kapelusznik18 ***SPOILERS*** The sleaze ball con artist lady killer Ricardo De Villa, John Bromfield, and his unstable and jealous girlfriend Fritzie Darvel, Rosemarie Stack, get it and gets it real good in the end to trying to take advantage of heart patient and loaded with cash Valerie Bancroft, Martha Vickers, whom the sleaze ball, Ricardo, romanced off her feet and later married. Knowing that Valerie doesn't have long to live because of her heart condition that's being kept from her by her doctor Tom Harrison, Robert Bice, she's encouraged to living wild life of drinking smoking and partying by Ricardo hoping it will end her life a lot sooner then expected. So with her kicking off he and Fritzie can collect Valerie's millions when she's finally put to rest.It's Valerie's good friend Marsha Jordan, Eve Miller, who sees through Ricardo & Fritzie's sinister plans and tries to warn Valerie that her husband is not only no good, by cheating on her behind her back, but planning to do her in as well. No matter what Marsha does she can't convince Valerie that dreamboat Ricardo Is no good and even ends up getting kicked out of the beach house, only for a few days at most, by an outraged Valerie. That in her feeling that by breaking her and Ricardo up Marsha can get a crack at lover boy Ricardo so she can be his girlfriend. Still Ricardo can't wait for Valerie, despite everything he does to make it happen, to drop dead before her time which is about a year which Dr. Harrison gave her.***SPOILERS*** Planning to jump the gun in Valerie's impending death Ricardo comes up with this plan to murder her, real smart of his part, and then make it look like it was the result of a home invasion. That while he plants evidence that while that happened he was shacked up with Fritzie in some motel 100 miles away! It just happened that Fritzie's estranged husband and former dance partner Don, Eddie Bee, got wind of his wife's double crossing him for another man, Ricardo, and took matters as well as Fritzie's throat into his own hands making Ricardo's plan fall flat on its face. It's the very fact that Ricardo had an alibi of not being at the scene of Valerie's murder that, in his trying to cover his a**, convicted him of another murder that he in fact didn't commit!

Robert J. Maxwell This was directed by Billy Wilder's brother. They weren't that close and it shows.Martha Vickers is very ill -- a few months, perhaps a year -- and has a good deal of money. Without telling her how serious her heart condition is, the doc suggests she take it easy and go to Los Angeles with her friend and companion, Eve Miller. New York City to Los Angeles, to relax. Out of the fire and into the frying pan, as they say.In L.A. they are looked after from time to time by the good doctor Robert Hutton, who is wise to Vicker's terminal condition. In fact, the only person who doesn't know is the patient herself. A very neat sociological analysis of "whether or not to tell the patient" was done by Anselm Strauss, whom the NY Times called "the father of medical sociology." He distinguished between "open" and "closed" awareness, and explored everything in between. Anselm was socially awkward but extremely bright, and a nice, accommodating guy. When he himself was dying of heart failure he continued his seminars at home, lying on his living room couch. (R.I.P.) Anyway, one of the people who is in on the game is the Los Angeles sharpster John Bromfield. He owes everyone money, although he drives what looks like a tinkered-with Jaguar and, salivating over the prospect of getting his hands on her fortune after she gives up the ghost, he takes her to the Scandia restaurant. It was a real restaurant on Sunset Boulevard, very posh, and quite the place to go in the mid-50s, especially if you're fond of what the menu calls gravelax and everybody else calls "lox". It subsequently expired of heart failure and an increasingly shabby milieu.Bromfield manages to marry Vickers, then systematically sets about trying to induce a heart attacks -- dancing, drinking, smoking, tennis, up long flights of stairs, switching sodium bicarbonate for her meds. Perversely, she seems to be improving. She's the incarnation of Rasputin, the Mad Monk. Finally Bromfield has to shoot her and arrange the setting to suggest suicide. There's a big twist at the end -- two or three, in fact -- but I won't give the end away.And, listen, I know this review is discursive and meandering but, believe me, it's at least as entertaining as the movie -- granted that's not saying much.If the expression "B movie" didn't exist, it would be necessary to invent it to describe this flick. As an added treat, the music by Manuel Compinsky is atrocious.

MartinHafer The plot of "Big Bluff" is very contrived and hard to believe. A rich lady has a bad heart and has only, at most, a year to live. Despite this, the doctor and the lady's personal secretary BOTH think it's best not to tell her—and keep this from her! Instead, she's told to take a relaxing vacation—and they hope this might prolong her life a few months more. Little do they know that this retreat is the last thing she really needs.While in Los Angeles, hardly a place to go to relax, she meets with a money-grubbing Don Juan. When she finally does learn she only has a short time to live, she proposes to the Lothario and you know she's in for a rough time with the bum. As to what happens from there, try seeing the film for yourself, though the plot makes little sense—as why would a man want to kill a rich wife who is about to die anyway—especially so early on in the film.The bottom line is that this film is awfully broad in its writing and acting—so broad that it's hard to believe any of this. The entire film comes off as cheaply made and obvious. It's a shame, as the plot could have been good and the no-name cast could have been better if given a chance. Plus, the direction was shoddy—whenever lines are misspoken or actors talk over each other, the scenes are no re-shot! A few simple re-shoots would have really made the film look better. Because of this, even though the film had a dandy and ironic ending, the overall effect is like a badly directed episode of "Alfred Hitchcock Presents"—not a real honest-to-goodness movie.By the way, for you car buffs out there, this is probably the only movie in film history where a guy is being chased by a Nash Metropolitan—perhaps the least threatening and silliest pursuit car in history. In modern terms, this would be akin to a Mini Cooper giving chase!

bmacv 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.