Customer Reviews

To Please a Lady / A Woman in Jeopardy

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The set is worth it for "Jeopardy" alone. I'm very surprised they haven't done a remake of this one. Barbara Stanwyck, Ralph Meeker, Barry Sullivan, and Lee Aaker all give fine performances in this tense thriller. When a family goes on fishing vacation at a jetty, the father, played by Barry Sullivan becomes trapped under a pylon trying to save his son, played by Lee Aaker. When the mother, played by Stanwyck, goes for help. She is kidnapped by an escaped criminal, played by Ralph Meeker ( I was swearing this was Bill Paxton's dad). I was really glad I rented this one and plan to buy it now. I would love to see a modern day version of this. The Clark Gable racing movie is okay as a bonus but it is not one I would have bought alone. If you enjoyed this catch "The Narrow Margin (1952)".

CA Luster

"To Please A Lady" (1950, dir.: Clarence Brown) is nothing but routine, with a good Barbara Stanwyck as an investigative journalist meeting a racing driver (Clark Gable) and, of course, coming close to him after some dramatic events. The story is much too conventional, stereotype and predictable. Gable was a little bit too old for the part and acts with a total lack of irony or humor (even in his fifties, he would do better in later pictures and still be convincing as a leading man and romantic lover - see for example the Raoul Walsh pictures "The Tall Men" and "The King and Four Queens"). Nevertheless, the film is not boring at all and contains some very good racing scenes full of vivid action and suspense. Three stars.

"Jepoardy" (1953, dir.: John Sturges): A small thriller of only 69 minutes length and with no more than four performers (and some extras): A family (father, mother and a boy aged about ten) makes a weekend trip in Mexico, and when the father (Barry Sullivan) is trapped under a bridge pier while the flood rises, his wife (Stanwyck) has to fetch a rope. Unable to get one, she finally meets a murderer on the loose (Ralph Meeker) who is the only person able to save her husband's life... This is a perfect study of US citizens going "abroad" and getting helpless, not only in a geographical, but also in a metaphorical way. It is clear that we have a typical suburban couple not used to explore the unexpected. Stanwyck and Sullivan are obviously a bit frightened by anything unknown and beyond their world of work, homework, gardening, inviting the neighbors etc. Mexico is only I few hours away, but to them, it's a totally new and dangerous world. Sullivan packs a gun ("you never know"), but is totally nervous when only being asked routine questions by two policemen. Stanwyck would not have met Meeker if only she had remembered the Spanish word for "rope" ("cuerdo") in a conversation with some Mexicans before. And the criminal is not Mexican, but a U.S. Citizen... Stanwyck once more gives a brilliant performance, and how helpless she may be at the beginning, in her scenes with Meeker, she is firmly decided to stand by her man - even if that means to leave him and to go with Meeker (which he demands in order to save Sullivan). You have to watch this strange mixture of toughness and tenderness, abomination and even seductiveness. This leads to a performance of a woman who finally is decided to keep her promise even if she will hate every minute of it. Stanwyck fulfils that difficult and almost paradoxical task with a maximum of credibility. The end of the picture is nevertheless surprising and not to be told. Five stars.

I just bought this recently and mostly because of "Jeopardy", which stands as a very intelligent and different kind of suspenseful thrill of a movie. The whole cast of Stanwyck, Meeker, Sullivan and even the child actor, Lee Aaker do fantastic jobs in it. The Director is John Sturges, who also directed "The Magnificent Seven","The Great Escape", and "Gunfight at The O.K. Corral"! It is well-worth buying as the print of "Jeopardy" is top-notch and nearly pristine!

I received this DVD quickly, as promised, with absolutely no issues. The service was all a person could ask for, and would not hesitate to use this merchant in the future.

I love those B&W movies. Barbara Stanwyche I can take or leave her, but the story line was real good. In this movie, I took her very well, because she really played that part. What I mean about taking her or leaving her is she is an very good actress. It all depends on her part in the movie whether or not you will like her or hate her. She's good!

Ralph Meeker and Barbara Stanwyck are dynamite in "Jeopardy", their animal magnetism oozes right off the screen. Stanwyck is perfect as the woman struggling against panic to save her husband's life as she overcomes one obstacle after another. Ralph Meeker is ruthless and sleezy, but still sympathetic in the role of the escaped convict on the run; a movie like this makes a person wish that Ralph Meeker had had a long and successful career, instead of an early decline into bit parts and trashy, low-budgets. "Jeopary" has a great ending; finality with a tad of uncertainty.
"To Please a Lady" starring a very tiresome, old Clark Gable cannot be saved even by the heroic efforts of co-star, Barbara Stanwyck.

