The Velvet Touch

A famous stage actress kills the producer who has kept her under his thumb for years, by accident, in the middle of an argument. Nobody saw it. The next day she goes on stage, takes the applause and gives an interview, while suspicion for the killing falls on another woman. The guilty party is the one obliged to walk out in front of an audience every night, and going on with the part eats her from the inside. Jack Gage's film came out of an independent company Rosalind Russell was a partner in, and it handed her a role unlike her usual ones. The telling keeps blurring the line between the stage and the life: watching the actress rehearse, you feel you are watching her confess. Claire Trevor, Leo Genn and Sydney Greenstreet fill out the world around her, and Greenstreet's detective is a circle closing quietly.