black widow 1954 movie review

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Black Widow

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Critics Reviews

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Nunnally Johnson

Ginger Rogers

Carlotta "Lottie" Marin

Peter Denver

Gene Tierney

Iris Denver

George Raft

Detective Lt. C.A. Bruce

Peggy Ann Garner

Nancy "Nanny" Ordway

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Black Widow

Fading stars breathe life into artificial murder mystery set on broadway.

• Oct 5, 2003

A Guilty Pleasure With A Strange Cast: Not Very Noir

• museumofdave
• Mar 20, 2013

Well-acted, well-upholstered soap opera/murder mystery...

• moonspinner55
• Dec 2, 2005

Ginger Rogers and Peggy Ann Garner Star

• Nov 30, 2005

Peter Denver = Peter Duluth

• Nov 26, 2009

glossy '50s mystery

• Jan 16, 2006

In Colour & Widescreen For No Good Reason.

• georgewilliamnoble
• Nov 14, 2018

Tightly constructed, beautifully filmed, straight up high society suspense

• Aug 16, 2011

Good who done it of it's time.

• guilfisher-1
• Feb 1, 2006

entertaining story, magnificent visual effects

• Mar 16, 2001

Fine-looking but sluggish murder mystery

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• Oct 20, 2017

a worth while watch

• Mar 17, 2008

Nostalgia for long gone actors, maybe, but it's still a reasonably satisfying mystery

Rather stiff melodrama.

• Dec 4, 2006

The Drawingroom Gets a Face-lift

• Aug 13, 2009

Please ban pan and scan!

• Jul 7, 1999

Manipulative Status Seeker Meets the Scorned Wife

• Jul 9, 2018

The Black Widow, deadliest of all spiders, earned its dark title through its deplorable practice of devouring its mate.

• hitchcockthelegend
• Jun 8, 2019
• Spuzzlightyear
• Mar 21, 2012

Ginger Rogers runs away with the movie despite the stellar cast.

• May 26, 2009

van heflin. ginger rogers. gene tierney. george raft. its ok.

• Jul 17, 2020

The Appearance of Impropriety.

• Nov 26, 2008

this sweet young girl is everything you think she isn't

• Sep 15, 2013

Purpose Girl

• Jul 7, 2012

Both disappointingly dull and lacking in suspense!

• JohnHowardReid
• Jun 11, 2017

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Movieman's Guide to the Movies

Black widow (1954) blu-ray review.

Black Widow — The Limited Edition Series — (1954)

Genre(s): Drama, Crime, Film Noir Twilight Time | NR – 95 min. – $29.95 | October 16, 2018

Date Published: 11/06/2018 | Author: The Movieman

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Black Widow

Time out says, release details.

• Duration: 95 mins

Cast and crew

• Director: Nunnally Johnson
• Screenwriter: Nunnally Johnson
• George Raft
• Gene Tierney
• Ginger Rogers
• Reginald Gardiner
• Peggy Ann Garner
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Black widow.

Directed by Nunnally Johnson

Someone will kill this girl tonight!

A young stage hopeful is murdered and suspicion falls on her mentor, a Broadway producer.

Van Heflin Reginald Gardiner Gene Tierney Peggy Ann Garner Ginger Rogers George Raft Virginia Leith Otto Kruger Cathleen Nesbitt Skip Homeier Hilda Simms Mabel Albertson Bea Benaderet Nesdon Booth Paul Bradley Steve Carruthers Harry Carter Paul Cristo Oliver Cross Frances Curry Richard H. Cutting Anthony De Mario Franklyn Farnum Dick Gordon Robert Haines Kenner G. Kemp Paul Kruger Virginia Maples Harold Miller Show All… Forbes Murray Monty O'Grady Cosmo Sardo Jeffrey Sayre Aaron Spelling Bert Stevens James Stone Arthur Tovey Michael Vallon Geraldine Wall Pat White Frank Wilcox Wilson Wood

Director Director

Nunnally Johnson

Producer Producer

Writer writer, story story.

Hugh Wheeler Richard W. Webb

Editor Editor

Dorothy Spencer

Cinematography Cinematography

Charles G. Clarke

Assistant Director Asst. Director

A.F. Erickson

Art Direction Art Direction

Lyle R. Wheeler Maurice Ransford

Set Decoration Set Decoration

Dorcy Howard Walter M. Scott

Special Effects Special Effects

Ray Kellogg

Composer Composer

Leigh Harline

Sound Sound

Roger Heman Sr. Eugene Grossman

Costume Design Costume Design

Makeup makeup, hairstyling hairstyling.

