Tight Spot

Tight Spot is another film in the Criterion Channel's Columbia Noir series that really isn't noir. It's getting to be that any black and white film that features crime is called noir, and it's starting to bug me.

Directed by Phil Karlson and released in 1955, Tight Spot stars Ginger Rogers as a convict who is enticed by a state attorney, Edward G. Robinson, to testify against a mobster (played by Lorne Greene, and for those who grew up with him as the kindly Ben Cartwright on Bonanza it's quite a switch). She is guarded by a police detective, Brian Keith, and initially they are at each other's throats but of course grow to love each other.

Frankly, I found this film not very good, and Rogers, who was a big star, doesn't give a good performance. She's all sass and sarcasm, and isn't helped by a script that doesn't provide her much depth of character, only wise cracks.

Robinson is much better--I've never seen him give a bad performance, but he is also forced by the script to say things that seem out of character. First he wants to be nice to Rogers, then he's vicious towards her. The film can't make up its mind how it wants its characters to act.

There is a third-act twist that is interesting and I didn't see coming, but overall Tight Spot is a dreary exhibition of great stars slumming in a B-picture.