The File on Thelma Jordon (1950)

Director Robert Siodmak completed his amazing run of American noir classics with this underrated and currently grossly ignored gem. The File on Thelma Jordon isn’t a classic on the level of The Killers or Criss Cross but it’s way too close to be gathering dust in Paramount’s vaults largely unviewed, having never been released on either VHS or DVD to the general public. Worse yet, the film used to get regular airings back in the days when AMC was a legitimate, respectable classic film vehicle but it has completely disappeared from sight in recent years. This is the lamentable shame for many excellent Paramount noirs, but Thelma Jordon just might top the list of the ones that merit mass-market rediscovery, at least among classic film connoisseurs.







If nothing else, it stars the legendary Barbara Stanwyck in one of her greatest roles, noir or otherwise. Stanwyck plays a nuanced version of Double Indemnity’s Phyllis Dietrichson, a femme fatale who becomes emotionally conflicted when she seduces assistant D.A. Cleve Marshall for the purposes of committing a crime and then proceeds to fall in love with him. Marshall, played by the underappreciated and underutilized Wendell Corey, is to his character what Stanwyck is to hers, a more sympathetic and complicated Walter Neff. The film’s obvious parallels with D.I. make it a most compelling watch, and it makes you wonder why these two movies aren’t coupled together at more noir festivals, particularly with Stanwyck as such a fascinating link between the two.

Quick plot summary: Marshall is celebrating the anniversary of his struggling marriage by getting drunk after working hours in the deserted office of his investigator pal Miles Scott, who has just left the building. Stanwyck subsequently arrives unannounced to report a series of burglary attempts at her rich aunt’s mansion. It’s unclear whether the investigator (played by Paul Kelly) was supposed to be the original fall guy, but after a long conversation with the increasingly inebriated Cleve that carries on in a bar til closing time, Thelma (apparently) decides he’ll do as the dupe in the jewel robbery Stanwyck is organizing (again, apparently) with her old boyfriend and card-carrying hood Tony Laredo.

Siodmak’s strategy in developing the first half of the film may be its greatest strength but possibly its greatest failure as well. The film is very measured for its first 30-40 minutes as the director goes to great lengths to develop the film’s characters and their conflicts. Cleve obviously still loves his wife as he’s falling for Thelma but can’t stand his overbearing, meddling father-in-law and her subservience to him. Thelma, on the other hand, has even more subtle emotions tugging at her. She feels sorry for Cleve but is also strangely attracted to his intelligence and noble character, seeing the real man even in his most drunken state. They carry on an affair that is genuine and heartfelt, even as a sinister plot is about unfold.

The slow early, talky pace surely must have been off-putting to audiences expecting action in 1950 … the same might hold for people who view it today if they aren’t prepared for it. But patience is rewarded for the experienced film viewer who isn’t as concerned about flying bullets and instant gratification.

Midway through the movie comes its literal Big Bang – the rich aunt is shot in the dark of night and robbed of her precious jewels. At least to the viewer, it’s unclear who did it at first, Thelma or Tony. But when it becomes obvious to Cleve that she will be implicated as the prime suspect, he helps her cover up the evidence out of his love for her and concocts a mad scenario involving a mysterious Mr X. When she is arrested and charged for the murder, Cleve then arranges to have the D.A. thrown off the case on a technicality and prosecutes the case himself, going to great lengths to purposely bungle it in order to get Thelma acquitted.

Thelma ultimately does get off but she can’t bring herself to reconcile with Cleve after what she has done to him, and when Tony turns up to cash in on the aunt’s inheritance, she decides to leave town with the creep. The film’s climax is a complete shocker and shouldn’t be disclosed first-time viewers, so I won’t even drop any hints here.

In the denouement, Stanwyck’s final scene has been described as melodramatic and somewhat corny, and there’s definitely something to that, but who can play those scenes better than Barb? The real key is Cleve, who must somehow put together the shambles of his life and career. The movie ends as it began, with Cleve as a conflicted soul not sure where he’s headed as he strolls off into the dark night. But you get the distinct impression he’d do it all over again just to reclaim the passion he discovered with Thelma. Good finish to a good movie.

The magnificent acting of Stanwyck and Corey carry "The File On Thelma Jordon’" a long, long way. In less capable hands, this one might have been a dog because no one could have made it through those first 30-40 minutes of subtle buildup while Siodmak slowly stripped away layers of the initially ambiguous plot and the characters’ idiosyncracies. Stanwyck and Corey are allowed to really build their affair and give it dimension and credence, albeit in a completely different way than Phyllis and Walter in Double Indemnity.

The two leads are well supported, primarily by Richard Rober as Tony (who eerily died in a car crash just a couple of years after this movie was made). The always wonderful Kelly is solid even though he is delivered an unspectacular part, and Stanley Ridges is excellent as the famous defense attorney Kingsley Willis. Ridges, too, died within two years of this movie’s release. An interesting bit part is the aunt, played by Gertrude Hoffman, that most memorable matronly inmate in Caged.

The film is shot in dark hues throughout by George Barnes, one of the cinematography pioneers of the silent age. He didn’t venture much into noir, but was director of photography for Force of Evil and Hitchcock’s Rebecca and Spellbound. He died in 1953.

Why Siodmak abandoned noir (and America) shortly after this film is something of a mystery. What has been documented is that with the classic noir cycle already starting to wither a bit, Siodmak was viewed as someone who had lost something on his filmmaking fastball, and that "Thelma Jordon" was far too stylized and deliberate to be a box-office hit. Without question, it’s not a noir film for those who like large doses of action. But its structure, style, story and dialogue deliver most successfully for many noir viewers who understand and appreciate its depth of development. It certainly does the job for me. For the Double Indemnity comparisons alone, it deserves a much, much, much larger audience. If you’ve never seen it, definitely check it out before the Noir of the Year voting for 1950.

Written by Carl