I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

The estates of Reginald Rose and Hugh Wheeler should be looking at Gillian Flynn's novel and ask how much of this this film influenced her novel. We have a neurotic somewhat psychotic wife, Carolyn Jones here channeling Bette Davis, upset and angry with her husband because he refuses to return to New York. She makes a scene at a party implying her husband is a wife beater. Once the stage is set incidents make it appear her husband killed her. The big difference is the band of local children who believe John, Alan Ladd, is innocent and join forces to protect him and help prove he is innocent and if his wife is dead then there must be another killer. And yes, in this film she really was killed. What I find most amusing about the film is its being set in a mythical town in CT that seems a lot like Westport in the 1950's except for the townspeople who have a lynch mentality and don't want to hear the facts that would clear John. But who really did it--yes she was was really killed--her lover or the local sheriff or was it someone else. The ending is a bit of a surprise but all ends well; almost too well.

Words can't describe how bad this film is. I'm gonna try my best though.I'll say right off that Alan Ladd just looks terrible in this. He was in his mid to late 40's and he looked like he was in his 60's. His scenes where he runs looks like he's an old man. I don't know if he wasn't athletic or he was under the influence of something but this performance reminded me of the last film Montgomery Clift did. With the exception of Shane and a few film noirs in the 40's, Alan Ladd was not a very good actor. He's a cigar store Indian in his thing. Looks and even is as wooden as one. Just terrible all the way through.A struggling, use to be art director at an ad firm decides to move to Connecticut country with his wife. She's highly unstable and a drunk to boot. She had a breakdown in New York and he wants to see if the country will help. While he's there he can concentrate on his art/painting. She's feels trapped in the country and wants to go back to New York but he insists on a Psychiatrist visit. She refuses. He gets a job offer from his previous company with better money but he would rather just paint and try and sell his stuff. With this decision, the crux of the film starts. We get a seriously ill woman who does everything to ruin her husband. She does everything imaginable and then.... she gets killed and he gets framed for it. Then the Connecticut lynch mob appears and they want this guilty rascal for all it's worth. It's just a B film all the way folks. The only stand out performance is Carolyn Jones' portrayal of the psychotic alcoholic wife. She really nails it down. Other than that this is just a bottom feeder. There's one scene where he gets a phone call from a friend. After the call ends he leaves the room and you can see a crew members shadow in the foreground of the scene. It wouldn't be too obvious if he didn't walk right by. I mean I thought it was Alan Ladd but nope. Wow, now that's quality editing. I grew up in the south and I've never heard of a lynch mob from Connecticut. I thought people from the north east were progressive and gave people the benefit of the doubt. This guy was an artist and strange so that meant...he guilty...let's go get him.Folks...save your time and run from this thing. To call this thing anything else but bad would sully the name of bad.

Like a lot of classic film stars, Alan Ladd's career ended on a low rather than a high note, and one of his last films, 1959's Man in the Net, is a good example of this. It was also one of the last films for director Michael Curtiz who directed such classics as "Casablanca." It's a poor effort from such an accomplished man.Ladd plays an artist who has left the pressure of NYC and his full time job in order to paint. He spends most of his time in the woods, painting, while a group of local kids play nearby and talk with him. His major problem isn't the brushes and colors, though, it's his wife (Carolyn Jones), an alcoholic who wants to return to the social atmosphere that helped her drinking along in the first place. Here in the boondocks, she's hooked up with the ritzy set, to Ladd's displeasure.When he returns from a business trip to New York City, his wife is missing, there is blood on his painting clothes, his paintings have been destroyed, and everybody thinks he's responsible. With the help of the children he has befriended, he eludes the police and is able to get the proof he needs to exonerate himself.With a tighter script and someone other than Ladd, this might have been a decent movie. The kids are adorable, and that angle of the script plays out nicely. Ladd, unfortunately, sleepwalks through the role and at times, actually looks like a blind man. I tried to figure out why, and I think it's just because he's literally staring into space instead of focusing on something. There was never anything spectacular about Ladd's acting - what he had was a presence, a toughness, and good looks. These are all gone, and in their place is a puffy, heavy-lidded, slow man.In contrast, the striking Carolyn Jones is full of energy in her role. With her signature short haircut and Bette Davis eyes, Jones was an edgy actress who left us too soon. She was very good at playing neurotic party girls and straying wives, though she's remembered today as Morticia on "The Addams Family" TV show.All in all, "The Man in the Net" plays like a television drama, with the suburbanites going after Ladd like they all live in the wild west. Someone commented that today he would be suspicious for hanging out with children, and that aspect dates the film as well. It's a shame, because the nicest aspect of the movie was the way the kids rallied around him and helped him.If you loved Ladd in "This Gun for Hire," "The Glass Key," "The Blue Dahlia," and "Shane," skip this. You don't need to see a fallen star.

After seeing the excellent "13 West Street" (1962), with Alan Ladd, I had high hopes for "The Man in the Net". Another B&W film from his later years might be similar, I thought. I was very disappointed. This movie had, I thought, MORE going in: like, famed Director Michael Curtiz, and co-star Carolyn Jones. They were not at their best.As others have noticed, Ms. Jones does a totally-out-of-the-blue Bette Davis impression. I would have spotted her as a boozy floozy right off the bat, but even her BEST friend has no clue??? Mr. Ladd, great in "13 West Street" and one of the only things worth watching in "The Carpetbaggers"(1964), is not very good. The story is very weak. How is it that all the townspeople are stupid and their children so smart? Despite the weakness of the premise, there are some interestingly played scenes; the film does have a structure, which is easy and somewhat satisfying to follow, despite the implausibility. **** The Man in the Net (1959) Michael Curtiz ~ Alan Ladd, Carolyn Jones, Diane Brewster