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List Price: $14.98 | | Label: 20th Century Fox
Salesrank: 27473
Released: March 11, 2008 |
| Our Price: $7.91 |
| Used Price: $6.65 |
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MPAA Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Media: DVD |
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| Features:
Closed-captioned Color Dolby DVD Subtitled Widescreen NTSC | |
Editorial Review:
No Description Available.
Genre: Feature Film-Drama
Rating: NR
Release Date: 11-MAR-2008
Media Type: DVD
Description of Black Widow (Fox Film Noir):
Ginger Rogers steals the show as a selfish, snide Broadway superstar in Nunnally Johnson's Black Widow, preening, snooping, gossiping, and bestowing air kisses in equal abundance. This late-era (1954) color film noir is as delicious for its fabulous performances as for its dishy look at showbiz, fangs and all. Think of it as All About Eve with murder. Rogers is Carlotta Marin, a grande dame of the thea-tah, married, it would seem happily, to Brian Mullen (Reginald Gardiner). Discussing friends whose marriage is threatened by an alleged affair, Brian assures Lottie they wouldn't face such disgrace. "After all," he deadpans, "we have an understanding." "What kind of understanding?" Lottie asks warily. "The understanding that if you catch me with another woman, you'll break my neck." The two collapse in laughter. Yet at the heart of Black Widow is something grim, the death of a young, ambitious writer named Nancy (Peggy Ann Garner), who gloms onto a theater producer (Van Hefflin), who's in love with his wife, Iris (Gene Tierney, heartbreakingly lovely). Nancy's death appears to be self-inflicted, and yet as each piece of evidence--a weird suicide note, a threatening letter received in the mail--piles up, things begin to point to murder.
The cast is excellent, especially delivering the great backbiting dialogue. And the plot contains more twists than Lombard Street in San Francisco, and will keep viewers guessing, and riveted, to the end. Extras include a great commentary by Alan K. Rode, an expert in film noir, as well as two wonderful featurettes, on the careers of Ginger Rogers and Gene Tierney respectively. Robert Osbourne offers his always insightful thoughts on the roles of Rogers, especially, as she sought to carve out a career after being paired with Fred Astaire. These solo steps are not to be missed.--A.T. Hurley
Black Widow (Fox Film Noir) Reviews:
fun semi-noir murder mystery 
2009-07-27 - Not exactly a noir, more like a murder-mystery twist on "All About Eve", Nunnally Johnson's BLACK WIDOW--strikingly filmed in CinemaScope and Deluxe Color--is an absorbing and highly entertaining little movie.
Would-be writer Nancy Ordway (Peggy Ann Garner) arrives in New York and proceeds to take advantage of anyone with a spare room and a smile. The latest 'victim' in Nancy's quest to take on the big city is Broadway producer Peter Denver (Van Heflin), whilst his wife Iris (Gene Tierney) is out of town tending to her sick mother. Could Nancy possibly use the Denver apartment during the daytime to help her in writing? Peter has no problem with that arrangement...until the day he arrives home to find Nancy hanging from the rafters.
What starts out as a simple cut-and-dry suicide soon enough dissolves into a first degree murder case - with Peter as the main suspect. On the run from the detectives, Peter and Iris must work fast to discover the ghastly truth...
Starring Ginger Rogers as the imperious theatre diva Carlotta Marin, BLACK WIDOW (1954) will appeal to those who like their murder mysteries served up with a healthy side order of snappy one-liners and outrageous costumes. Peggy Ann Garner's role as the Eve Harrington-esque writer was one of her first attempts to make the often difficult transition from acclaimed child star ("Jane Eyre", "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn") to sophisticated young adult, and I believe she does it very successfully in this movie. The role of Nancy had originally been intended for Maggie McNamara ("Three Coins in the Fountain") who fell ill shortly before filming was due to begin.
Also keep an eye out for Virginia Leith ("The Brain That Wouldn't Die") playing one of Nancy's accommodating girlfriends, Cathleen Nesbitt as an upstairs maid, and Bea Benaderet ("Petticoat Junction") as one of the guests at Carlotta's cocktail party.
I do find it very curious that Fox has seen fit to package this title as part of their Film Noir series, because apart from some noir actors like Gene Tierney and Van Heflin, BLACK WIDOW doesn't follow the standard noir genre trends at all. Still I'm very glad that BLACK WIDOW is now readily available in a particularly lush widescreen print; and it's one of my favourite movies at the moment.
The DVD has two worthwhile featurettes focusing on Ginger Rogers and Gene Tierney, an informative commentary track by movie historian/author Alan Rode; interactive pressbook and picture galleries, isolated musical score track, and the theatrical trailer; plus trailers from other titles in the Fox Film Noir collection ("Daisy Kenyon", "Dangerous Crossing", "I Wake Up Screaming" and "Vicki").
Truly Awful 
2009-06-04 - Where to begin with truly awful movie? Ginger Rogers is just terrible. Her performance was so bad I laughed out loud just about anytime she opened her mouth. Sometimes I laughed out loud even when she wasn't speaking. Her "work" in this movie would be justification alone for the Academy to demand the return of the Oscar they gave her for Kitty Foyle. That she won that Oscar over Joan Fontaine (Rebecca) and Katharine Hepburn (The Philadelphia Story) was crime enough, but this performance is just plain embarrassing. The movie looks like a filmed play with awkward stage movements and stilted dialogue that is cringe-worthy. Ginger takes the worst acting honors but George Raft tries his best to outdo her in that department.
'"50'S MURDER MYSTERY IN CINAMASCOPE,STEREO&COLOR" 
2009-04-03 - AN ALL STAR CAST WITH A CARDBOARD SKYLINE BACKGROUND VIEW FROM THIS RITZY APARTMENT
BUILDING WHERE SOME OF THE CHARACTERS RESIDE+SOME OUTDOOR SHOTS. VAN HEFLIN
IS BLAMED FOR A MURDER HE DID NOT COMMIT .
LOTS OF SUSPECTS,AND LOTS OF FUN FOR PEOPLE WHO LIKE AND OLD FASHION MYSTERY.
IT'S MADE FOR REPEATED VIEWING,EVEN THOUGH BY THEN YOU KNOW WHO THE KILLER
IS . IT'S MOVIE COMFORT FOOD. MORE MYSTERY THAN NOIR.( PEGGY ANN GARNER'S
WAIST IS THE TINIEST I'VE EVER SEEN.) PS;EXTRA'S;FILMOGRAPHY;GENE TURNEY,GINGER
ROGERS +MORE.
She was no black widow - She was a firefly eaten by a mantis!
2009-03-18 - I liked this one! It had allot of twists and turns! Me and two other cops watched this old who done it together. I said it was the one guy and someone else said it was this other guy and the third cop figured the so called black widow was pregnant. It turned out that none of us saw the correct ending early on. It had a great cast and some descent lines for the 50's. It's not quite as good as Laura but that one really is a classic. This was just good clean fun!
Great cast - great who done it & its widescreen + in color !!
2009-02-25 - This movie is a well done who done it with a great cast Van Heflin (the victim) , George Raft (the inspector) Ginger Rogers (the pompous celebrity) , Gene Tierney (Van's suffering wife)
Van is accused of murdering a woman who he was seeing on a friendly platonic basis. He goes out all to clear his name and when the murderer is revealed it is a surprise. Great interesting story with some twists at the end. This is in widescreen and in color. It has some Noir touch due to the dark mood the film goes into when the murder hits - but I wouldn't call it a true Film Noir like Nightmare Alley or Out of the Past. Call it what you will, its a very good film...
