Jeopardy

A short thriller set on the Mexican coast. A family goes on holiday. A husband, a wife and their small son; a car, a tent, a fishing rod. Their destination is a deserted cove. It is on the map and there are no people. They find an abandoned jetty there. The boy goes to the end of it. The father runs after him. The timber gives way. A beam falls across the man's leg and pins him down. He cannot move. The problem is this: the tide is rising. The water will be over him within four hours. Helen goes for help. The nearest settlement is far and she has a car. From there the film splits in two. On one side the hours counted at the jetty, on the other a woman driving an empty road. She finds a man. He could help and does not. He is an escaped convict. He is running for the border and he wants the car. What the narrative is interested in is not rescue but a bargain: at its centre is a woman deciding how far she will go with the man in front of her to save her husband. The telling is in her voice. Helen narrates throughout and the clock never stops. The running time is very short. The film does not reach seventy minutes and is built on a single idea. Barbara Stanwyck is in almost every frame. John Sturges made this before his crowded westerns; the structure is plain and there is almost no set. Barbara Stanwyck, Barry Sullivan, Ralph Meeker and Lee Aaker are in the cast. Who it is for: anyone who likes short, single-idea 1950s thrillers. Who it is not for: anyone looking for depth; the characters are thin and the narrative cares only about the situation itself.