User reviews

With both its star Alan Ladd and its director Michael Curtiz nearing the end of their careers, The Man in the Net has a valedictory feel that surely wasn't intended. Ladd looks puffy and seems bored by issues that are literally vital to him (and his sprints through the woods look labored and abbreviated). Behind the camera, Curtiz fares a bit better; the old pro (Casablanca, Mildred Pierce) knows how to shape a story and sustain tension, but he didn't bother to plaster over the cracks in the far-fetched screenplay by Reginald Rose.

Ladd plays a commercial artist who has moved to rural Connecticut to pursue his dream of becoming a serious painter; another reason for leaving New York's `rat race' was the gin-fueled nervous breakdown of his wife (Carolyn Jones). She still chafes under their genteel poverty when she knows he could make big bucks by returning to his old job. She takes her revenge in a clandestine affair (all the while trying to look and act like Bette Davis as Rosa Moline in Beyond The Forest).

When Ladd takes a commuter train into the city to turn down the job and incidentally to visit her psychiatrist (isn't it customary for the patient to go?), he returns to find all his paintings slashed and a typewritten note telling him she's left for good. But then a suitcase full of her clothes is found burning at the local dump, and other evidence points to foul play. The townspeople, who range from rural bumpkins to the country gentry, jump to the conclusion that the aloof Ladd murdered Jones. They profess shock at Ladd's revelation that she was a drinker, even though she has already staged a drunken scene at a big party where the hosts know her well enough to have a `special tomato juice' waiting for her.

Then we're asked to buy the spectacle of this Connecticut town, in 1959, turning into a Balkan village, with a lynch mob gathered in pursuit of a short, middle-aged white male. Luckily for Ladd, he's forged bonds of trust with a bevy of children whom he's forever sketching in the bosky glades (this seems a stretch, as he appears as stiff and uncomfortable being with them as they do being in front of a camera). They hide him in a surprisingly spacious and well-appointed cave they use as their clubhouse, and, at his bidding, undertake a series of ruses to smoke out the real killer. There's enough going on in Man in the Net to keep you watching, including Charles McGraw as a surly sheriff, but it's not fresh enough to make you suspend your considerable disbelief.

There's a nice New England feel in the Connecticut opening scenes of THE MAN IN THE NET and director Michael Curtiz makes striking visual use of the B&W camera in artfully photographing a country farmhouse with its rustic interiors full of paintings supposedly done by local artist ALAN LADD.

Ladd's wife, CAROLYN JONES, doesn't share his passion for the arts, staging quite a scene with neighbors when she breaks into a birthday party with a shiner and accuses her husband of mistreating her during one of their arguments. It provides a nice set-up for someone to eventually murder her, making Ladd look like the main suspect.

Alan Ladd, only 46 at the time, seems almost lifeless and delivers a completely stiff performance that has him befriending neighborhood kids in such a fashion that they become willing to help him avoid detection when the villagers turn on him. This aspect of the story simply rings false, as does the rest of the plot which is too pat and contrived to seem plausible. The children are not exactly adept at delivering most of their lines.

DIANE FOSTER does a nice job as a decent neighborhood woman who helps Ladd prove his innocence and CHARLES McGRAW, JOHN LUPTON and TOM HELMORE are fine as other suspects in the supporting cast.

But for a man accused of a crime he didn't commit, Ladd has all the facial animation of a department store mannequin.

Trivia note: The bit about the slashed paintings reminds me of the Ronald Colman/Ida Lupino flick THE LIGHT THAT FAILED, but Jones' emoting in the party scene is on the level of Bette Davis at her histrionic overkill.

The Man in the Net (1959)

What a great movie with a flawed Alan Ladd bringing it down. This is toward the end of his career, and he plays his part, of a man falsely accused of a crime, with such deadpan reluctance, you think he's being forced to act. We do feel for him because the plot is so clear about the facts, but we can't really get emotionally involved. The movie around him a late 50s modernity mixed with old school Hollywood pace and mise-en-scene, thanks to veteran director Michael Curtiz ("Casablanca" and "Mildred Pierce").

