Dir: Delbert Mann | Cast: Kim Novak, Fredric March | thriller 118’ 1959
With a new biopic about Kim Novak premiering at this year’s Venice film festival the focus is on the iconic Chicago born born American star.
Here the story revolves around her performance as Betty Preisser, an attractive 24-year-old divorcee, who works as a secretary in the hard-boiled atmosphere of Manhattan’s garment district.
This film version of Paddy Chayefsky’s play perfectly exemplifies the increasingly adult nature of American cinema of the fifties; demonstrated by Kim Novak’s comment on her failed marriage that “Around eleven o’clock we would both march into the bedroom like it was a gas chamber”.
Frederic March and Kim Novak are both excellent in the leads; while the supporting cast – mostly recruited from the New York stage – contains a singular mixture of veterans like Glenda Farrell and Albert Dekker and relative newcomers like Martin Balsam and Lee Grant.
Now on digital platforms.