Barbara Stanwyck is probably my favorite actress, so I'm always interested in seeing anything that I haven't from this great legend. Certainly she brings great presence, sex appeal, and attitude to nearly every project, but I have to say that both films in this double feature - especially TO PLEASE A LADY - probably rank in the lower half of her huge output, which I'm still only beginning to explore.

The only thing the films have in common really is that they mark the beginning of Stanwyck's transition from sexpot to mother/wife characters. She was 43 in 1950 when TO PLEASE A LADY was released, and kept her figure well into old age of course, but there's an experienced air about her that's no longer in the slightest bit girlish. Good thing too as she's paired with the near-50 Clark Gable, playing race car driver Mike Brannan, who Stanwyck as wealthy and powerful radio/newspaper columnist Regina Forbes decides to make into a human interest story at the beginning of the film. Horrified by the way in which Brannan callously ignores a fatal crash that happens right in front of him - possibly even contributing to it - she goes out of her way to ruin him and get him out of racing, but inevitably (you knew this was coming didn't you?) falls for the roguish Gable charm. Adolphe Menjou is along for the ride as her mean old uncle-like producer (?) Gregg.

Pretty much everything in the film is telegraphed a mile away, and it's neither funny enough to provoke a chuckle nor dramatic enough to care about. Stanwyck and Gable are both ok but don't really seem in danger of sparking any flames; this film's rather antiquated notion of sexuality involves Brannan slapping Forbes and then roughly kissing her - and her liking it. Not a good showcase for Stanwyck as the independent woman, despite her powerful career - she was just waiting for a rough guy like Gable to take her away all along, dontcha know. Good racing footage I suppose, if that's meaningful then I suppose it would increase your interest. Clarence Brown directs competently enough. Ho hum.

Three years later, in the very short b-noir JEOPARDY from director John Sturges, Stanwyck has pretty well settled into the more "mature" (though still desirable and sexy) roles that she was to play for many more years. She's Helen Stilwin, the mother of 10-year-old Bobby (Lee Aaker) and the wife of Doug (Barry Sullivan); the whole family is taking a trip down the then sparsely populated Baja peninsula, to places Doug visited during the war. We get plenty of foreshadowing that they'll have problems alone in the stark countryside as we're told several times that there's almost no habitation for over 100 miles. After a last stop at a deserted gas station where they hope to find water for the radiator, the Selwins stop at a remote pier for the night. When Bobby gets caught and Doug has to rescue him, it's Doug who ends up pinned under a big piling as the tide is about to come in, and Helen who has to go back to the deserted station alone in search of rope to try to drag the log away and save him.

This is where we get into noir territory, as Helen runs into completely amoral murderer Lawson, played by the great Ralph Meeker. Helen is desperate to save her husband - Lawson only wants to evade the police and get away. What will Helen have to do to keep her family safe? Unfortunately yet again we have a film where the female character could well have been stronger - and is played by an actress who certainly would have done the job as well - but here after being playfully demeaned by her husband and then roughly mocked and condescended to by the brutal Lawson she never really gets to show her stuff. Not that one expects feminism in noir, exactly, or in any film from this period, but it surprises me to see Stanwyck in a role like this where her only choice is to use her feminine wiles - and even those don't seem to be enough to get the job done as she has to resort to pleading and crying.

Still, despite my ambivalence about the Helen character, I think the film is a pretty decent one, with not a moment wasted (in less than 70 minutes), a terrifically gleeful malevolent presence in Meeker, and a really terrific ending that does serve to redeem both the amorality of Lawson and the helplessness of Helen. Fine location work and photography by Victor Milner help matters also.

So JEOPARDY is a thumbs-up, if not a really enthusiastic one, and TO PLEASE A LADY a mild thumbs-down. All in all, worth it if you're a Stanwyck fan or a hard-core noir enthusiast; otherwise, probably not.

My husband was looking for this item for several years. He was thrilled to find it in his stocking and it brought back many old memories for him.

To Please a Lady needed leads 15 to 20 years younger. Even then its pretty ordinary except for the "thrill" driving stunts. Gable and Stanwyck deserved something much better. Watch them together in Night Nurse where they both sizzle!!!

Jeopardy is pretty boring......not much of a vehicle for anyone, a real waste for Stanwyck,