The real star is the almost unknown Carolyn Jones--almost unknown, except as Morticia in The Addams Family (mid-60 television, for the uninitiated). She played a number of important secondary roles films of the 1950s, but also had a t.v. career, and who know why she never quite made it. But, she shows up here right away and is astonishing, like a young Bette Davis, even with the same wide eyes and snappy mannerisms. She plays Ladd's wife, and at first she seems merely feisty. Then you realize she's a live wire inside, and possibly drinking too much. And then it cracks open from there, and Jones makes the character cunning and yet also weirdly enchanting.

The other fascinating turn to the storytelling is the role children play in it all (a little ironic given that the movie promotions say loudly: not appropriate for children). At first the group of five kids, all under 10, are part of the innocence of this little Connecticut town far from the ravages of New York. Then a lot of adult stuff happens, the good stuff really, the stuff that Curtiz has the best feel for. Then the children reappear, and it almost becomes a two layer movie, with the children keeping a kind of fairy tale element to what is a very very horrible situation. In fact, as the townspeople become more and more childish (and cruel), the kids become reasonable and mature.

But then there is Ladd. Even reviewers at the time (when Ladd was still riding his star power) remarked that he was all wood and clay (or as Richard Neson said in 1959, Ladd "mutes his personality to the point of unreality"). Even physically he seems a bit awkward, making me think he was getting old, even though he needed to be in his 30s or 40s for the part and was only 45 at the time of shooting.

So, this is an odd beast of a film, but a truly interesting one. Even the story has a quirky genesis--the author being listed as Patrick Quentin, which was a pen name for a group of four writers who pounded out popular detective fiction. Certainly anything by Curtiz is worth a look, and the direction, per se, is actually first rate, if we can overlook his handling of his lead male. And the cinematographer is the wonderful John Seitz,which helps with a lot of the scenes (the cave scenes, the party). The movie almost has the potential to be a cult classic, like "Night of the Hunter," but Ladd never was as commanding as Robert Mitchum, was he?

But more likely a whodunnit of Hitchcockian proportions. Directed by Michael Curtiz in 1959 and starring Alan Ladd, it has a strong supporting cast of children, which made the film very unusual.

Ladd was a gentle, somewhat under-rated actor and he was effective as the passive husband and victim in this film. Curtiz's direction is pretty sharp, and there's the usual suspension of disbelief which one has to engage in these kinds of films. But I felt the film was 'small' in scope and would more easily have lent itself to television.

It was predictable in that Carolyn Jones wasn't a strong, leading actor and it was obvious she was going to be bumped off because she didn't have the charisma to last the full distance of the film.

Good drama about a man chased by hot headed vigilantes and the police for a crime he claims to be innocent of. Along the way he is aided by a group of kids who believe in his innocence. Very exciting show with a satisfying ending.

Like a lot of classic film stars, Alan Ladd's career ended on a low rather than a high note, and one of his last films, 1959's Man in the Net, is a good example of this. It was also one of the last films for director Michael Curtiz who directed such classics as "Casablanca." It's a poor effort from such an accomplished man.

Ladd plays an artist who has left the pressure of NYC and his full time job in order to paint. He spends most of his time in the woods, painting, while a group of local kids play nearby and talk with him. His major problem isn't the brushes and colors, though, it's his wife (Carolyn Jones), an alcoholic who wants to return to the social atmosphere that helped her drinking along in the first place. Here in the boondocks, she's hooked up with the ritzy set, to Ladd's displeasure.

When he returns from a business trip to New York City, his wife is missing, there is blood on his painting clothes, his paintings have been destroyed, and everybody thinks he's responsible. With the help of the children he has befriended, he eludes the police and is able to get the proof he needs to exonerate himself.

With a tighter script and someone other than Ladd, this might have been a decent movie. The kids are adorable, and that angle of the script plays out nicely. Ladd, unfortunately, sleepwalks through the role and at times, actually looks like a blind man. I tried to figure out why, and I think it's just because he's literally staring into space instead of focusing on something. There was never anything spectacular about Ladd's acting - what he had was a presence, a toughness, and good looks. These are all gone, and in their place is a puffy, heavy-lidded, slow man.

