Big Bluff

Director: W. Lee Wilder Producer: W. Lee Wilder Production Company: Planet Filmplays Inc.
Audio/Visual: sound, b&w

- August 26, 2004
Subject: Swanky and skanky!

Big Bluff (1955, 70min ) When terminally ill rich-girl Valerie is advised by her doctor to go somewhere quiet for a rest, she chooses "The Town House," a swingin' fifties LA hotel--it's even got a Tiki nightclub on the first floor. She meets Riccardo (who alas, is just a gigolo), and he's got a girlfriend: nightclub dancer Fritzi.

Rich girls in swanky nightclubs, skanky guys with fast convertibles but not a dime in their pocket. Always a formula for trouble. This movie has it... in spades, baby.

Many funny scenes with this grade-B cast. You'll find yourself backing up the film to watch little moments and laughing over and over again. The best is when Valerie tells Ric that Doctor Peter said she hasn't long to live. Valerie grabs Ric and says with such earnest passion: "Oh Ricky, I want to live! I want to live... with you!" Marsha and Peter give each other a look that can only mean: "Ew. We're outta here."

Not a bad plot, even if a bit predictable. All the hot spots are represented: Hollywood, Palm Springs, and Wakiki Beach. They go to many cocktail lounges. They wear cool clothes. There's a lot of grabbing and kissing. The whole movie oozes with 1950s swank, which makes it fun to watch. And it has a great ending. Read more about this movie on Amazon:

Not quite bottom-of-barrel marital-murder story from Billy Wilder's talent-free brother, 6 May 2003

Author: bmacv from Western New York

Sibling rivalry can be a dreadful thing; look at Joan Fontaine and Olivia De Havilland. Sometimes, however, it approaches farce. W. Lee Wilder probably should have stayed in New York making purses, but, no, he had to follow his little brother Billy to Hollywood. And in Hollywood, maybe he could have been a passable producer (two early Anthony Mann movies, The Great Flamarion and Strange Impersonation, bear his credit). But, no, he had to direct, showing the world how vast was the disparity between young Billy's talents and his own inadequacies. Billy, long estranged, used to call him `a dull son of a bitch,' and he was being generous: W. Lee isn't merely dull, he's barely competent.

The Big Bluff rehashes a plot that Wilder had used in 1946 for The Glass Alibi. Merry widow Martha Vickers has a bum ticker and only a few months left to live. Off she goes to California with paid companion Eve Miller only to cross paths with slick operator John Bromfield (he brags about business interests in Central America but he's just a gigolo). The prospect of coming into her money at her early death emboldens Bromfield to court and marry her.

But there are obstacles. Her secretary/companion and her physician (Robert Hutton) harbor suspicion of Bromfield's motives. And Bromfield's mistress Rosemarie Stack, half of a sultry nightclub act with her jealous husband Eddie Bee, doesn't cotton to his romancing another woman. But the impatient Bromfield, not content with letting nature take its course, starts tampering with Vickers' pill supply. When, paradoxically, she seems to thrive under his care, he concocts a back-up plan, and the movie jutters along to a twist ending, à la Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

The plot is hand-me-down James M. Cain, done proud by the cheesiness of its direction (it's like a stock-footage festival). Wilder lets his cast get away with the stiffest readings of the literal-minded script (Martha Vickers would never nab many statuettes, but Howard Hawks goaded her into acting as Carmen Sternwood in The Big Sleep). Yet every so often there's a dark glint that keeps one watching: Bromfield and Stack plotting in a shadowy hotel staircase; Bromfield and Vickers toasting with schnapps at Scandia or `lo-balls' at La Rue. Something saves The Big Bluff from sinking to the very bottom of the barrel; it sure wasn't Wilder.