The Man Who Cheated Himself (1950)

Wow! Such a good movie.

There are better movies of two hours length. I loved the actress'performance.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Blistering performances.

A superb noir thriller. Lee J. Cobb and John Dall square off as brothers and fellow policemen in this breathlessly paced, well-written and well-acted film. Normally I can't stand Dall's jack-o-lantern grin, but it's bearable here as part of his counterpoint to Cobb's brute intensity. The two women are as different as the men; Dall's Lisa Howard is sweetness and sunshine, Jane Wyatt's Lois a selfish, manipulative schemer.It's ironic that Dall's Andy, the younger, and presumably naive brother, has by far the better private and public life. Cobb's character, on the other hand, junks everything to cover up for Lois's murder of her husband. She's frantic and seemingly delusional in her first scene with Cobb. Even though she's right that her husband intends to kill her, she immediately declaims responsibility for killing him. As Cobb chooses to play a double game 'investigating' the murder, we sense the tension he undergoes, as well as his brother's growing skepticism.The young guy who Cobb tries to frame for the murder convincingly portrays a somewhat stereotypical down-on-his-luck type. He's also complicates the plot, as he has committed a murder, just not the one in question. So, in the middle of the movie, Cobb looks like he just might get out from under the murder after all. Cobb's menacing demeanor, which winds up tighter as the plot ensnares him, makes us forget that he's an accomplice, not the actual murderer.The last scene at Fort Point is great. Claustrophobic and desolate, it captures hauntingly the iconic noir atmosphere. The corridors and passageways lead Cobb and Wyatt ultimately into handcuffs. The title points in a few directions: Cobb has cheated himself by going along with the cover-up, he's also the man whose lover 'cheats' her husband for. The only quibble with The Man Who Cheated Himself involves disposing of the husband's body. It is a nice recycling of the husband's alibi to use the airport, but who would be dumb enough to drop a body in plain view of witnesses? Especially if you're a detective. Use the Bay, so the body can 'sleep with the fishes.' Anyway, if you can stand this miscue, along with John Dall's rubber-band grin, this is a fine noir movie.

This is a good crime noir, it's surprisingly better than I was guessing it would be. The film grabbed my attention from the start until it ended, so I know I found enjoyment watching it.Two brothers: The older, Ed, likes his police work as a homicide detective and staying single while going after beautiful women - the fast, single type of life. The younger, Andy, is just starting out as a homicide detective and works with his brother, he is the type that likes a wife and good home - the simple family life.The older brother, Ed, is secretly seeing another one of his beautiful women and this one is rich and married - soon to divorce. One night the husband comes back home and the wife kills him while her boyfriend detective Ed was there and witnessed what really happened. Ed tells her "The truth would get you 20" and helps to cover up what happened. Guess who is assigned to the case: Ed and his younger brother Andy.9/10

The influence of Billy Wilder's classic Double Indemnity is rather obvious with the creation of The Man Who Cheated Himself. This is quite the B film with some surprising casting in the female lead.The Walter Neff part is played by Lee J. Cobb and he's a veteran homicide detective in San Francisco who happens to be seeing rich heiress on the side Jane Wyatt. Wyatt is getting rid of her husband by divorce, but one night with Cobb in the house she puts two bullets in him when he comes at her.The scandal would have been terrific and Cobb's career might have come to an end, but it would have been better than what follows. Cobb agrees to help in a cover-up, but it falls apart.The Barton Keyes in this film isn't an experienced investigator, it's John Dall probably playing the most straightforward part in his career. He gets a bad feeling when certain things don't add up and Dall who is looking to make his bones as a homicide cop in the family tradition gets sadly disillusioned.The real revelation in this film is Wyatt. Forgetting she was the All American mother in Father Knows Best, Wyatt is one mean vixen in a part that Barbara Stanwyck or Bette Davis usually does. It was so offbeat casting for Jane Wyatt. I don't recall seeing her in another part like this.What she does in that little coda as the film ends. Stanwyck couldn't have done it better.

If the film didn't rely on the absolute wildest of coincidences it could have been a real thriller (as Boris Karloff would say). When ballistics showed that the gun used to kill a liquor store clerk was an exact match of the one thrown into San Francisco Bay by Lieutenant Ed Cullen (Lee J. Cobb), I just about jumped out of my seat. So, was it the same gun, or an exact match? After countless detective shows to instruct us that no two bullet riflings are exactly alike (much like snowflakes), having the Fraser murder weapon magically reappear was a stretch too unbelievable to accept.Other than that though, this was a pretty intriguing little story. I don't know that I'd hang the noir hat on it like so many others on this board have though. Jane Wyatt wasn't the conflicted femme fatale so much as an opportunistic (rhymes with witch), who's over the top histrionics border on the embarrassingly silly, beginning with her first phone call to Ed. I always thought she was a pretty good actress, so this had to be one of those exceptions in a long career that's best swept under the rug.John Dall delivers a fairly competent performance learning the ropes as a homicide detective and coming to the unsavory conclusion that older brother Ed is on the wrong side of the law for his very first case. The whole thing might have turned out different if he'd gone on his honeymoon, but instead, Ed's words of encouragement to Andy wound up sealing his own eventual fate - "If you do any better, I'll be out of a job."