Movies - Nora Prentiss

Home > Listing Index > Movies > Nora Prentiss

	Movies - Nora Prentiss

Nora Prentiss is a 1947 black-and-white drama film shot in the film noir style. The film, considered by some to be a "woman's noir", was directed by Vincent Sherman, who bought the story for $2500. Sherman also directed leading lady Ann Sheridan in another 1947 film noir, The Unfaithful
. The cinematography is by famed cameraman James Wong Howe. Music composed by Franz Waxman.

Plot

Married California doctor Dr. Richard Talbot, having an affair with a night club singer, fakes his own death by subsituting a dead man's body for his own. The doctor gives up all and moves to New York to be with the woman he loves, Nora Prentiss. Prentiss' career as a singer takes off meanwhile, Talbot becomes more and more paranoid when he realizes his death is under investigation. Talbot, after a number of twists and turns, gets into a car accident and his face becomes permanently disfigured. He gets a new face due to plastic surgery. The police, not realizing that the man is Talbot, arrests him for the murder of his former self. Guilty about the suffering he caused his family, Talbot convinces Prentiss to keep his secret while on death row and allow him to be executed for his own murder.

Critical reaction

Critics call the movie one of the best "woman's noir." Writer Alain Silver notes:

"Unlike such other Ann Sheridan or Joan Crawford motion pictures as The Unfaithful, Flamingo Road, and The Damned Don't Cry, Nora Prentiss does not lapse into a romantic melodrama that might detract from the maudit sensibility, the quintessential element of film noir."

Cast

Ann Sheridan
as Nora Prentiss
Kent Smith
as Dr. Richard Talbot
Bruce Bennett
as Dr. Joel Merriam
Robert Alda
as Phil Dinardo, Cafe Owner
Rosemary DeCamp
as Lucy Talbot
John Ridgely
as Walter Bailey, Heart Patient
Wanda Hendrix
as Bonita 'Bunny' Talbot

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Nora Prentiss ]

This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia article Nora Prentiss; it is used under the GNU Free Documentation License. You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the GFDL.

Searches on eBay