Michael Gordon's suspenseful and fluid direction plus Irving Glassberg's solid camerawork, build up interest and tension to a seat-tingling climax here. It's all in the direction and playing for the plot itself is slight and not nearly as web-like as the title implies. But it is thickly studded with smart lines and wisecracks. And director Gordon gives these lines more edge than they are worth. He's also assisted no end by Irving Glassberg's atmospheric lighting photography. A first-rate cast and solid production values help.In short, "The Web" steadily comes across as an absorbing crime drama, packed with suspense, thanks to a script that delivers with a wallop, plus a number of outstanding acting performances from the likes of Ella Raines, William Bendix, Vincent Price and Edmond O'Brien.

Vincent Price is the phlegmatic murderous, thieving millionaire. He has a live-in secretary, Ella Raines, just like every other phlegmatic murderous, thieving millionaire. He contacts small-time lawyer Edmond O'Brien and hires him as a kind of bodyguard, claiming that his life was threatened by a former business partner, recently released from the slams. Price stages a situation in which O'Brien must shoot and kill the former partner in the belief that it is self defense. The police lieutenant, William Bendix, is skeptical of the entire affair -- and he should be. But he spends the entire movie trying to pin the murders -- there's a later pragmatic murder too -- on O'Brien instead of the smooth Vincent Price.It's essentially a B movie plot with some elements, especially in the dialog, that are not exactly witty but at least clever. Some thought went into the writing. The direction of Michael Gordon is pedestrian. There are a few night-time scenes with odd shadows and wet streets but this is not a film noir by any normal definition. It's just a story of murder, theft, intrigue, and romance, with a bit of comic brashness thrown in.Edmond O'Brien began his career as a handsome young leading man in "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" in 1939, opposite the exquisite Maureen O'Hara. Then, immediately afterward it seems, he became flabby without ever becoming genuinely fat. He turned in some nice performances as a dying but still vital man in "DOA" and as the somewhat dim-witted Casca in MGM's "Julius Caesar." He was even better as the washed out, blurry, Southern senator in "Seven Days in May." Here, he gets the job done in a professional way.Ella Raines was really beautiful in an entirely conventional way. It was principally her hair that did the job, a cascade of dark and shiny tresses ending with a margin of curls. Any normal man would love to run his toes through it. She seems to have taken some acting lessons from Lauren Bacall's early performances because she's languid and sultry and makes the most of her sex appeal.Vincent Price was an aesthete and a genuinely nice guy, with whom everyone seemed to enjoy working. His role here is liminal -- somewhere between his earnest performances of the mid-40s and the tongue-in-cheek villainy of the 60s. He seems sincerely regretful about the need to kill his loyal and gorgeous secretary.Overall, it's a success, though a minor one. We pretty much know what the ending will look like, with the snooty Price in chains, and O'Brien and Raines in a final clinch. Bendix mainly abets the romance.

A delight for old movie fans—perfectly cast, engagingly scripted, and generally unpredictable. O'Brien's a brash, penny-ante lawyer who hooks up with slick, financial tycoon Price and his silken mistress- secretary Raines. Somebody's going to get taken for a ride, but who. O'Brien's so good at playing fast-talking operators, while Price calibrates (no hamming here) surprisingly well as a sly fox. And the long haired Raines looks absolutely ravishing as the cool and calculating Noel. Judged from this showcase, it's really too bad that O'Brien and Raines have slipped into obscurity. Also, catch John Abbott as Charles, the rather mysterious factotum. He always adds eccentric color to his parts. Those early scenes of O'Brien getting entangled are expertly scripted with sharply drawn characters. The banter is especially engaging without being cutesy or competitive with the story. I also like the way O'Brien's character (Regan) is kept purposely ambiguous, adding an element of unpredictability to the story's direction. Bendix's crafty cop is nicely conceived too. His scenes with O'Brien are little gems of sly one-upmanship. My only complaint is that tacky exterior set where O'Brien and Raines rendezvous. Doing the outdoors on a sound stage was always a challenge for the studios.Anyway, the movie comes as a pleasant, noirish surprise, again demonstrating the vitality of post-war Hollywood.

The Web is one of dozens of forties thrillers featuring private detectives and the rich men who hire them, the beautiful women who love them, and the police, who invariably hamper their efforts to unravel the clues to intricate mysteries, the details of which are explained with astonishing clarity in the end, despite the fact that most viewers can scarcely be expected to keep track of all the evidence. This one is more elegant than most, with plush settings and striking photography. There's a touch of Laura here, thanks to the casting of Vincent Price and the character he plays, as well as a bit of the Chandler private eye cycle in the character of Edmond O'Brien's detective. Ella Raines makes a beautiful heroine, and Bill Bendix is on hand as the no-nonsense cop. Michael Gordon directs smoothly, and everything comes together in the end. There's nothing remarkable in The Web, which is just a cut above the generic, but it works like a Swiss watch.