Helen Turpin

20th Century Fox

Releases by Date

28 oct 1954, 01 apr 1955, releases by country.

• Theatrical U

95 mins   More at IMDb TMDb Report this page

Popular reviews

Review by 24framesofnick ★★★★ 2

Did not expect this from Marvel a nice surprise!

Review by sakana1 ★★★½ 9

This feels quite old-fashioned, albeit in the best way possible. Many of the scenes are very stagey (I still can't quite believe it wasn't based on a play), most of the characters are two-dimensional types (the mouthy, unreliable wife; the husband who isn't as honest as he seems; the cop who is a little more clever than everyone gives him credit for), and it's set against a backdrop of New York theater, a reality which makes it impossible not to think of All About Eve as the story kicks into gear.

But it's so much fun! Yes, the characters are two-dimensional, but how much does it really matter when Ginger Rogers is having the time of her life as a…

Review by Sara Clements ★★★½

less crusty dudes and more ginger and gene pls and thanks!!

you know those movies where you want the killer to be a certain person and clink clink bitch turns out it was who you wanted?? love that shit

Review by eely 🎄 ★★½

gene tierney sits on the same couch looking perplexed the entire film and somehow still steals the show. get that paycheck girlie you deserve it.

Review by Gregor Kreyca ★★★★ 2

This 1954 Technicolor Cinemascope Film Noir is a personal favorite of mine. I remember watching it many years ago and quite liking it. But (luckily) I did not remember how it ended. So it was like discovering all the twist for the first time again. Over the years I noticed that this movie is not that well regarded among Noir fans. I really don’t understand why. Yes, it trades in the classic gritty b/w atmosphere for some 50’s Technicolor but that it was just what I love about it. Along with “Leave Her to Heaven” from 1945 and “Niagara” from 1953, this is one of the great Color Noirs that I can think of.

The movie looks absolutely fantastic. A…

Review by Richard Chandler ★★★½

“You’re not afraid you’ll be charged with frivolity?”

A psychotic home wrecker masquerading as an aspiring scribe (Peggy Ann Garner) sows chaos in the life of a gullible Broadway playwright (Van Heflin) and his coterie. Powered by a phenomenal Ginger Rogers supporting turn and interspersed with gorgeous Technicolor exteriors of mid-50’s Manhattan, writer/director/producer Nunnally Johnson’s Black Widow is admittedly little more than a tacky All About Eve knockoff reimagined as a lurid noir/whodunnit. But who really needs much more than that? Not me as it turns out.

In my New York movies ranked list.

Review by kylie ★★★★½

Sick and Tired of my mom guessing who the murderer is 5 minutes into a film

Review by Angelica Jade Bastién🪼🩵 ★★½ 1

While I appreciate the dynamics of color and Cinemascope being used this is more melodrama than noir as it has been dubbed in Criterion Channel’s Fox Noir package. It feels like it’s ripping ideas from All About Eve in certain respects about Broadway actresses and aging and desire. A fun watch with some intriguing parts but doesn’t quite rise to the level of the ideas aching to be explored.

Review by Zoë 🐛 ★★★★

Park Avenue Agatha Christie...but make it Vincente Minnelli.

Review by Sally Jane Black

I really liked how often people walked in a room and took off their hats all at the same time. That's the sort of choreographed gesture we don't see anymore. If this were made ten years later, it'd be much seedier.

Review by Channing Pomeroy ★★★ 3

If you want to double the number of potential murder suspects for your audience to consider, don’t name the movie Black Widow

Along with Niagara 1953 , Black Widow , is a key exhibit in the argument about whether a film noir can be in color? Some say this is simply murder mystery, others claim Peggy Ann Garner’s fatale manipulations twist this from whodunit into noir.

Regardless, it’s still is an enjoyable B-thriller stretched out in lovely but unnecessary CinemaScope with some engaging performances. Aside from Garner, Ginger Rogers and George Raft are clearly having a blast getting a chance to play for the other team this time.

Review by J ★★★

Criterion Channel - Fox Noir #5

When an act of benevolence is twisted into the demands of a murder inquiry, there spins under its slanderous conjectures these threads of lies waiting to entrap and devour its prey. Aspiring writer Nancy Ordway strikes up a conversation with married Broadway producer Peter Denver at a party. Believing himself genuinely helpful in lending his flat for her writing—while his equally famous wife attends to her sick mother in another state—their innocent relationship becomes a hive of gossip and hearsay. What sprinkles it with malignant speculations is when they found Ordway hanged in his bathroom one afternoon. In her death only begins the telling of concocted stories, disentangling of intersecting romantic affairs, wrongful accusations,…

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