Lucybespro It is a performances centric movie

Lightdeossk Captivating movie !

Aneesa Wardle The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Rosie Searle It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Spikeopath Jeopardy is directed by John Sturges and adapted to screenplay by Mel Dinelli from Maurice Zimm's radio play "A Question of Time". It stars Barbara Stanwyck, Barry Sullivan, Ralph Meeker and Lee Aaker. Music is by Dimitri Tiomkin and cinematography by Victor Milner.Running just shy of 70 minutes, Jeopardy is a classic lesson in how to garner great suspense from a small cast and set-up. Beginning with jaunty music and the scene setting of a family of three off for a vacation, it's all Americana bliss, but it's not long before fate deals the family some bad cards and we land firmly in thriller territory. The dialogue is safe and assured, with the stars turning in rich characterisations as written, particularly a wonderfully oily Meeker as the villain of the piece. Though very much plein air as a production, a claustrophobic and fraught air grips the play and drags the viewer in wholesale, a sense of cruel luck, danger and ironies hold things in a noir realm. While a turn of events in the narrative is deftly played, the sub-text shattering to the point we don't need to see it to feel it.Unfortunately some irritants stop it from hitting the top end of the scale. Daft ironies and highly improbable contrivances chip away at the pic's other strengths, one scene has the son (Aaker) trapped on a dilapidated pier, to which his dad calls out "stay right where you are", I mean really, what else was the lad going to do?! Some crude back projection work also dampens down some otherwise nice production touches (Calif locales just lovely), while the ending kinda dilutes a previous moral kicker. But irritants aside, this holds its head up high as a picture well worth investing time in. 7.5/10

secondtake Jeopardy (1953)This is a almost linear plot contrivance that works better than you'd think. The basics get laid out quickly. In a very very isolate spot on the Baja peninsula of Mexico our two leads and their son go for a camping and fishing trip. But the dad (Barry Sullivan) gets trapped under a really heavy bit of an old pier--and the tide is rising.Mom (Barbara Stanwyck in a really good performance) needs to do something fast. It gets complicated by a murderer who happens to be in the same vicinity, but these complications get really interesting morally by the way the movie presents them. There is even a voice-over a couple times with Stanwyck asking, what would any woman do in this situation? her answer comes out loud part way through: I would do anything to save my husband. Anything.There are some totally realistic aspects here, including a killer/criminal who is modern and unromanticized, a bit of a surprise, really. But every now and then there is a little moment of bad judgement on the part of the writer and director, and the believability, which is important, is shot down. But then it picks up and you go along some more. Most of it is really interesting. An example of this is at the end when Stanwyck really needs to tell Sullivan what is going on in the water together, and she doesn't. It's as if she has some new bond with the criminal that overrides her obvious love for her husband.But maybe to save his life.Like a lot of 50s movies, this one is shot all on location. This avoided the problem with the studios as they were falling apart (financially) and made a pretty cheap shoot overall. And it works. One of the appeals is the setting--dry and isolated, for sure. And they don't make the Mexican cops speak English most of the time, another point for realism.Is this a great movie? No way. I wish there had been more focus on how creepy and dangerous it got physically and psychologically between Stanwyck and the killer. This could have played out as the main part of the movie (which in a way it was--it presented the core moral dilemma). But in the rush to make a compact movie there was no room for subtlety, I guess. Just an excellent Stanwyck and a very good Sullivan in his more limited role trapped by the pier.Curious stuff. Compare to Ida Lupino's "The Hitch-Hiker" if you get a chance.

bkoganbing The lesson to be learned from Jeopardy is that when you are going to a foreign country at least learn a few useful phrases of the native language. If Barry Sullivan and Barbara Stanwyck had learned a few rudimentary phrases of Spanish before going on vacation to Mexico they might have saved a whole lot of time and trouble. Especially to learn AYUDAME, (Help Me).Barbara was finding it hard to get good material at this point because Jeopardy is barely more than a competent made for TV film. She and Sullivan and their son Lee Aaker are traveling to Mexico in Baja California to get in some good fishing. But Sullivan falls off an abandoned pier and gets his leg caught in pilings. After some attempts to lift the thing, Stanwyck goes for help.But not speaking any Spanish she's out of luck. The first guy she runs into who speaks English is American Ralph Meeker who is an escaped prisoner on the run. Meeker's got other ideas including some ideas for Stanwyck. Jeopardy was clearly B picture material, it might have made a decent enough TV film later on, but is so beneath the talents of all the players involved. It was also directed by John Sturges who certainly knew his action films, but was hardly a director for a film with a female star lead.Maybe Barbara should have said Ayudame upon receipt of the script.

Lawson Jeopardy has the feel of being a stock movie of sorts - one of the movies that the studios pumped out inbetween big budget/box office ones. It's a mere 70 minutes and doesn't feature many sets, and the only star is Barbara Stanwyck. But what a star, of course. Stanwyck is a tough lady once again as she runs into an escaped convict while seeking help for her trapped husband in the Mexican desert. The majority of the movie is focused on how she deals with her captor, who wants her to submit to him in exchange for his help. Some psychological battling there. It's a surprisingly effective little movie - its short length makes it taut, and that Stanwyck is great should go without mention (but I'll still praise her every time).