(1953) Bad For Each Other
DRAMA
Co-written and directed by Irving Rapper that opens with a colonel, Thomas Owen (Charlton Heston) or Tom for short coming back to a mining town, Coalville and finds out his brother had long been past, that he may not be on the up and up as told by mother, Mrs. Mary Owen (Mildred Dunnock). So he then goes and visits the owner of the coal mine, Dan Reasonover (Ray Collins) and finds out that he stole and owed money to the coal mining comp as well as the owner Reasonover. During this, Dan Reasonover's daughter, Helen Curtis then becomes infatuated by him and tries to convince him to become a doctor for the upper class as a profession and drop from being one for the army. He does, and at the same time falls for Helen and let's her to drop what he wanted to do to become an associate for Dr. Homer Gleeson (Lester Matthews). And while he is in love with Helen, both Tom's own mother as well as Helen's dad disapproves of the match once he proposes to her.
The dilemma unfolds when Tom decides to break ethic rules by letting his boss Dr. Homer Gleeson to take full credit for a surgery he had done, forcing the nurse he had recently hired and respects to move to quit working for him and work for a much smaller clinic for the workers of Coalville.
It is kind of odd, this movie was selected to be shown on TCM Eddie Muller's Noir Alley when the overall experience is more drama than noir. And upon listening to Eddie Muller both from the introduction and afterward, I do not recall, why he thought this was film noir as their was no murder involve at all, but just some dilemmas.
