(1947)
2
Hans J. Wollstein
There is a scene in Framed that simply doesn't ring true: Femme fatale Janis Carter owns a bathrobe with a tendency to reappear in the wrong place at the wrong time. The wrong place and time for Miss Carter's nefarious scheme, at least, and apparently also for the censors, who demanded a line in the film explaining that the mountain hideaway where the garment so damagingly turns up belongs to the girl and not her society paramour, bank vice president Barry Sullivan. Certainly Miss Carter is well turned out, wears expensive-looking suits and always appears as if she just stepped out of a beauty parlor. And her waitress job is obviously a front. But that this woman would own a fabulous near-mansion in the mountains still stretches credibility to the limit. The reason for the censors' demand that the girl should own the place and not her boyfriend is obvious: The couple may be would-be killers but they cannot be seen sharing a love nest where her bathrobe may mix inelegantly with his. Heaven forbid! These silly censorship rules aside, Framed remains a thrilling example of 1940s film noir at its best: economically told, atmospherically photographed (at, among other places, Lake Arrowhead) and more than competently acted. Carter, especially, is a revelation and it is too bad that she was mostly used by Columbia Pictures for decorative purposes, a sort of second-tier Rita Hayworth.
Framed on AllMovie
Framed (1947)
