The Reckless Moment (1949)

In the revised edition of "Christmas in the Movies," Jeremy Arnold includes a short chapter devoted to the phenomenon of classic noir set during the holidays. In it, he argues intrinsic aspects of noir prevent these from ever being true holiday movies. I couldn't disagree more with that conclusion, but I'm grateful for the chapter, as it's helped lead me to a number of movies not typically listed as Christmas media.

The Reckless Moment, a 1949 film directed by Max Ophüls and starring Joan Bennett and James Mason, certainly isn't my favorite of the lot, but I'm still glad I watched it. My understanding is this is fairly well regarded - I'm guessing that's mainly due to a combination of the movie's point-of-view and the quality of the lead performances (Mason is particularly good here). But while I appreciate the movie's merits, I can't echo its fans. I found the bulk of the film a bit too grounded to be interesting, and its more dramatic twists lack the development I want.

The movie's point-of-view character is Lucia (Bennett), a woman raising two children and looking after her house while her husband is away on business over the holidays. Her daughter, Bea, is involved with an older man, Darby, at the start of the movie (though the film sort of ties itself in knots to imply they're not yet sleeping together - the Hays Code led to some awkward lines of dialogue). At any rate, Lucia realizes that Darby is up to no good and tries to break them up, which leads to them meeting in the family's boathouse late at night. Bea comes to realize her mother is right. When Darby attempts to assault her, she uses a flashlight to fight back. She gets away but isn't certain whether he's okay or not (turns out "not," though this isn't confirmed until her mother discovers his body the next morning).

After taking a hit across the head, Darby stumbled out of the boathouse, fell over the edge, and managed to land on the business end of an anchor. In an attempt to protect her daughter, Lucia pulls Darby's body into a boat and dumps it in a nearby marsh, where it's promptly found by the police. More pressing is the appearance of Martin (Mason), a criminal associated with Darby who has several love letters written by Bea connecting her with Darby. He threatens to turn these over to the police unless Lucia pays a substantial sum of money to him and his partner, Nagel, a ruthless criminal who mostly stays out of the picture until the last act.

The bulk of the movie centers on Lucia weighing her options. The amount Martin's demanding is significantly more than she has available. Through all this, Martin is notably polite and even kind, or at least as kind as a blackmailer can possibly be. It becomes clear pretty quickly he's falling in love with Lucia. He insists if it were up to him, he'd give her the letters, but his partner won't allow it. Lucia of course doesn't believe any of this - until the end of the movie, she just assumes Martin is the only one blackmailing her and the kindness is an act.

She eventually manages to pull together a fraction of the money by pawning some jewelry, but by then Martin's priorities have changed and he refuses the money. He also reveals a criminal has been arrested for the murder, which horrifies Lucia, who knows how Darby actually died. Martin has to work to convince her not to go to the police to get the arrested man released.

It turns out to be unnecessary, anyway: the police realized the mistake on their own. By the time Martin learns this, Lucia has returned home to find Nagel waiting. Martin races to intervene, and a fight ensues. He strangles Nagel then flees with the body after tricking Lucia, who now believes he's a changed man and doesn't want him facing the consequences alone. Martin gets in an accident, and Lucia finds him trapped in his vehicle injured but alive. He gives her the letters and convinces her to leave, since it's the only way to protect her family. When the police show up, he confesses to the murder of Darby just before dying himself. The movie ends with Lucia's husband calling and her lying to him about what's occurred in his absence.

So, we can add a moral of, "Ladies, go ahead and lie to your absent husbands," to the list of the movie's merits.

As I said at the start, its flaws - to the extent the word applies - are mostly centered around pacing and in the way the story is framed. The bulk of the movie is built around presenting us with a terrifying situation: being blackmailed. It wants us to feel Lucia's anxiety and confront the question of how we'd react in a situation where there's no clear way out, or really even a clear "right" course of action. The drama of this predicament is the point.

The problem with this, naturally, is the other character. The fact this ends essentially with Martin rescuing Lucia then sacrificing himself for her makes her largely a passive character in the story. To the extent she does anything effective, it's just "survive" and "not make any major mistakes." After that, it's just a matter of Martin's love transforming him into a better person.

Between the two of them, Martin is the more interesting character, but this carries issues, as well. He winds up detracting from Lucia's story, rather than enhancing it. And, perhaps more significantly, the movie never really sells his love narratively. He tells Lucia that he's never met anyone like her before, but Lucia really doesn't seem all that unusual. On the contrary, her character is more an everywoman, as you'd expect from the premise and POV. She doesn't have much personality, aside from being slightly more direct and forthright about her opinions than average. But if we're supposed to see this as an exceptional story, we need an exceptional protagonist, and that's not really present.

There's also just not enough screentime between the two of them to sell the idea that meeting Lucia convinces Martin to sacrifice everything to protect her. The movie shows us he's falling for her early on, but it never really shows us why. If anything, it seems to rely on Christmas to carry that.

Okay, let's dig into that. The movie tells us early and often that it's set around Christmas, first via an opening narration, then by showing us Christmas trees and decorations. Arguably, the time of year is intended as a nod to A Christmas Carol, in which Scrooge is redeemed by the holiday season. Martin's transformation isn't entirely dissimilar, though any redemption is limited to the spiritual, as - unlike Ebenezer - Martin ends up dead.

If you want to focus on Martin's fate, this also aligns with media in which a sacrifice must be made around the New Year, tying into the theories of James Frazer. That's a bit of a stretch here, as associations between Frazer and Christmas weren't common in movies this early, but it's within the realm of possibility there was some intended connection. The fact Martin becomes a sort of symbolic stand-in for Lucia's actual husband aligns surprisingly well with some of Frazer's ideas. Still, it's not like these sorts of dramatic sacrifices were uncommon across noir, so I wouldn't put too much stock in this being more than a coincidental parallel.

It's also worth noting The Reckless Moment is part of a post-war trend elevating rural over urban settings. The family lives in a rural town outside of Los Angeles, with the city being the source of their troubles. Attending art school in LA is what brought Bea into contact with Darby. It's also, naturally, where the blackmailers are from. Getting to know an honest woman living outside the sin-infested city is what prompts Martin to change his ways. Holiday entertainment certainly isn't the only place we see this dynamic in post-war film, but the idea that "real America" is defined by small towns endures in that genre in ways it doesn't elsewhere.

One other holiday connection is (once again) a stretch. However, the names of the two leads - Lucia and Martin - are evocative of Saint Lucy and Saint Martin, two extremely significant winter saints with holidays of their own.

But as far as noir fans are concerned, it's worth noting this is more a melodrama than a crime story. I don't think it's a bad melodrama, but my impression is fans of this pseudo-genre are more interested in movies with more going on, or at the very least with more stylization. You do get some of the expressionism we all love leveraged to make Lucia's experiences more tactile, but it's not as exaggerated as some of the most popular entries. Likewise, more of this movie is spent applying for loans than fighting with crime lords, so there's not a ton of excitement, either.

But, again, this certainly has its supporters, so take my lukewarm reaction with the appropriate grain of salt.