| The File on Thelma Jordon | |
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Theatrical poster |
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| Directed by | Robert Siodmak |
| Produced by | Hal B. Wallis |
| Written by | Screenplay: Ketti Frings Story: Marty Holland |
| Starring | Barbara Stanwyck Wendell Corey Paul Kelly |
| Music by | Victor Young |
| Cinematography | George Barnes |
| Editing by | Warren Low |
| Studio | Hal Wallis Productions |
| Distributed by | Paramount Pictures |
| Release date(s) | January 18, 1950 |
| Running time | 100 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
The File on Thelma Jordon is a 1950 film noir directed by Robert Siodmak from a screenplay by Ketti Frings. It stars Barbara Stanwyck and Wendell Corey.[1]
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Stanwyck plays Thelma Jordon, a woman who late one night shows up in the office of married Assistant district attorney Cleve Marshall (Wendell Corey) with a story about prowlers and burglars. Before Cleve can stop himself, he and Thelma are involved in a love affair. But Thelma is a mysterious woman, and Cleve can't help wondering if she is hiding something.
When her rich aunt is found shot, Jordon calls not the police but Marshall, who helps her cover up evidence that may incriminate her. When she emerges as the prime suspect, he sabotages the prosecution. Thelma Jordon is acquitted. Her past, however, has begun to catch up with her.
When the film was released, the staff at Variety magazine praised the film, and wrote, "Thelma Jordon unfolds as an interesting, femme-slanted melodrama, told with a lot of restrained excitement. Scripting [from a story by Marty Holland] is very forthright, up to the contrived conclusion, and even that is carried off successfully because of the sympathy developed for the misguided and misused character played by Wendell Corey...Robert Siodmak's direction pinpoints many scenes of extreme tension."[2]
Time Out film guide notes, "A fine film noir which works an ingenious, intricate variation on the situation in Double Indemnity, but which takes its tone, unlike Wilder's film, not from Stanwyck's glittering siren who courts her own comeuppance ("Judgement day, Jordon!"), but from the nondescript assistant DA she drives to the brink of destruction."[3]
The New York Times, in a 1950 review, praised the film's cast and noted "Thelma Jordon is, for all of its production polish, adult dialogue and intelligent acting, a strangely halting and sometimes confusing work."[4]
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