What classics did you see last week ? (9Feb - 15 Feb 2020)

Great reviews Spike,& I caught up with with your superb notes on No Man of Her Own. Mostly having just recent flicks,I was surprised to spot it and Sorry, Wrong Number on Netflix. From when I saw it in Oct 2016:

9.

Getting a ticket for a character with some questionable "morals" Barbara Stanwyck gives an extraordinary,multi-layered performance as Helen Ferguson (the real name of Stanwyck's publicists!) / Patrice Harkness. Holding back on the Femme Fatale sensuality, Stanwyck places Ferguson in the traditional male position,with Stanwyck sealing Ferguson as a Film Noir loner grasping in desperation at the life of comfort standing in front of her,as the demons of the past start to gain traction on the image of the "new" Harkness.



Carrying the lies Ferguson has told with each handshake of the Harkness's, Stanwyck does not condone or condemn Ferguson's secrets,but instead expressively puts the motives across each thread of Ferguson's conflicting nature.
For the opening 30 minutes tracked from a Cornell Woolrich book,the screenplay by co-writer/(along with Catherine Turney and Sally Benson) director Mitchell Leisen gets the viewers guard down by presenting a mini-Melodrama,with glistering lights flaring up the high emotion.Taking Ferguson off the rails,the writers pull the darkest Film Noir veins open,where Ferguson embraces the Harkness for a "perfect image" that she uses to try and mask the Morley shadow on the horizon.



Building the foundation of the Harkness family as Morley whips up a reunion with Ferguson,the writers brilliantly give each family member "their moment",which stirs the action they take to keep the family unit together into a deliciously macabre Film Noir atmosphere,as Ferguson reveals that she does not need no man of her own.