kidboots Agree with the other reviewers - the sets are cheap, the music is cheesy but stay with it, it has the sort of the plot that would not be out of place in an "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" episode. At the time John Bromfield, who would soon be better known as "The Sheriff of Cochise", was the most known star - Martha Vickers was a 1940s glamour girl famous for her role in "The Big Sleep" and also for being one of Mickey Rooney's ex wives, Robert Hutton didn't have much of a career to lose in the first place.Bromfield plays slimy Rik DeVilla, the "big bluff" who sees vivacious widow Valerie Bancroft (Vickers) as the answer to his prayers. She is wealthy and, more importantly, has a heart condition and before Rik's arrival, has been going downhill fast and not expected to live!! Unfortunately for Rik, once they meet, her health picks up and she is rejuvenated by Rik's high spirits!! That is not good for his plans - he will have to do something drastic!! Not everybody thinks he is the answer to a girl's dream - Valerie's secretary, Joan, has her doubts. He initially thought she was the merry widow and so tried to wine and dine her, however once he meets the real Valerie he sticks to her like a leech!! Not only is he substituting Valerie's heart pills for plain bicarb soda, Joan is convinced he is having an affair with a luscious exotic dancer Fritzie. Rosemarie Bowe was just gorgeous and why she couldn't have had a decent career based on her beauty alone is mystifying. She reminded me of a more sultry Mary Murphy - maybe marrying Robert Stack the next year made her rethink her career.He picks a fight with both Valerie and Joan - it is all part of a vicious plan to create an alibi with Fritzie when things get sticky later on but one person they hadn't counted on was Fritzie's extremely jealous husband, who, unknown to the others, starts his own vendetta with very complicated results!! Don't judge it - just watch it!!

kapelusznik18 ***SPOILERS*** The sleaze ball con artist lady killer Ricardo De Villa, John Bromfield, and his unstable and jealous girlfriend Fritzie Darvel, Rosemarie Stack, get it and gets it real good in the end to trying to take advantage of heart patient and loaded with cash Valerie Bancroft, Martha Vickers, whom the sleaze ball, Ricardo, romanced off her feet and later married. Knowing that Valerie doesn't have long to live because of her heart condition that's being kept from her by her doctor Tom Harrison, Robert Bice, she's encouraged to living wild life of drinking smoking and partying by Ricardo hoping it will end her life a lot sooner then expected. So with her kicking off he and Fritzie can collect Valerie's millions when she's finally put to rest.It's Valerie's good friend Marsha Jordan, Eve Miller, who sees through Ricardo & Fritzie's sinister plans and tries to warn Valerie that her husband is not only no good, by cheating on her behind her back, but planning to do her in as well. No matter what Marsha does she can't convince Valerie that dreamboat Ricardo Is no good and even ends up getting kicked out of the beach house, only for a few days at most, by an outraged Valerie. That in her feeling that by breaking her and Ricardo up Marsha can get a crack at lover boy Ricardo so she can be his girlfriend. Still Ricardo can't wait for Valerie, despite everything he does to make it happen, to drop dead before her time which is about a year which Dr. Harrison gave her.***SPOILERS*** Planning to jump the gun in Valerie's impending death Ricardo comes up with this plan to murder her, real smart of his part, and then make it look like it was the result of a home invasion. That while he plants evidence that while that happened he was shacked up with Fritzie in some motel 100 miles away! It just happened that Fritzie's estranged husband and former dance partner Don, Eddie Bee, got wind of his wife's double crossing him for another man, Ricardo, and took matters as well as Fritzie's throat into his own hands making Ricardo's plan fall flat on its face. It's the very fact that Ricardo had an alibi of not being at the scene of Valerie's murder that, in his trying to cover his a**, convicted him of another murder that he in fact didn't commit!

ZenVortex This is an effective noirish suspense drama. The acting, direction, and cinematography are typical of 1950s low-budget productions but there are plenty of good scenes. After a slow start, the plot evolves into a modern morality tale where a scheming villain gets his payback. The print is inferior (Classic Film Noir, Volume 2) but the soundtrack is satisfactory.John Bromfield delivers a convincing performance as an unscrupulous gold-digging gigolo who seduces and marries a wealthy widow (Martha Vickers) who is seriously ill with only a few months to live. Much to his dismay, the marriage works wonders for her health and she improves so much that he is forced to hatch a diabolically clever plan to murder her.Of course, things quickly go wrong and lead to a terrific plot twist and surprise ending. Not classic noir, but a decent little movie with redeeming features.

bmacv Sibling rivalry can be a dreadful thing; look at Joan Fontaine and Olivia De Havilland. Sometimes, however, it approaches farce. W. Lee Wilder probably should have stayed in New York making purses, but, no, he had to follow his little brother Billy to Hollywood. And in Hollywood, maybe he could have been a passable producer (two early Anthony Mann movies, The Great Flamarion and Strange Impersonation, bear his credit). But, no, he had to direct, showing the world how vast was the disparity between young Billy's talents and his own inadequacies. Billy, long estranged, used to call him `a dull son of a bitch,' and he was being generous: W. Lee isn't merely dull, he's barely competent.The Big Bluff rehashes a plot that Wilder had used in 1946 for The Glass Alibi. Merry widow Martha Vickers has a bum ticker and only a few months left to live. Off she goes to California with paid companion Eve Miller only to cross paths with slick operator John Bromfield (he brags about business interests in Central America but he's just a gigolo). The prospect of coming into her money at her early death emboldens Bromfield to court and marry her.But there are obstacles. Her secretary/companion and her physician (Robert Hutton) harbor suspicion of Bromfield's motives. And Bromfield's mistress Rosemarie Stack, half of a sultry nightclub act with her jealous husband Eddie Bee, doesn't cotton to his romancing another woman. But the impatient Bromfield, not content with letting nature take its course, starts tampering with Vickers' pill supply. When, paradoxically, she seems to thrive under his care, he concocts a back-up plan, and the movie jutters along to a twist ending, à la Alfred Hitchcock Presents.The plot is hand-me-down James M. Cain, done proud by the cheesiness of its direction (it's like a stock-footage festival). Wilder lets his cast get away with the stiffest readings of the literal-minded script (Martha Vickers would never nab many statuettes, but Howard Hawks goaded her into acting as Carmen Sternwood in The Big Sleep). Yet every so often there's a dark glint that keeps one watching: Bromfield and Stack plotting in a shadowy hotel staircase; Bromfield and Vickers toasting with schnapps at Scandia or `lo-balls' at La Rue. Something saves The Big Bluff from sinking to the very bottom of the barrel; it sure wasn't Wilder.