secondtake
Ruthless (1948)A great, layered melodrama, with flashbacks and male and female rivalries and a really strong narrative thread. There are a bunch of interesting actors at work who never had huge careers, the main man being familiar to me from "Mildred Pierce" two years earlier, Zacharay Scott. The director, though, is a favorite noir director of mine, Edgar Ulmer, who had a string of great films in the late 1940s. So this is one of them, though not quite a noir.In fact, this is a kind of financiers movie, which isn't actually a genre thank God. But the weakest part of the film (at least for a non-Wall Street viewer) is a lot of talk about business deals. Luckily, you don't need to follow them to the letter, because it's the characters--their tricks, their greed, their games--who make it come alive. And of course there are women involved (compelling ones like Diana Lynn), and memories of a childhood girlfriend, so we feel something for the good friend of the leading capitalist male, and even for Sydney Greenstreet, who plays an aging businessman, even amusing.The whole enterprise gets fairly involved and makes you pay attention, which is good, and leads to a pretty spectacular last scene off the pier.
midnightblack-1
I felt like i was watching the sequel to Citizen Kane episode two, loved the movie kept me on the edge of my seat but it needed Orson Wells! I've only known Zachary Scott through westerns so to see him as a chilling uncaring person was a surprise to me that i enjoyed very much. Diana Lynn disappointed me playing a duel role as MarthaBurnside/ Mallory Flagg she shows the same personality for both characters. But great supporting role up against Zachary Scott. The movie is slow at spots but sustains its plot throughout.Sydney Greenstreet plays the villain no surprise there but would we want to see him in film in any other way think not! I give it a ten Raymond Burr gets a small scene in the beginning of the film as the father to Zachary Scott's character well acted scene though he doesn't have much of a part too short i think he should've stayed in the movie longer. Buy it, Rent it. Tape it but whatever you do get it !...
aromatic-2
Kind of cross between Keeper of The Flame and Citizen Kane, Zachry is perfect as the ice-cold schemer who confuses love and friendship for weakness and folly. Burr is great in minor role, explaining Scott's character. But it goes on too long, and after awhile, it becomes tiresome how many people with warning are still being taken in by him. After all, Zachry's smooth, but he's no Bill Clinton. Too, Greenstreet is over-the-top in pivotal role, spoiling some of the effect. Overall, worth watching, but by no means, great.
SanDiego
Excellent drama about a poor boy who is adopted by a rich family after saving their daughter from drowning. Given all the benefits of wealth and society, he uses the people who care about him and give him his breaks, especially the women he meets. Zachery Scott is chilling in his mentally perverse portrayal of a tycoon that is more in league with Norman Bates than William Randall Hurst. Diana Lynn (the Sandra Bullock of her day) is wonderful as the woman he had saved as a girl and who's heart he would break in his rise to success. There is a twist in the plot mid-way that will be a treat to Lynn fans, though I would have liked to seen more of her in the second half. The entire cast is compelling and the soundtrack is appropriately eerie. Very rare to find this on VHS or TV, so if you find it anywhere, get it, rent it, buy it, tape it, watch it.
AD
