The Man in the Net (1959)

Surprisingly incoherent and boring

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

Alan Ladd, (John Hamilton) plays the role of an artist who decides to leave New York and the rat race mainly because his wife likes to drink and is getting out of control where she has to see a doctor for help. Carolyn Jones, (Linda Hamilton) plays John's wife and lives in a very quiet town in New England where John paints pictures of children all day and never seems to sell a picture. One day John receives a letter offering him a job in New York City with an Art Firm for $30,000 dollars but refuses to take this position because of his wife's chemical dependency. Linda goes into a rage and starts drinking and goes completely out of control. In real life, Alan Ladd is really doing all the boozing and you can see it in the close up's of his face and eyes are puffy. The children in this picture take complete control over the entire film and gave great supporting roles in trying to hid and help John Hamilton from the police.

And he's a painter, too. Or IS he? Yikes, this movie has some of the worst art ostensibly painted by an underrated but talented artist ever seen in movies! Ladd gives a dispirited performance. We have a long history with him. So we like his character and wish the best outcome for the trouble he gets in. But LLadd seems to be walking through it.Carolyn Jones is pretty good as his alcoholic wife. She was capable of better. She had an odd look that Hollywood didn't seem to know how to use. (Well, not till "The Addams Family." And it's a shame that's what she's remembered for.) Around this time several movies about adults' friendships with precious children came out. This is one of them. It was probably viewed as charming at the time -- sort of like a man's friendship with dogs or kindness to his own children or to orphans.Today, for better or for worse, a man who spent much of his time with preteen children would be highly suspicious to his neighbors. In the movie, Ladd's character is hounded by the townspeople for possibly having killed Jones. Today he wouldn't have lasted that long in a suburban area like this, hanging around with children.

While this was a far cry from Alan Ladd's best films (such as THIS GUN FOR HIRE and THE GLASS KEY), it is better than most of the films Ladd was making towards the tail end of his career. By this point, most of his performances lacked energy or any sort of spark--partly due to poorer scripts and partly due to Ladd's advancing addiction. Ironically, a major plot element of this movie is Ladd's wife's alcoholism! Carolyn Jones (yes, that's Morticia from the Addams Family) plays the exceptionally flaky wife who is both chemically dependent and appears to have many features of a Borderline Personaliy--a personality that craves excitement, addiction and self-destruction. Psychologically speaking, this makes the movie very exciting to therapists, though the average person might think that she overplayed her part--though she captured the volatility of these types of individuals well and Borderline Personalities ARE seemingly impossible to believe due to their shallowness and volatility.It's obvious that Ladd can't stand his wife, but he stays with her because he married her and he tries to be a good husband. His wife, on the other hand, has little commitment to him and eventually her wicked and dangerous ways result in her murder. Unfortunately, Ladd is blamed, as few know her for what she really is--as Ladd protected her and hid her escapades from everyone else. Unfortunately, he did such a great job that EVERYONE thinks he's the murderer and he spends most of the film trying to prove his innocence and avoid a lynch mob! His assistants in this endeavor are local kids who like him and can't believe he'd hurt his wife. This is a stretch to believe, but it does create some interesting story elements. Overall, the film is pretty exciting and different and well worth a look--particularly if you are a fan of Alan Ladd.

With both its star Alan Ladd and its director Michael Curtiz nearing the end of their careers, The Man in the Net has a valedictory feel that surely wasn't intended. Ladd looks puffy and seems bored by issues that are literally vital to him (and his sprints through the woods look labored and abbreviated). Behind the camera, Curtiz fares a bit better; the old pro (Casablanca, Mildred Pierce) knows how to shape a story and sustain tension, but he didn't bother to plaster over the cracks in the far-fetched screenplay by Reginald Rose.Ladd plays a commercial artist who has moved to rural Connecticut to pursue his dream of becoming a serious painter; another reason for leaving New York's `rat race' was the gin-fueled nervous breakdown of his wife (Carolyn Jones). She still chafes under their genteel poverty when she knows he could make big bucks by returning to his old job. She takes her revenge in a clandestine affair (all the while trying to look and act like Bette Davis as Rosa Moline in Beyond The Forest). When Ladd takes a commuter train into the city to turn down the job and incidentally to visit her psychiatrist (isn't it customary for the patient to go?), he returns to find all his paintings slashed and a typewritten note telling him she's left for good. But then a suitcase full of her clothes is found burning at the local dump, and other evidence points to foul play. The townspeople, who range from rural bumpkins to the country gentry, jump to the conclusion that the aloof Ladd murdered Jones. They profess shock at Ladd's revelation that she was a drinker, even though she has already staged a drunken scene at a big party where the hosts know her well enough to have a `special tomato juice' waiting for her. Then we're asked to buy the spectacle of this Connecticut town, in 1959, turning into a Balkan village, with a lynch mob gathered in pursuit of a short, middle-aged white male. Luckily for Ladd, he's forged bonds of trust with a bevy of children whom he's forever sketching in the bosky glades (this seems a stretch, as he appears as stiff and uncomfortable being with them as they do being in front of a camera). They hide him in a surprisingly spacious and well-appointed cave they use as their clubhouse, and, at his bidding, undertake a series of ruses to smoke out the real killer. There's enough going on in Man in the Net to keep you watching, including Charles McGraw as a surly sheriff, but it's not fresh enough to make you suspend your considerable disbelief.