Vicki (1953)This film gets a bad rap. It's not brilliant, and it is a weaker version of the bold and gritty "I Wake Up Screaming," but it's beautifully filmed, tightly edited, and it has decent acting throughout.The one acting exception might be the oddly cast main detective, who as a complex and critical role here, and who is miles from the original performer, Laird Cregar, in 1941. But on the same token I didn't think Betty Grable was convincing in the original, and the role here is filled with an appealing coolness, and a more crystalline beauty, by Jeanne Crain. And it's hard to ignore the astonishing Elisha Cook Jr. in the first version, compared to the awkward and overacted night clerk here.Comparisons are hard to ignore because the plot is quite identical in both. It's a weird scenario overall, and it demands some forgiveness because of the trick played on the viewer by the detective. "Vicki" is told through a series of flashbacks, many of them, making for a highly constructed and rather choppy experience, which is intentional. The lead male besides the detective is a likable guy, a fairly ordinary fellow despite his position as a bigwig talent promoter in New York. When he is accused of killing the title character (the movie opens with a scene of her corpse being hauled away), it becomes a little Hitchcockian. But psychology isn't a factor here, and neither is suspense. In fact, there isn't much to grip the viewer besides waiting to see how the plot will unfold, almost as a jigsaw puzzle where the picture in the puzzle doesn't matter so much as the shape of the pieces. Which is too bad. The elements are here for an amazing movie--and an amazing remake, even with today's style of filmmaking. It isn't a disaster, but it lacks a little on every front--except Haller's truly exceptional cinematography--and so we get a decent movie. But if you like this at all, do see the more impressive (and also flawed) 1941 "I Wake Up Screaming," with a beefy and very different leading man in Victor Mature. And there is an undeniable influence from the slick and far better and more famous 1944 "Laura," complete with its title as a woman's name and a song being written for the movie. If you have seen either predecessor and are simply curious, you won't be ruined or angry if you watch this late noir from 1953, "Vicki." It's pretty good!

Before it collapses under the weight of cliché and wooden performances Vicki is a suspenseful whodunit that keeps you second guessing most of the way. In a triumph of form over content this Laura lookalike is textbook economical story telling in its first half hour as tight editing and revealing composition give the film a well ordered pace and a handful of plausible suspects.Overnight, cafeteria waitress Vicki (Jean Peters) becomes an instant celebrity when she catches the eye of an actor and a theatre critic who promote her. Confident and ambitious she sets her sights on Hollywood but is brutally murdered. An obsessive detective (Richard Boone) demands to be put on the case and his judgment and intent is soon called into question.Vicki is filled with Freudian and fetish inferences. Suspect intent is ambiguous and the police are brutal in their methodology. All of the characters are petty and unremarkable which levels the playing field most of the way and allows the mystery to flourish. The imagery runs from striking to banal and some of the turns at the end defy logic but for the most part it does what a good mystery does-keep you in the dark for as long as possible.

Richard Boone steals the show here as a completely demented cop. He screams at everyone while harboring a deep secret of resentment.The picture starts with a picture of the murdered Vicki on the wall. I immediately thought of 1944's "Laura," but it was not meant to be.The picture offered Eliot Reid, a usual second-hand jerk in films, the opportunity of a life-time in playing a Broadway promoter, hounded by Boone as the major suspect in Vicki's murder.Boone is a cross between Inspector Javers and the Columbo characters. He screams and is vicious in his ways of trying to obtain the truth. Truth is he knew the real story here and covered it up to get revenge on the man he thought took Vicki away from him. This is where the picture falls apart- the completely off-the-wall cop is hard to swallow yet alone fathom.Jeanne Crain stars as Vicki's sister, but the plot does her in as well as the picture. Interesting to see Max Showalter in a small role as a newspaper writer. He co-starred with Peters in "Niagara" and was memorable in "With A Song in My Heart," as well as a one-scene stealer as the deaf mute whose hearing is restored in "Elmer Gantry."

A beautiful waitress (Jean Peters) is spotted through the front window of an all-night diner by a couple of public relations types, who decide to make her into a high fashion model. After a few weeks, her image is plastered everywhere, for cigarettes, perfume, etc. The Cinderella story ends abruptly with her murder. The film mixes the mystery of who did it, because all the men who knew her fell for her, with the obsessive desire of the homicide detective (Richard Boone) who, it turns out, was watching her nightly through the same window, but never went inside to ask her out or even to introduce himself, thus scaring the poor girl, who thought he was some kind of weirdo. It turns out, for the benefit of the film, he was, and that, by far, is the film's most intriguing aspect.