In contrast, the striking Carolyn Jones is full of energy in her role. With her signature short haircut and Bette Davis eyes, Jones was an edgy actress who left us too soon. She was very good at playing neurotic party girls and straying wives, though she's remembered today as Morticia on "The Addams Family" TV show.

All in all, "The Man in the Net" plays like a television drama, with the suburbanites going after Ladd like they all live in the wild west. Someone commented that today he would be suspicious for hanging out with children, and that aspect dates the film as well. It's a shame, because the nicest aspect of the movie was the way the kids rallied around him and helped him.

If you loved Ladd in "This Gun for Hire," "The Glass Key," "The Blue Dahlia," and "Shane," skip this. You don't need to see a fallen star.

Alan Ladd, (John Hamilton) plays the role of an artist who decides to leave New York and the rat race mainly because his wife likes to drink and is getting out of control where she has to see a doctor for help. Carolyn Jones, (Linda Hamilton) plays John's wife and lives in a very quiet town in New England where John paints pictures of children all day and never seems to sell a picture. One day John receives a letter offering him a job in New York City with an Art Firm for $30,000 dollars but refuses to take this position because of his wife's chemical dependency. Linda goes into a rage and starts drinking and goes completely out of control. In real life, Alan Ladd is really doing all the boozing and you can see it in the close up's of his face and eyes are puffy. The children in this picture take complete control over the entire film and gave great supporting roles in trying to hid and help John Hamilton from the police.

After seeing the excellent "13 West Street" (1962), with Alan Ladd, I had high hopes for "The Man in the Net". Another B&W film from his later years might be similar, I thought. I was very disappointed. This movie had, I thought, MORE going in: like, famed Director Michael Curtiz, and co-star Carolyn Jones. They were not at their best.

As others have noticed, Ms. Jones does a totally-out-of-the-blue Bette Davis impression. I would have spotted her as a boozy floozy right off the bat, but even her BEST friend has no clue??? Mr. Ladd, great in "13 West Street" and one of the only things worth watching in "The Carpetbaggers"(1964), is not very good. The story is very weak. How is it that all the townspeople are stupid and their children so smart? Despite the weakness of the premise, there are some interestingly played scenes; the film does have a structure, which is easy and somewhat satisfying to follow, despite the implausibility.

**** The Man in the Net (1959) Michael Curtiz ~ Alan Ladd, Carolyn Jones, Diane Brewster

An unwatchable late-in-career Alan Ladd vehicle, "The Man in the Net" is an extremely poor movie. Writer Reginald Rose, whose "12 Angry Men" is a certifiable classic, should be ashamed of this one.

The first half hour, setting up the story and characters, is overwritten to make Ladd, miscast as a dedicated artist who's fled the NYC rat race to pursue his art in bucolic Connecticut, the story's hero and his wife Carolyn Jones a monster. Rose's portrait of her as an alcoholic creep dumping on Ladd constantly for not selling out to be a commercial artist and returning them to her comfy social life in the Big Apple is ridiculously one-sided and phony. The stereotyped supporting cast is insufferable.

Act I climaxes with Ladd returning home from NYC where he turned down the ad agency job offer, only to find all his paintings destroyed and Jones missing. With stone age local cops Charles McGraw and Edward Binns on the case, the movie instantly turns into a version of Gone Girl 1.0, without any of the cleverness or subtlety of that 2014 classic that made Rosamund Pike a star.

The remaining hour of the movie goes in an entirely different direction than "Gone Girl", with a dumb subplot involving the local children who all adore Ladd, then vigilante justice rearing its ugly head and a final plot twist that is as stupid as it is unconvincing.

Worst of all is Ladd's performance. He is so dull and monotone, especially in the early reels, that if he hadn't been a Hollywood star he would have been fired and replaced with somebody who could emote a teeny bit.

And he's a painter, too. Or IS he? Yikes, this movie has some of the worst art ostensibly painted by an underrated but talented artist ever seen in movies! Ladd gives a dispirited performance. We have a long history with him. So we like his character and wish the best outcome for the trouble he gets in. But LLadd seems to be walking through it.

