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By
NICK ZEGARAC
The tag line on Harry
Horner's Vicki (1953) reads like pure soap opera
-- "everything a man could ever want" and living
her life "the way no woman should!" But the film
is an abysmal attempt to visit the well for a
second time by remaking Fox's I Wake Up Screaming
(1941). While the original can hardly be
considered high art, it is virtually superior in
all respects to this reincarnation. As a thriller,
Vicki is virtually charm and suspense free, making
one ask the proverbial question about remakes --
'why?!?'
On this occasion, Vicki is played by Jean Peters
-- working against type as the good girl gone bad.
The film opens with Vicki's body being wheeled out
of a hotel room with a toe tag affixed. From here,
all that director Horner can think to do is to
draw an immediate parallel between his flick and
Fox's exemplary Laura (1944) with a rip-off
opening credit sequence that really has nothing to
do with anything. From here the camera moves in on
the prerequisite roster of suspects; Elliot Reid
as Steve Christopher -- a promotions guy who's too
fresh as a daisy and wet behind the ears to be
believable as the womanizing guy with his eye on
Vicki for himself, and, Vicki's sister, Jill Lynn,
played by the congenial, Jeanne Crain, a far more
convincingly frank gal than Betty Grable did it in
the original movie.
The plot is a regurgitation of the original. On a
dare, Steve introduces Vicki to New York society,
including ham actor Robin Ray (Alexander D'Arcy)
and press agent Larry Evans (Max Showalter). Vic's
up to her old tricks though, finagling a film deal
that will benefit her while making the rest of the
cast look like a troupe of small time chumps.
On this outing police inspector Ed Cornell is
played as pure psychopath on the verge of a
nervous breakdown by the craggy and crabby Richard
Boone. Cornell yells, intimidates and attacks his
witnesses. He's really a vial incarnation and one
that gets away with far too much than the law
ought to allow. Soon-to-be-TV producer Aaron
Spelling gets the plume role of Harry Williams, a
sycophant hotel clerk who likes to ogle starlets,
this time around.
For the most part Vicki plays like a poor relation
to I Wake Up Screaming. The sets and costumes are
cheaper and without glam to accommodate the more
conservative 1950s, and the lighting and staging
of key sequences is anything but noir-like or even
threatening from a thriller perspective. As a
result of all these alterations, this remake makes
even less sense than its predecessor and the
conclusion seems much more of a tack-on than
resolution.
It is one of DVD's great ironies that out of all
the films Fox has released as part of their 'noir'
collection, one of their worst is also the one
that looks the best in this batch of new digital
transfers. The b&w image is quite stunning with a
fine grayscale, solid deep blacks and very vibrant
and clean whites. Fine details are present
throughout. There's barely a hint of edge
enhancement or film grain for an image that is
extremely smooth and easy on the eyes. Like the
rest of Fox's noir series, the soundtrack comes in
either re-channeled stereo or mono. There's very
little difference between the two. Extras on Vicki
include a rather boring audio commentary by Foster
Hirsch -- who basically goes through the duration
reiterating what a dull and uninspired remake this
is, several galleries and the film's theatrical
trailer. |
