| Vintage Pulp | Apr 7 2023 |
Belita always gets her man.
The poster above was made to promote the crime thriller The Hunted, which premiered today in 1948 starring Preston Foster and Belita, the British ice skater who carved out a film career after her 1936 Olympic appearance. Playing to type, Belita is a former ice skater paroled four years after being arrested by her cop boyfriend Foster, who refused to believe she wasn't involved in a diamond heist. In fury she promised to kill both him and her defense attorney, who she claimed betrayed her. Now freed, she goes back to Foster—literally sneaking through his apartment window—and tries to convince him of her innocence.
Foster is hard-boiled at first, but slowly begins to have doubts, then begins to fall in love again. Is Belita an innocent woman, or is she a psychopath who'll make good on her promise to kill her enemies? Our advice: never trust anyone who'll slither through your window. For that matter never trust anyone who threatens to kill you. But Belita seems to adjust well to being free, taking an ice skating job and behaving in exemplary fashion. Maybe the threat was a bluff, and she's innocent after all. Meanwhile Foster does that cop thing and digs into the old heist.
The Hunted is not a top effort. It's somewhat limply scripted, and Foster isn't exactly a furnace of charisma. The movie also plays on the tired trope (even then) of the slimy defense attorney. The movie's most serious flaw, for us, is Belita's attraction to one of the more undeserving lead males in cinema history. But we vintage movie buffs are used to that, right? The question that truly matters is whether the plotline keeps the viewer engaged, and on that score the movie succeeds, nudging it ever so slightly onto the positive side of the ledger.
As a side note, film noir fans with sharp eyes will notice that the movie borrows the coin flipping gimmick from Johnny O'Clock, though Foster is not nearly as good at it as Dick Powell. That goes for his acting too. But The Hunted has Belita, and moreover, it has her skating. She's graceful, fun to watch, and turns in a decent performance opposite her empty suit of a love interest. That isn't a ringing endorsement, but it's the best we can offer.
| Femmes Fatales | Mar 13 2023 |
I like to call what happens next the women's short program because it'll be over before you know it.
Olympic ice skater-turned-actress Belita gets the drop on an unseen foe in this crop of a larger promo image made by Allied Artists Pictures for its 1948 film noir The Hunted. We'll circle back to the movie—possibly in reverse while preparing for a triple axel—but if you want a teaser, we'll tell you that Belita has a skating routine in it, which makes it worth a look for that reason alone.
