THE WEB (1947)

Look, Ella Raines is in it. Now go find it and watch it.


That’s not advice — it’s just how I tend to respond when I discover a new Raines picture. There are only about twenty or so out there, and I savor each one of them. While as a Raines film noir, The Phantom Lady has no peer, The Web is a good film with a big role for the elegant brunette. Most of the conversation about The Web tends to swirl around whether or not the movie is actually a film noir. For what it’s worth: it is a film noir, albeit a lesser one, written and filmed in that brief window of time following the war when the fear of nuclear devastation hadn’t yet permeated the American psyche, and the accompanying cynicism hadn’t taken root in film noir. That’s not to suggest that the film is without cynicism — the mere presence of Edmond O’Brien guarantees it. Instead, The Web is a film noir with roots in the conventional mystery film of the previous decade: though it is a noir it never feels hopeless, and it moves doggedly towards a positive outcome. It is different from the more iconic films to follow only in that it occurs earlier in the cycle — a cycle with evolving conventions.


The story is intriguing: Little old man does five years in stir after getting caught selling a million dollars’ worth of forged government bonds. He refuses to talk, knowing that if he does the time he’ll be taken care of when he finally gets to breathe fresh air again. Meanwhile, the partner figures it makes more sense to kill him than to pay off, so he sets up a patsy to do the job. After the deed is done the patsy gets wise and sets out to bring his employer down — in addition to a guilty conscience he realizes that he fallen for the man’s secretary / girl Friday. In the end though, the patsy and the girl are caught in the downward spiral of cruel luck, unable to save themselves (There’s the noir!) until fate takes a hand and the bumbling, all-too-confident killer foolishly incriminates himself.


The slick businessman is Vincent Price, the patsy is Edmond O’Brien, the girl Friday is Ella Raines, and the smug cop investigating them all is big Bill Bendix. Price was born for these sorts of parts, his mannered performance here reminiscent of his work in Laura, though not entirely — replace Shelby Carpenter’s whininess with smooth self-confidence and you’ve got The Web’s Andrew Colby. Price may have even borrowed from another “web” — Clifton Webb, his costar in Laura. One fascinating way in which this can be seen in Price’s character is the suggestion of his homosexuality. Colby spends his days and evenings with Raines’ Noel Faraday, and although their relationship is more than merely professional, the film is carefully avoids any suggestion of romance, which clearly defies Hollywood convention. In many ways their relationship is similar to that of Waldo Lydecker and Laura Hunt — except that in The Web Colby encourages the Regan’s passes, demonstrating his lack of romantic feelings for a woman so beautiful that other men fall over themselves to be near her. And make no mistake, the typical noir villain had no problem using his own woman as a pawn in his scheming. In The Mob, a man actually convinces his own wife to come on to Brod Crawford, fully expecting her to come back home to him when the deal was closed.


O’Brien is well-cast as smug attorney Bob Regan — smugness being an integral part of O’Brien’s screen persona. His brand of confidence is usually perceived as arrogant, which is exactly how he is meant to be seen in The Web. His comeuppance when he discovers he’s the sucker somehow seems all the more real or gratifying to audiences when the joke is on O’Brien.

Raines’ beauty was more sophisticated than sexual, and it’s obvious in The Web that her Noel Faraday is a match for any man in the film. Though she plays Colby’s secretary, she’s clearly his right hand and first choice for counsel. The script calls for Regan to come on like a drooling heel when they first meet, though it’s apparent the scene is intended to develop her character much more than his, by showing us how deftly Noel fends him off. The script is talky, but Raines does a plum job of making the conversations seem believable, even contemporary. The typical film noir swaggering dialog is replaced with slick witticisms, especially between Regan and Faraday. Even Bendix gets the intellectual treatment in The Web. His signature physical presence is diminished by his character’s sarcastic and biting remarks — he even wears glasses!


In spite of the good dialog in The Web, the plot suffers from quite a large plot glitch that strains credibility. Needing the old accountant, Kroner, dead and gone, Colby contrives to have Regan shoot and kill him. Remember, his whole plan hinges on Regan killing the old jailbird, but it will only succeed if Kroner is shot cold dead — if the accountant is only wounded and has the chance to tell his story, Colby knows he’ll be sitting in the hot seat at Rikers Island. Sure, it’s possible to imagine that he could machinate to get Regan to pull the trigger, but no reasonable man would roll the dice or whether or not the shots would kill or simply wound. Nevertheless that’s how it plays out. The scenario is repeated with a different victim at the film’s climax, when Colby himself guns down an employee who has the power to incriminate him — while framing Regan for the job in order to get him out of the way. In the film’s best use of irony, the police inform Colby that the man is still alive, and he’s finally undone when he sneaks into the wounded man’s room late that night in order to finish the job.


The Web’s production values are middling at best. In film noir it’s crucial for the film’s visual crew: director of photography, art directors, and set designers to accentuate character emotions and reinforce specific aspects of the narrative through visuals. In other words: form follows function, even in film noir. Irving Glassberg, a DP of little reputation, disappoints. He captures Raines well, but his attempts to make The Web distinctive fall terribly short — resulting in a film with little more going for it that lackluster surface gloss. There are some dark corners and foggy streets, but what separates the great noirs from the not so great are reasons for employing style. What does that dark corner hold? What do the elongated shadows, absurd camera angles, and extreme close-ups suggest? What do they tell us about the protagonist’s predicament or state of mind? In late 1946 Glassberg didn’t know. The lighting is especially weak, and eventually becomes annoying. All of the scenes, regardless of where they are staged, are photographed with a powerful key light, which gives the film a stagey, theatrical quality. Also suspect are the exterior shots, which fail to take advantage of the hallowed streets of Manhattan — streets that have elevated many third-rate films (The Tattooed Stranger comes to mind.) to a much higher level. The promising opening titles roll against a car’s-eye view of Manhattan streets, but the film fails to follow up, and when it does return to street-level the shots are reminiscent of nothing more than the all-too-familiar studio back lots.


Although The Web never rises above the ordinary as a film noir, it is still an entertaining crime thriller featuring a good script brought to life by an excellent cast.

The Web (1947)

Director: Michael GordonCinematographer: Irving Glassberg

Screenplay: William Bowers and Bertram Millhauser.
Story: Harry Kurnitz
Starring: Edmond O’Brien, Ella Raines, Vincent Price, and Bill Bendix.
Released by: Universal International
Running time: 87 minutes