THEY WON'T BELIEVE ME

US, 1947, 95 minutes, Black and white.
Robert Young, Susan Hayward, Jane Greer, Rita Johnson, Tom Powers.
Directed by Irving Pichel.

They Won’t Believe Me is in the vein of film noir, very popular in the mid-1940s with such classics as Gilda and various versions of Philip Marlowe stories including Murder My Sweet and The Big Sleep.

Robert Young can appear charming and bland as a central character. He is cast against type here as a cad responsible for the death of a number of women. Susan Hayward is a gold-digging secretary who is murdered. Rita Johnson is Young’s wife and is driven to suicide (or is she?). Jane Greer is an ambitious young woman.

The film is complex in the sense that it is a courtroom drama with a number of flashbacks gradually revealing what happened and the true nature of the central character.

The film deals with evil, malevolence and violence, love and betrayal.

The film was directed by Irving Pichel, an actor-director for twenty years. With some low-budget films in the early 1930s, he went more upmarket during the 1940s – and his last two films were explicitly religious, Day of Triumph, A Life of Jesus, in 1954, preceded by the biography of Martin Luther in 1953.

1. A successful and interesting murder mystery? Court drama? Exploration of crime and justice?

2. A thriller of the forties - especially with black and tragic ending? The presentation of a hero who was evil? A comment on American society, American men and women, human nature?

3. The technique of the credits sequence and the showing of the waterfall, the opening in the court and the nature of the flashbacks and the effect that it had on Laurence Ballantyne as he told his story? The climax in the courtroom, the waiting for the judgment and the sudden suicide? The irony of the 'not guilty'? What did this leave the audience with in terms of sympathy, judgment?

4. The plausibility of the plot - Laurence Ballantyne and his career, marriage, playing with women? Verna and her hold on him? The sudden accident, the suicide of Greta? The mechanisms for Ballantyne's arrest? Sufficient plausibility for American behaviour and a court drama of this kind?

5. The title and its irony and what it said about Laurence Ballantyne?

6. Robert Young and his style as Ballantyne? Type, guilty of evils, the quality of his narration and its honesty and telling the truth? An ordinary callow man, his greed for money and position, his fickleness in his relationships, masculine charm? The encounter with Janice and the building of the boat, going away together and Janice's believing his lies, Greta twisting him and taking him to California? His ease in his job, love of comfort? The encounter with Verna and her challenge? The lies, their outings, his promises? Greta and her manipulating him with the ranch, his feeling tied down, his schemes to get away, the final encounter with Verna? Robbing Greta, waiting for the bus, driving? A moment of truth in rejecting the money before Verna's death? Of what was he really guilty?

7. The contrast of his relationships with the three women? His motivation, love, use of then? His being in their power?

8. Verna as the secretary gold-digger, her skill at her work, saving his face with the boss, her selfishness, outings and the good life, her reaction against his lies, her returning to him, the scheme with the cheque, her decision to give up the money? The idyllic drive, the swim, the hopes? the irony of her death at this stage? The complications with her boss looking for her and his infatuation with her, at the concert, proposal of marriage? Janice and tailing Ballantyne in the West Indies and the uncovering of the truth?

9. The portrait of Greta as an ambitious woman, her capacity for holding her husband, her pattern of calmly adjusting the situation? Wealth, society, concerts etc.? Her reaction in New York and the transition to the train? Her device of the ranch, her enjoying of the rides, the horse, the irony of her pride and suicide? The horse and his fidelity and remaining at the waterfall?

10. Janice as the career girl, the enthusiasm about the boat, going to Montreal and being hurt, encountering him in California, her presence in Jamaica, the fishing, leading him on, loading him to the court? her position in the court scene?

11. Verna as gold-digger and Susan Hayward's style? Hard, scheming, at work, home, outings? The pathos of her death?

12. Her boss and his infatuation with Verna, his calling the police, the lawyer, the judge and their attitudes towards Ballantyne?

13. Melodramas and audience involvement in them and enjoyment of them? Why?

14. Ballantyne's experience in telling the truth, his wish to go to prison and atone, the scene with him in prison behind tho bars, the encounter with Janice?

15. The build-up to the jury's coming back, the suddenness of his suicide leap and the irony of the truth and leaving the audience with...? How satisfying a melodrama, insight into values, right and wrong, good and evil?