Carolyn Jones is pretty good as his alcoholic wife. She was capable of better. She had an odd look that Hollywood didn't seem to know how to use. (Well, not till "The Addams Family." And it's a shame that's what she's remembered for.) Around this time several movies about adults' friendships with precious children came out. This is one of them. It was probably viewed as charming at the time -- sort of like a man's friendship with dogs or kindness to his own children or to orphans.

Today, for better or for worse, a man who spent much of his time with preteen children would be highly suspicious to his neighbors. In the movie, Ladd's character is hounded by the townspeople for possibly having killed Jones. Today he wouldn't have lasted that long in a suburban area like this, hanging around with children.

In "the proud rebel" , Alan Ladd played opposite a child,his own son ; in the very first sequence,he is surrounded by a bunch of kids who do not think his drawings are "dirty "; this sequence is rather long and may seem boring and soppy ;but it's vital .Hadn't the artist been good friends with the children of the neighbourhood, he would have been perhaps lynched by the populace -although it's a bit exagerated , his wife being not so popular in the vicinity.

The murder mystery is quite trite ,with the cardboard character of the alcoholical hysterical wife (Carolyn Jones ) ,and the trap the fugitive uses to clear himself of the accusation somewhat far-fetched .

The film's main interest lies in the children's intervention ,the last bastion against the maddening crowd ; for them ,it's the greatest game they have ever played ,and to hide the fugitive in their own "den" is extremely exciting ;their relationship with the wrong man makes up for the paucity of the detective story.

I am a fan of Alan Ladd and did find this film entertaining, but it was really second rate to say the least. Ladd looked stiff and unhappy the entire film. Miss Jones steals the show and is in her prime. However, she does over play het role and starts to give the viewer a headache listening to her hysterics. All the actors stand around with their hands at their sides and at attention; this takes away a lot from their performances. Fair film, but if you are a fan of Alan Ladd, you should find it at least entertaining.

The story is set in a small Connecticut commuter town. Alan Ladd plays John Hamilton, an advertising art director who recently quit his job in Manhattan and moved to the town with his wife, Linda (Carolyn Jones of 1960s Addams family fame) so that she could relax and recover from a "breakdown" and he could pursue a career as a painter.

Linda, you see, is an alcoholic with what could only be charitably described as a volatile personality, narcissistic in the extreme. She is constantly belittling John, especially his art which in all fairness does look pretty bad (lame prop people I suspect). Think Picasso does velvet painting for Wal-Mart. For some reason she wears her hair in a 1920s-style page-boy do as if she's headed to a Great Gatsby party.

John is a sad, low-energy, doormat beta male. He's attending a party of the town's elite when wifey barges in with a black eye - she took a drunken tumble on the way over - and accuses him of once again hitting her in one of his allegged rages. He does not in any way defend himself against the slander.

In most scenes he walks about like he has some kind of disability, or weight on his shoulders, and his running is oddly feminine. In the movie he looks about 62, but Ladd was actually in his mid-40s at the time. Linda, we learn, is 28 though she claims to be 23. John should have been played by a far younger looking, more energetic actor. Ladd was badly miscast here.

As for John he much prefers to hang out with a group of children, about eight or nine years old, sketching them as they play in his yard. He takes on a Mr. Rogers persona in these scenes. Innocent then, but today this affinity for kids would end up with a few calls to the police from worried parents.

The pivot point in the movie is when Linda goes missing Gone Girl style, and the townspeople suspect John of murder. John is determined to clear his name, but he faces an uphill battle. The easily upset townspeople are already convinced of his guilt, and form a vigilante mob replete with axe handles, baseball bats, and shotguns! As if this was Alabama 1940 not a sleepy Connecticut bedroom town. More troubling for John: the police are not exactly eager to help him. The sheriff has actually been sniffing around the Hamilton place trying to score with the vampy Linda.

John goes on the run. He soon forms an alliance with the children who hide him and help him prove his innocence. Lots of plot twists ensue, some convincing, some not.

All in all, a weird movie. Direction and cinematography are good. Writing workmanlike. But the movie switches back and forth from a 1950s melodrama to a kids' adventure story to fugitive on the run.

