BLACK WIDOW is an all-star Hollywood film noir shot in vibrant colour and featuring a starring role for ageing starlet Ginger Rogers. The story is about a pretty young woman who falls for a big-shot theatre producer, causing the finger of suspicion to fall on him when she's found murdered. The cast are decent here and Van Heflin does fine with his 'wronged man' material, but the main problem is with the sluggish pace. There are too many peripheral characters and sub-plots that merely murky the waters, and for a murder mystery there's absolutely no suspense. Still, at least it looks good.

Broadway producer Van Heflin (as Peter Denver) reluctantly attends a cocktail party held by the star of his newest hit show "Star Rising" although he doesn't care for parties or the leading actress. There, he meets aspiring 20-year-old writer Peggy Ann Garner (as Nancy "Nanny" Ordway), who has crashed the party and lost her companion. Eager to leave, Mr. Heflin invites Ms. Garner to dinner. She claims to be desperately hungry and he promises no strings are attached. One of them is not telling the truth...The title and credits are misleading, but "Black Widow" manages to be engrossing. Some of the intrigue may be accidental; for example, we wonder what Heflin finds so alluring about Garner. She also attracts attention from Reginald Gardiner, Otto Kruger and Skip Homeier. We also wonder when top-billed stars Ginger Rogers (as Carlotta "Lottie" Marin) and Gene Tierney (as Iris Denver) are going to take over as Heflin's leading woman. Low-key detective George Raft (as Bruce) has a clue, then doesn't.****** Black Widow (10/28/54) ***WC-Db6 : Nunnally Johnson ~ Van Heflin, Peggy Ann Garner, Ginger Rogers, Gene Tierney

I greatly enjoyed this Cinemascope, Stereo-Sound romp, but mainly as a Guilty Pleasure, as it's a film very much of it's time, with mismatched acting styles, lush, unbelievable sets, a central premise that doesn't make much sense (lending your expensive apartment to a just-met down-and-out writer while your wife's away),and an early attempt to make visual sense of the then-new wide-screen process.Why do I like it? Ginger Rogers is way over the top, popping on and off screen with snappy diva one-liners, like Margo Channing on pep pills; Peggy Ann Garner plays a subversive Lolita, crazy-seductive and irresistible, and you can even spot Aaron Spelling towards the end in a bit part as a theatre employee. The palette is loaded with pastel colors so popular in the 1950's, and the whole thing is sort of a mild domestic whodunit whipped up into an anemic Douglas Sirk confection. Great it ain't, but because of Rogers, Van Heflin, Gene Tierney (who has very little to do but does it beautifully) and Reginald Gardner, I found it greatly entertaining.

Something really different for Ginger Rogers is this 1954 thriller where she portrays a hot-tempered, gossip Broadway actress, married to a man, Reginald Gardiner, in one of his best roles as the yes-man husband.Their neighbors are Van Heflin and Gene Tierney, a famous Broadway couple as well.When young ingenue writer, Peggy Ann Garner, enters their lives, all mayhem breaks loose. When Garner supposedly commits suicide in the Heflin apartment, intrigue follows, especially when it's realized that it was murder, rather than suicide.Heflin becomes desperate as Detective George Raft circles around him as the evidence begins to pile up, despite his repeated claims of innocence.It then becomes A Murder She Wrote like-situation with suspicion falling not only on Heflin, but Gardiner and Rogers as well.Just don't be taken in by these young girls. It's as if Garner is trying to emulate the not so very much innocent Anne Baxter in "All About Eve."