- Two different women in Robert Siodmak's The File on Thelma Jordon claim to be in love with assistant D.A. Cleve Marshall (Wendell Corey), but I'll be damned if I understand why. The first is Cleve's wife Pamela (Joan Tetzel), who finds herself abandoned on their fifth wedding anniversary because Cleve apparently really dislikes his in-laws. The second is the eponymous Thelma Jordon (Barbara Stanwyck), whom Cleve subjects to various forms of obnoxious behavior after a long night of drinking in a borrowed office. In one representative scene, a thoroughly sauced Cleve keeps insisting that he loves Thelma while she gently tries to steer him out of a nice restaurant, presumably having paid the bill herself.
- In a normal film drama, I would expect Cleve to sober up and feel ashamed, but he really doesn't seem to have any regrets. In fact, Cleve continues to pursue his relationship with Thelma, ditching Pamela and their two children at an out-of-town beach house while he meets up with Thelma on weekday nights. Thelma finally admits to Cleve that she's married, too, but describes her relationship with the suspicious Tony Loredo (Richard Rober) as something left over from a completely different part of her life. Now, Thelma just wants to help out her dear, sweet Aunt Vera (Gertrude W. Hoffmann), who just happens to live in a palatial mansion stocked with valuable emeralds. When Aunt Vera also happens to end up murdered, Chief Investigator Miles Scott (Paul Kelly) fixes his sights firmly on Thelma.
- While Cleve's drunken escapades early in the film are goofy and whimsical, the situation becomes much more serious when Thelma goes on trial for murder. After some behind-the-scenes machinations on the part of her wonderfully wry lawyer (Stanley Ridges), Thelma finds herself prosecuted by Cleve, who obviously intends to torpedo the case on her behalf. Even after he discovers that old photo of Thelma with blonde hair and the pattern of shady dealings that have followed her around the country. Any fan of Barbara Stanwyck would immediately recall some similar patterns in Double Indemnity, but Thelma appears to have a more well-developed conscience than Phyllis Dietrichson ever did. At least, that's what I was thinking right up until the point that Thelma committed one of the most shocking acts of violence in any film I've ever seen.
- While film noir is suffused with scenes of women suffering at the hands of brutal men, women finally get in a single act of revenge in The File on Thelma Jordon. The instant that Thelma mashes her cigarette lighter against Tony's face, sending their car careening down a cliffside, the entire film changes. Suddenly, those earlier analogies about schizophrenia seem that much more literal, and one might reasonably begin to question Thelma's relatively sympathetic account of her aunt's death. Naturally, all of this drama puts Cleve in quite a pickle, but you may have noticed that I never cared much for him in the first place. Although the film has many virtues, including Aunt Vera's terrific mansion and Thelma's memorable march from the prison to the courthouse, it's that stunning cigarette lighter scene that I imagine most audiences will file away for later.
- Two years after this film was made, Richard Rober really did die in a crash where the car careened off an embankment, which is pretty messed up.