I always found Alan Ladd a rather soporific actor and sadly here he isn't any different. He was a successful graphic designer and is now an artist who is down on his luck and his marriage to "Linda" (Carolyn Jones) is looking distinctly rocky. She hankers for her previous life in the big city, has taken to the bottle and is making it clear to all she can tell that he is a brute of an husband. When she leaves a letter on his typewriter saying she has had enough and left, he sets out to find her - only to discover that something far more sinister is afoot. Self-preservation becomes the order of the day, and luckily he has the friendship of some local children who prove very effective at being his eyes and his ears! Can he get to the bottom of things before his neighbours come to the conclusion that he is the culprit of an heinous crime and take the law into their own hands? It's a bit on the slow side at the start and it does take a while to build up any sort of head of steam, but once we are clear of the structure of the mystery it develops well enough. Ladd is proficient, he lacks any spark, but Diane Brewster ("Vickie") adds a little character to what is otherwise a rather flat crime drama. The story has it's moments and maybe a bit less dialogue and a bit more characterisation would have helped it, but it's still fine to watch - you just won't remember it.

A serious and gifted artist is married to a neurotic alcoholic wife, whom he saved from the rat pack stress of New York, but she isn't happy about her life in a small village in the country, and every now and then falls back down into drinking bouts again with neurotic outbursts, so he decides she should go to a psychiatrist. She agrees, he goes to New York to meet him, but he is unavailable, so Alan Ladd goes back home and finds his house all smashed up with all his paintings, and his wife gone without a trace. There is a note, though, without a signature, printed on a typewriter, in which she tells him to find another wife to torture. This would have broken down any artist but not Alan Ladd. He finds traces to indicate she has been murdered, the whole village eagerly believes he is the murderer, so they all go for a lynching spree, but Alan Ladd escapes and begins to add two and two together. It's a great thriller worthy of Michael Curtiz' expert direction with 40 years of experience, and here he has a particularly good hand with children. But Carolyn Jones as the wife is the one who makes the deepest impression.

By 1959, Film Noir had ended, but not officially since it was never an official genre or a categorized style of films... at least not yet... that is, the French had yet to coin the Dark Film into the term that would grow throughout the years... but the template that makes these kind of dark crime melodramas still remained, and in Michael Curtiz's A MAN IN A NET, two of the most specific and popular tropes are well at hand...

First off, the Wrong Man aspect as an aged, sluggish, loser artist Alan Ladd (looking as if he had a facelift to resemble a miniature Robert Mitchum) as the only logical culprit to have killed his boozing/cheating, no-good wife... and the second aspect's just been mentioned, and in that, Carolyn Jones, on the verge of THE ADDAMS FAMILY and having been in a handful of noirs ranging from THE BIG HEAT to SHIELD FOR MURDER, is the best thing going...

Sadly, she doesn't last very long as it's her vanishing/murder that becomes the mystery-genre aspect, starting out intriguing enough until the movie turns into a kind of Little Rascals Whodunnit since Ladd's character, rejecting a well-paying New York advertising gig (and a far too smitten Diane Brewster) to idyllically paint mediocre portraits in Connecticut, has befriended every child in town, meeting in the rural woodsy locale where the story begins...

Winding-up in caverns only these children know about, hiding their friend from encroaching lawman (and obvious suspect) Charles McGraw inside a mountainous cavern, where the otherwise edgy crime aspect's replaced with a TV-style programmer that didn't quite know when or how to put away childish things: despite the fact that TWILIGHT ZONE child starlet Susan Gordon turns in the best performance except that, in Ladd's case, she had very little chemistry to work with.

Well this film could have been made by the likes of Mitchell Leison, Delbert or Daniel Mann, and certainly not the great Michael Curtiz. Of course Joan Crawford would have been a great help, who she was used to work with Curtiz, and Alan Ladd is far from his best here, in this domestic drama, not even thriller. Forget THIS GUN FOR HIRE or SHANE. I prefered him in THE CARPETBAGGERS, his last movie, actually. This one is not lousy, not even boring, but predictable, however the atmosphere is not that bad. I guess the Curtiz's experience. This is not the Curtiz's film that I will remind the most, his Warner Bros years were far far away.