What’s A Woman To Do?-Barbara Stanwyck’s Jeopardy  

 

 

 

DVD Review

From The Pen Of Sam Lowell

 

Jeopardy, starring Barbara Stanwyck, Barry Sullivan, Ralph Meeker,

 

Okay, okay here is the riddle, a woman’s very serious riddle where she has to do whatever is necessary under the circumstances to save her man, to keep him from being her ex-man, from being RIP. The answers aren’t always pretty in life, or as here, in the movies in the film Jeopardy which is a good enough word for the title of this black and white exposition on situational morality. Barbara thinks she made the right choice, and let the church-based moralists be damned.        

Yeah, let’s call her Barbara since she is going to have to stand the gaff from those frowning neighbors when she gets back home, gets back home with her man, her very much alive man Barry. Yeah, let’s call him Barry because not only is he going to have to defend his wife against the witches but he is going to also wonder how lucky he was to get a wife who went the distance for him, although you know as well as I do that there will always be a little doubt, nothing big, but still a thought in the air about what really happened back at the abandoned hacienda. Back where Barbara got that unexpected help from Ralph, a guy not known for the goodness of his heart if you must know, yeah, let’s run the table and call him Ralph because, well, just because.  

Here’s the set-up. Barbara and Barry and their son Johnny, a totally respectable red scare Cold War night middle class white picket fence family although without the dog that usually completes this picture, decided to go to the Baja, the Baja down Mexico way, on a family outing, a camping trip to get away from the nine to five routine, to get away from that white picket fence existence. Great idea, a little sweaty sun, a little spraying ocean, some fishing, maybe a little boating, a little bonding with Johnny who Barry has kind of neglected in his rush to get ahead in the world, maybe a little bonding of another kind with Barbara now that he is not all keyed up and notices her charms. Nice, a nice family picture, no question.

Then the whole thing kind of unwinds, some ill-fated wind coming out of the Baja to snag the gringos’ mal suerte (their bad luck) and the necessity for Barbara hard-bitten choices. Blame it on Johnny if you don’t want to blame it on luck, or an act of God, or the fellahin of the world but Johnny is the direct cause of the dilemma. See once they get to the campsite and investigate the surroundings bonehead Johnny decided to check out the rotting pier not far from their campsite. Wouldn’t you know though that Johnny would get his foot caught in one of the decaying boardwalk slats. And Barry being Barry went to rescue his son like any good father. But as the old saying goes no good turn goes unpunished and so Barry wound up being trapped by a collapsing portion of the pier. Normally no problem if the collapse had occurred closer to shore but as it turned out it was too far out-and the tide was coming in.      

Everybody, me too, would have to admit that Barbara and Johnny moved heaven and earth at that moment to get Barry unhinged from his dilemma. No go, nada nunca nada. They came up with an idea thought involving the lever principle of a plank as a wedge to pluck Barry out by using the car as the power to move the plank. Problem: no rope to tie the plank to the power of the car. But there was an half abandoned hacienda back up the road on which they came and maybe some rope could be found there. So Barbara went back on that fateful journey to see about getting some, or some help.    

Well, after speeding back to the hacienda because that tide is really coming Barbara does find the rope-and Ralph. Ralph however is not nature’s nobleman and he wants the car to aid in his getaway since he is a stone-cold killer who has just escaped from the federales. And they are looking for him intensely, looking for a three time loser who really did have nothing to lose. So Barbara began what would become the dance of the seven veils to get Ralph to help her. Nothing worked through a whole series of incidents on the way back toward where Barry and Johnny. Nothing worked until desperate Barbara, knowing that Ralph had not been with a woman for a while made her fateful decision. Now this was a 1950s film so the Barbara’s compromise, her proposition was not shown but everybody over the age of twelve could  figure out she let him at her because in the very next scene Ralph and Barbara are rocketing back to save Barry. You have to say this for Ralph he might not have been nature’s nobleman but whatever promise he made to Barbara for her favors, as the old saying went, he kept to it. Did yeoman’s work to get Barry out before the sea swallowed him up. Then had to hightail it since the federales had picked up his trail. And Barbara? On some very cold nights when Barry is back to work and back to the old nine to five routine she must wonder if she did the right thing. On other hotter nights she might lie awake wondering about Ralph’s fate. Yeah, jeopardy is the right word.