Tension (1949)

☆ ☆ ☆

Tension (1949) – J. Berry

Richard Basehart is the poor sap married to unscrupulous tough gal Audrey Topper.  She fools around while he works his night job as a pharmacist and she has no interest in his dreams of a house in the suburbs.  In fact, eventually she leaves him for a cashed up liquor salesman in a fancy car.  Well, this makes Basehart want to get even and he even develops a plan to murder the rich bastard.  First, he gets some contact lenses (huge and hard) and he changes the way he dresses.  Then, he rents himself a new apartment and introduces himself to everyone using an alias.  Of course, he meets a new love (Cyd Charisse) during this time.  Still, he intends to go through with the murder until he gets there and realizes its pointless.  Except someone else subsequently does kill the liquor salesman and then Basehart is the number one suspect.  And his wife returns, making things worse.  The whole thing is narrated by a savvy homicide detective (Barry Sullivan) who explains how he breaks suspects by applying tension to them.  Indeed, he gets right into the plot, even leading Totter to believe that he loves her and will take her to Acapulco.  So much for ethics…but this is film noir.