If You Were Nora Prentiss Would You Keep Your Mouth Shut? What’s YOUR Answer?
Perhaps the definitive Ann Sheridan film, though mostly overlooked today, surely must be 1947’s Nora Prentiss. Though known for the grit and reality of Warner Brothers films, this one really takes the cake.
Here Sheridan is night club singer Nora Prentiss, who meets good Doctor Talbot (Kent Smith) after an accident one evening. Nora flirts outrageously with the good doctor, perhaps more out of habit than any real interest. Almost immediately you can feel Talbot’s features stiffen as he internally trys to figure out how to respond. Talbot, who has already been introduced to us as the stereotypical family man with a wife an two kids, almost immediately finds his life beginning to unravel.
Suddenly his wife becomes self absorbed and his job suddenly becomes unfilling. Nora and Richard (Talbot) begin with a drink at the club she’s singing at; this is followed shortly thereafter to his cabin that evidently his wife looks down upon. Before long his life is in freefall, as he nearly misses his daughter’s birthday celebration and nearly kills a patient on the operating table.
Eventually through a quirk of faith he finds a way out and is able to fake his own death so that he and Nora can run off to New York City, where she ultimately gets another gig at the club of a close friend. Holed up in a hotel room Richard (now going by Robert) gets increasingly jealous and begins lashing out until the police arrive with a curious and completely effective twist.
Director Vincent Sherman does a fine job keeping the tight and quite realistic script moving along at a good clip with a good mix of action and character development to keep even the most disengaged viewer glued to their seat.
Frankly I wasn’t that familiar with Kent Smith, but he does an excellent job opposite Ann Sheridan in the lead roll. It’s hard to explain why Smith never caught on and became big star as he seems to have the chops and looks for it. That said, being overwhelmed by some phenomenal performances by his costars (including Sheridan here) in his films immediately after the war surely didn’t help. He’s good here and I’d like to search out some more of his films. In many cases without speaking you can feel his confusion and desperation increase with each interaction either with his wife his doctor partner or Nora herself. Quite invigorating stuff.
That leads us to Ann Sheridan, who one would say stole the picture if it were not so clearly fitted almost perfectly for her. She’s outrageously flirty when she meets Talbot, but also equally frank in immediately subsequent meetings, advising him, “I may not have been handled with care, but I’m not shop-worn either.” She lets all, and most especially Talbot, know exactly where she’s coming from but in a way that doesn’t offend or condescend. It’s perhaps her most powerful role in her career.
Though often characterized as noir, Nora Prentiss is more accurately termed a thriller, with a (for the era especially) rather shocking finale.
As an aside Alan Alda’s father Robert has a role here as well as Nora’s friend and club owner.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdK31tFjcXg[/embedyt]