Nora Prentiss (1947)

User Rating:

7.0/10   

Director:

Vincent Sherman

Writers:

Paul Webster (story) and
Jack Sobell (story) ...

Release Date:

22 February 1947 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Film-Noir

Tagline:

A mouth like hers is just for kissing not for telling

Plot:

Quiet, organised Dr Talbot meets nightclub singer Nora Prentiss when she is slightly hurt in a street accident...

Plot Keywords:

Beautiful Woman | Character Name In Title

US TV Schedule:

Sun. July 19

4:00 AM

TCM

Cast

Ann Sheridan	...	Nora Prentiss
Kent Smith	...	Dr. Richard Talbot aka Robert Thompson
Bruce Bennett	...	Dr. Joel Merriam
Robert Alda	...	Phil Dinardo, Cafe Owner
Rosemary DeCamp	...	Lucy Talbot
John Ridgely	...	Walter Bailey, Heart Patient
Robert Arthur	...	Gregory Talbot
Wanda Hendrix	...	Bonita 'Bunny' Talbot
Helen Brown	...	Miss Judson, Talbot's Nurse
Rory Mallinson	...	Fleming, Talbot's Lawyer
Harry Shannon	...	San Francisco Homicide Lieutenant
James Flavin	...	District Attorney
Douglas Kennedy	...	NYC Emergency Room doctor
Don McGuire	...	Truck Driver who Hits Nora
Clifton Young	...	Policeman arresting Truck Driver

Also Known As:

The Sentence (USA) (working title)

Runtime:

111 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Sound System)

Certification:

Finland:K-16 | USA:Approved (PCA #11492, Adult Audience)

Company:

Warner Bros. Pictures

Movie Connections:

Featured in Okay for Sound (1946)

Soundtrack:

Who Cares What People Say?

Bleak and Shocking

This movie allows the viewer no easy out. Its female character cannot be hated. Ann Sheridan, not generally a favorite of mine, is excellent in a subdued performance and her character is very honorable. Well, apart from fooling around with a married man. But without that, we'd have no story.

The absolute destruction of the Kent Smith character is shocking. It is not entirely plausible psychologically, but this is a movie. His wife is cold and uninteresting. She doesn't even recognize him in court after he's had plastic surgery necessitated by an accident. And Sheridan is gorgeous and beautifully costumed and coifed.

Robert Alda, a very handsome and talented actor who ought to have been a huge star and but is known primarily because of his real-life son Alan, is likable as Sheridan's admiring boss.

But this movie is about the total degradation and disintegration of a man who's an upstanding citizen when we meet him. We see him leave his family, forego his career, become a disheveled savage in the identity he's taken on to be with the woman he lusts after, and finally we see him convicted of a murder he did not commit. But he is beyond caring about saving himself and we are left with our mouths agape.