Robert J. Maxwell "Framed." A great title. Plus there is Glenn Ford, who brought so much torque to the role of heedless avenger in "The Big Heat." Then there is the plot, involving embezzlement, attempted poisoning, drunkenness, betrayal, murder, and playing doctor.The narrative is really too twisted to go into in any detail but the general idea is that Barry Sullivan is a banker who pretends to lend the grizzled old prospector, of which there is no other kind, a quarter of a million dollars, then steal the money himself, murder the old prospector, and frame the innocent mining engineer, Glenn Ford, for the crime. After that, Sullivan and his girl friend, Janice Carter, will take the loot and leave town. I hope I got that right.Sadly, although it looks like a neat noir thriller, it's just an ordinary, rather slapdash story of greed and treachery.Example of "slapdash." There's a scene towards the end in which Janice Carter realizes that Ford suspects her of the murder of which she is, in fact, guilty. She offers to make him some coffee. Alone in the kitchen, she reaches for a bottle of poison in the spice rack. Now, this bottle deserves some attention. It's not labeled "rat poison" or "weed killer." It's just labeled in bold black letters "POISON", as it would be in a Laurel and Hardy short. Add to it that the bottle is simply tucked in among the sugar and condiments -- probably alphabetized, just after "paprika" and just before "rue." She dumps some in his cup of coffee. Anyone who imagined how, say, Hitchcock would have handled this scene must have wept.Ford does little to help the narrative along. He's sullen and intense throughout, though capable of a much better display of skills. Janice Carter may have been a genuinely nice lady in real life -- kind to children and small animals. And she was a singer too. But her every expression, each utterance, each movement, are variations on the theme of perfidy. She telegraphs what she's thinking, and she does it with the subtlety of a traffic light. This is "worried." Now I'm "plotting." Here is "lying." Edgar Buchanan gives what is, for him, an animated performance. He's good natured and trusting, but dignified and practical too. He's a delight in a solemn movie like this.

wsnoce Ford was a natural for film noir, and "Framed" illustrates this. He is a more vulnerable character than we're used to seeing him play in his other films, and he seems to be easily duped by a beautiful blonde(Janis Carter). Carter puts in a solid performance and should have been in more films of this type. She is perfect as the scheming and seductive Paula.Barry Sullivan is a bad guy here, the co-schemer with Paula. While the plot is somewhat predictable, it does include enough surprises to make it a good film noir. It puzzles me that Framed has apparently not been released on any format in video in either Region 1 or Region 2.Perhaps Sony will produce a Volume 4 of Columbia film noir and include Framed.

moonspinner55 Glenn Ford, young and brittle, plays an unemployed, hard-drinking mining engineer saved from ten days in the hoosegow by a blonde waitress with evil in her eyes; turns out she and her partner need a fall guy once they swindle the local banker. Crosses and double-crosses in a mostly predictable vein, though just about saved by excellent directorial touches and intriguing noir detail (the wrench in the backseat, the poisoned cup of coffee). Ford isn't really convincing playing drunk and reckless--and it doesn't sit well with us having him cast as the possible dupe--yet he cuts a solid presence on the screen and the picture would be nothing without him. ** from ****

bmacv Janis Carter boasted a largely undistinguished filmography from the 1940s but she deserved (as so many of her female peers from this era did) better parts and greater exposure. As the scheming and duplicitous Paula Craig, she personifies the cool blonde bombshell (while her line readings are a wee bit stilted, her body language is instinctive and sensational). She's the spider into whose web drifts Glenn Ford, an out-of-work mining engineer with a bit of an alcohol problem who's looking for a break. Meanwhile, Carter's on the lookout for her embezzling boyfriend's lookalike, to furnish a warm body to provide a charred corpse. This is James M. Cain territory, and, though we've been through it with Barbara Stanwyck and Fred McMurray and with Lana Turner and John Garfield, this effort by Carter and Ford deserves more prominence; its writing, direction and cinematography are all well above average. One unique moment: a banner head in the local newspaper lets us know that one of the characters has been charged with murder, but just below it, in the mock-up, is the smaller headline "Meteorite lands near baby." I think they made that movie, too, about 10 years later.