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At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

A gripping film-noir, directed by genre specialist Robert Siodmak. Stanwyck apart, the cast is mainly B-movie grade, but as I so often find to be the case with noir movies of this era, that doesn't matter partly because the actors concerned are so good and partly because their relative anonymity just adds to the veracity of these stories of out if the ordinary events happening to ordinary people.Stanwyck plays the femme fatale Thelma Jordon, out to hook unhappily married Assistant D.A. Wendell Corey's Cleave Marshall in her web of theft, adultery and of course, murder. Watching the movie, of course one is reminded of her star turn years before in Billy Wilder's all-time classic "Double Indemnity" and while she's perhaps a little old this time to play the scheming siren, she still convinces with a performance which covers a lot of bases as the role demands.In support, Wendell Corey perhaps lacks a little of the personality of that earlier self-deceiving patsy Fred MacMurray plus the rather heartless way he treats his loving wife and kids stops the viewer sympathising with him too much as he loses everything by the end. I did like Barry Kelley as his enthusiastic principled superior/mentor D.A. and especially Paul Kelly as his suspecting, pursuing colleague Miles Scott while Richard Rober, wearing about the most vulgar tie you'll ever see, makes for Thelma's suitably cold, controlling paramour Tony to whom she wakens up just in time for one final act of sacrificial self-redemption.Atmospherically and intelligently directed throughout, Siodmak is at home either when setting the action in the gloomy Gothic dwelling of Jordon's doomed aunt, the external city locations and especially the taut court-room scenes. By the end, as in most of the best noirs, everybody loses, except the viewer of another gritty, twisting good-quality thriller like this.

Not entirely without interest, this is a rather dark story of Wendell Corey, an Assistant D.A. alienated from his wife and two children, who bumps into Barbara Stanwyck by accident and falls for her. They have a secret affair. Then Stanwyck's wealthy old auntie is shot and killed during a burglary and the evidence all points to Stanwyck, who is brought to trial. It seems like an easy case for the D.A.'s office except that the records show that Stanwyck has been receiving phone calls from a man who continually identifies himself by different names, although he never says, "Is Miss Jordon there? This is Wendel Corey". Corey's boss, Paul Kelly, names the mysterious caller "Mister X", and worries that the defense may introduce reasonable doubt using Mister X as the fomenter.Now, Corey is in an uncomfortable position, to say the least. He's assigned to try the case, convict his lover, and send her to the gas chamber. But he has all kinds of problems. Not only is he devoted to her, not only is HE the mysterious Mister X, but he believes Stanwyck when she tells him she's innocent. He winds up sending her notes, advising her on who to hire as defense counsel, and he sends her five thousand bucks to manage expenses. Corey also decides to bungle the case in as nuanced a way as possible.I ask you, the experienced viewer of old black-and-white crime dramas, is she innocent or is she setting up Corey as the fall guy? Stanwyck is set free. And Corey discovers there is another man in the picture. There have probably been OTHER men, as well. If he is Mister X, there was first a Mister A, then a Mister B, and then .... Mister n. (That's the way you denote a finite string of variables of unknown length in statistics.) Stanwyck spills the beans to Corey. This is known as "cooling out the mark". But she does a very clumsy job of it, leaving Corey in a state of humiliation and despair. Stanwyck has shown no remorse so far. But as she is driving away towards a new life with her Greaseball boyfriend behind the wheel, she decides to coagulate his eyeball with the car's red-hot cigarette lighter and, well, there is a fiery plunge off a cliff, and she winds up dying on a hospital bed. After she makes her final confession to Paul Kelly, she passes away peacefully, the vehicular catastrophe not having disfigured her in any way, her hair and make up impeccably done. Not even her false eyelashes have been disturbed.This movie must have been made after "Double Indemnity" because it follows the same trajectory, more or less. I much prefer the original, or even the remake, of "Double Indemnity," but this isn't an insulting copy, only a less original one. Use caution, though. You have to sit through a sappy soap opera for the first half hour, directed at a glacial pace and completely lacking in conversational sparkle.

THE FILM ON THELMA JORDON is a very good example of Film Noir and it's extremely reminiscent of Barbara Stanwyck's earlier success in DOUBLE INDEMNITY. In both films, she plays a lying and conniving femme fatale that is able to wrap a man around her finger in order to get what she wants and by the end of the film, both are ruined. However, instead of her target being an insurance investigator, in THELMA JORDON, she pursues an assistant district attorney (Wendell Corey).The film begins with Corey having an argument with his wife and he's getting drunk and feeling very sorry for himself. Soon Barbara Stanwyck's character appears and before long they're having a sleazy romance--as both are married. It's very hard to care about either one of them at this point and it's not hard to guess that Stanwyck is just plain bad! Where exactly the film goes from there, I'd rather not say--after all, it would spoil the film's many nice twists and turns. At the end, there is a nice little twist in particular that probably will satisfy many, though to me it just didn't ring true. After all, a REAL femme fatale would NEVER have a pang of conscience! Overall, it's a very interesting and well acted film. I really have no severe complaints, though at times the film was a tad predictable--so much so that you just have to assume that Corey's character is an idiot!! Still, a decent representation of the genre.

Barbara Stanwyck, (Thelma Jordon) plays the role of a woman exactly like the one she played with Fred MacMurray in " Double Indemnity" where she has some very dark secrets in her past. Wendell Corey, (Cleve Marshall) plays the role as an Assistant District Attorney and Thelma meets up with Cleve in his office late at night and Cleve has been drinking a lot of booze because he has problems with his wife and he becomes very involved with Thelma who needs a lawyers assistance. Cleve gets romantically involved with Thelma even though he has a wife and children. Thelma's aunt who is very rich is murdered and she does not report her death right away and seeks Cleve's help in trying to take the blame off of her. Thelma complains to Cleve that she hated the room where her aunt was murdered and it smelled of death and she lost her sense of self-control. This film will keep you guessing how this film will eventually end and who actually committed these murders. This is a great mystery story from 1950.