ALAD LADD, SUSAN GORDON & CAROLYN JONES 'THE MAN IN THE NET'

Charles McGraw, Edward Binns & Alan Ladd pictured from THE MAN IN THE NET Year: 1959 Rating: **

By 1959, Film Noir had ended, but not officially since it was never an official genre or a categorized style of films... at least not yet... that is, the French had yet to coin the Dark Film into the term that would grow throughout the years... but the template that makes these kind of dark crime melodramas still remained, and in Michael Curtiz's A MAN IN A NET, two of the most specific and popular tropes are well at hand...

First off, the Wrong Man aspect as an aged, sluggish, loser artist Alan Ladd (looking as if he had a facelift to resemble a miniature Robert Mitchum) as the only logical culprit to have killed his boozing/cheating, no-good wife... and the second aspect's just been mentioned, and in that, Carolyn Jones, on the verge of THE ADDAMS FAMILY and having been in a handful of noirs ranging from THE BIG HEAT to SHIELD FOR MURDER, is the best thing going...

Alan Ladd and Susan Gordon in THE MAN IN THE NET

Sadly, she doesn't last very long as it's her vanishing/murder that becomes the mystery-genre aspect, starting out intriguing enough until the movie turns into a kind of Little Rascals Whodunnit since Ladd's character, rejecting a well-paying New York advertising gig (and a far too smitten Diane Brewster) to idyllically paint mediocre portraits in Connecticut, has befriended every child in town, meeting in the rural woodsy locale where the story begins...

Then winding-up in their secret cavern hiding-place only these children know about, saving their meek adult friend from encroaching lawman (and obvious suspect) Charles McGraw inside a mountainous cavern, where the otherwise edgy crime aspect's replaced with a TV-style programmer that didn't quite know when or how to put away childish things: despite the fact that TWILIGHT ZONE child starlet Susan Gordon turns in the best performance except that, in Ladd's case, she had very little chemistry to work with.

Alan Ladd and Diane Brewster in THE MAN IN THE NET

 Carolyn Jones in THE MAN IN THE NET and Kathryn Givney

Carolyn Jones in THE MAN IN THE NET

Alan Ladd and Carolyn Jones in THE MAN IN THE NET

Alan Ladd and Diane Brewster in THE MAN IN THE NET