Born to Be Bad [1950 film]

Born to Be Bad (1950)

Joan Fontaine – Christabel
Robert Ryan – Nick
Zachary Scott – Curtis
Joan Leslie – Donna
Mel Ferrer – Gobby
Harold Vermilyea – John Caine
Virginia Farmer – Aunt Clara

Screenplay by Edith Sommer and Charles Schnee, based on the novel by Anne Parrish
Directed by Nicholas Ray

Black and white. 90 min.

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I love you so much I wish I liked you.

I can watch with pleasure pretty much everything with Joan Fontaine in the lead. The way she raises her left eyebrow is enough to seduce me. Here she raises the entertainment value of a rather weak script. Christabel is a profoundly selfish vamp “as helpless as a wildcat” who manipulates men with enviable virtuosity. This is a long way from Joan’s shy and innocent characters in Rebecca (1940) and Suspicion (1941). This has led to the widespread opinion that she was miscast. I beg to differ. Joan gives a stellar performance. She chooses subtlety over histrionics, and for my part she is dead right. She is lucky with her leading men, too. Both are excellent. Robert Ryan is perfect as an arrogant writer who loves Christabel but doesn’t like her (that’s a bummer). He is a restless man not cut out to be “backstreet boy”. Dashing and dark-eyed Zachary Scott is engaged to the ravishing Joan Leslie (Velma in High Sierra, remember her?), but that is no obstacle for Christabel. It’s really too bad that the script never so much as attempts to rise above lacklustre melodrama. The ending is edifying in the most disgustingly conventional way. In theory, this could have been a sizzling drama or even a classic film noir. It is nothing like that, alas, and quite a bit lighter than Nicholas Ray’s best work, such as In a Lonely Place (1950). Only the outstanding cast – Joan Fontaine above all – makes this tripe watchable, indeed enjoyable. ( )