A Life at Stake (Blu-Ray Review)
**The Film Detective’s Special Edition for “A Life at Stake” comes out on Tuesday, September 7, 2021. This is a review of not just the film, but the Blu-Ray Special Edition.**
For much of my life, I knew Angela Lansbury as Jessica Fletcher, the old lady murder mystery solver in “Murder, She Wrote.” Because of that, seeing her as the icy, relentless Senator’s wife in “The Manchurian Candidate” was a startling experience. Now that I’ve finally seen a performance of hers ahead of “Manchurian Candidate,” that iconic role feels less out of left field. As Doris Hillman in “A Life at Stake,” she plays a femme fatale in the Barbara Stanwick in “Double Indemnity” mold, and it’s easier to see a through line to the later performance.
One of the extras on The Film Detective’s new Blu-Ray of “A Life at Stake” is a short video essay about The Filmmakers, a production company that specialized in low budget genre films that took on complicated topics, and pushed what film noir was at the time. The Filmmakers was started by actor-turned-director Ida Lupino and her husband, Collier Young, and that makes me being able to review “A Life at Stake” more interesting. I looked at getting the chance to review this disc both as an opportunity to watch an earlier Angela Lansbury performance I hadn’t seen, but also another entry in the world of film noir. Last November, I finally watched my first Lupino directed efforts, and I’ve since wanted to dive in more to her. It’s almost like this convergence was meant to happen. Even though her name is not on “A Life at Stake,” watching some of Lupino’s films, I get why this interested her; it’s very much of a piece with “Outrage” and “The Bigamist.”
Russ Bender’s screenplay for “A Life at Stake” comes from a story by Hank McCune, but it’s a familiar narrative structure for film noir. At the heart of the film is a man who is in some sort of trouble. That man gets a chance to get out of trouble. The man meets a woman. He and the woman fall in love. There’s bound to be murder in the future. In this case, the man is Edward Shaw (Keith Andes), an architect with some success, but whom also owes some money to friends. The woman is Doris Hillman, Lansbury’s character. She’s a real estate agent whose husband, Gus (Douglass Dumbrille) is interested in getting into business with Edward, and wiping his debts clean. Of course there’s a catch to that, but it wouldn’t be a film noir if there wasn’t. There’s also Madge (Claudia Barrett), Doris’s sister, whom might be interested in Edward as well. When it starts to look like the Hillman’s are trying to kill him, though, romance is the last thing of Shaw’s mind.
“A Life at Stake” is a little bit “The Big Sleep,” a bit more of “Double Indemnity,” with the budget of “Detour.” Though his film doesn’t have the low-budget feel of Edward Ulmer’s classic noir story, director Paul Guilfoyle’s film certainly doesn’t have the shine of a major studio film. It’s very much in between, with Guilfoyle’s direction and the cinematography by Ted Allen making up for the stagy production design. From the second Shaw meets Hillman, we are engaged with the story Guilfoyle has to tell, even if Lansbury feels more loose than Andes as a performer. That tension between the actors’s performances is appropriate for the film, though; “A Life at Stake” is meant to keep us in a state of anxiety with Shaw as he fears more and more for his life. All the way to the final moments, that anxious feeling connects, and that makes it a success.
Blu-Ray Presentation
As they did with “Flight to Mars,” my first title from The Film Detective that I reviewed, the 4K restoration of “A Life at Stake” is wonderful. The black-and-white cinematography is crisp but also feels of its time period. There are a couple of jumps in scenes but that is no doubt a result of the print they used for the restoration. The Mono sound mix is well-preserved, with no scratches present in the dialogue. The score by Les Baxter sounds as good as any from the era.
As with “Flight to Mars,” there isn’t much to the bonus features, but what is here is worth checking out. First up is a color booklet with the essay, A Career at Stake: Angela Lansbury and the Last Days of B Noir. The essay puts “A Life at Stake” in perspective of Lansbury’s career, as well as its place on the tail end of the original film noir boom of the 1940s and ’50s, and it’s informative. I already mentioned “Hollywood Hitch-hikers: Inside the Filmakers,” an 11-minute video essay about The Filmakers, the production company Ida Lupino and Collier Young started, which produced “A Life at Stake.” It’s short, but it’s also informative for an classic film fan who appreciates film history. Finally, we get a commentary track by film historian Jason A. Ney that is very affectionate towards the film, as well as breaks down the inspirations, and how “A Life at Stake” deserves to be remembered. It’s a strong commentary for the film.
Film Grade: A-
Audio & Video: A-
Bonus Features: A
It’s always wonderful to be able to say you’ve been introduced to something new that has a lot to offer. “A Life at Stake” is very much a B-movie film noir, but it has a lot to offer in terms of discovering something new, as well as offering something different, even when it follows paths we’ve followed before in the genre.
