a decent representation of the genre.