The Reckless Moment is a mesmerizing post-war film about a housewife, Lucia Harper (Joan Bennett) who is forced to enter the underworld to protect her teenage daughter. Other reviewers have mentioned director Max Ophuls' fluid camera-work, which carries the viewer along as surely as Lucia Harper's complacent middle-class life is swept away by her husband's absence and the seedy blackmailer Nagel, who threatens to implicate her daughter in her lover's murder. Lucia is constantly referred to as Mrs. Harper throughout the film; in her world, she has no existence outside of being a wife and mother. But despite living in a beach community in Southern California, she's incongruously shown wearing masculine-looking heavy coats and tailored suits. She has to "man up" to protect her family. This is a movie of opposites; the Harper family's wholesome, bright family life is contrasted with the tawdry Los Angeles streets that Lucia (appropriately in dark glasses) is forced to prowl as she scrounges around for money to pay off Nagel. But she has two allies, Donnelly, Nagel's accomplice, who falls in love with her and Sybil, her shrewd African-American housekeeper (Frances Williams). Traumatic as Lucia's experience is, Donnelly's devotion to her connects Lucia with the love and sexuality that may be missing from her marriage. Sybil, whose quick thinking helps save the day in the film's climax, calls into question Lucia's (as well as the viewers') assumptions about race and social class. This is an extraordinary film that belongs in the National Film Registry.
Review of The Reckless Moment
