The Accused

Plot synopsis:
DR. WILMA TUTTLE, beautiful but prim and conservative, flees the beach at night, clearly upset, eventually hitching a ride with a TRUCKER. Once home, Wilma climbs into bed, awaking to her HOUSEKEEPER in the morning. As the night's horror returns to her, Wilma remembers how it all began the previous morning......Wilma teaches psychology at a small Southern California university. Among her STUDENTS is a handsome but disturbed young man, BILL PERRY, who frequently flirts with her in class and tries to make dates. Wilma reports the boy to the DEAN, canceling her appointment with Bill after school by leaving a note on her office door. When Bill sees her leaving campus, Wilma informs him he should see the Dean. Wilma misses her bus during their conversation, and Bill offers her a ride.Wilma and Bill chat as he drives her home, and she does a psychological analysis of his character, probing into his dysfunctional home life. Eventually, they end up on a cliff overlooking the beach. Although Wilma subliminally responds to Bill's easy sexuality, she begins to resist his advances. When he strong arms her, clearly intending to rape her, Wilma struggles, finally hitting him over the head with a heavy instrument that Bill uses for catching mollusks. Frantic, Wilma makes it appear as though Bill drowned, tossing his body off the cliff......Back in the present, Wilma tries to get through the day, even though she's racked by guilt and anxiety. When Bill's guardian shows up, WARREN FORD, a lawyer, Wilma tenses, but Warren proves a handsome, charming man indeed. He also claims that Bill is a "bad boy," and he's suddenly turned up missing. Warren also carries a letter Bill received from SUSAN, a foreign exchange student in Wilma's class, who loved Bill but could not get him to love her back. She claims in the letter that she's pregnant.Tension builds in Wilma until she collapses and is hospitalized. When she comes to, she learns that Bill's body has been found. A dogged detective, LT. TED DORGAN, investigates, soon concluding that it was murder. Susan, the foreign student, is the prime suspect, but she admits that she wasn't really pregnant.Wilma does her best to appear innocent, but the strain increases. Lt. Dorgan puts on the pressure when he asks Wilma for Bill's exam paper - one in which he was assigned to describe a particular psychological profile. They suspect that whoever killed him fits the profile. Wilma finds the exam, and it's clear that Bill was writing about her. Further, Wilma finds that the note she left for Bill, telling him she couldn't see him that day, is missing. She writes a copy, hoping it will help exonerate her.Lt. Dorgan brings in the truck driver with whom Wilma hitched a ride, hoping that he'll be able to identify her. In the meantime, Wilma has fixed herself up, becoming a bit sexier, having gone out with Warren Ford, the guardian, the night before. Because Wilma's blossomed so since the night of the murder, the Trucker doesn't recognize her.Wilma and Warren go to the police lab, where Dorgan and a feisty lab technician, DR. ROMLEY, go over the evidence, from which they have easily (and correctly) concluded that the killer faked Bill's drowning. When their conversation becomes particularly vivid, Wilma loses it, leaving the room after insulting Dorgan and Romney. Warren takes Wilma to a prizefight, but the young fighter reminds her of Bill, triggering another hysterical outburst.Back home, Warren kisses Wilma, and then, after leaving and seeing that Dorgan is interviewing her housekeeper, Warren goes back and proposes marriage to Wilma. The startled professor initially demurs, but then accepts. They announce their engagement to Dorgan at police headquarters. By now, however, Dorgan suspects Wilma of the murder, and he asks her questions. Wilma trips herself up when it comes out that the note she left for Bill was taken by Dorgan himself. Therefore, he knows that she wrote a copy to throw off police.Wilma confesses to the crime and Warren defends her. He does not deny that she killed Bill and tried to conceal the crime, but he hopes to convince the JURY that she acted in self-defense and that her only true crime was fear. Watching the proceedings, Dorgan, who has come to like Wilma, is certain that she'll win - if nothing else, because of the romance that has developed between her and Warren.

Tags: psychological, murder

Review:
In The Accused, Loretta Young plays a psychology professor who kills an amorous male student in self-defense, then spends the rest of the movie covering up her crime.
William Dieterle does an excellent job with the familiar material, and Miss Young gives a sympathetic performance.
This is one of several crime pictures that Hal Walls produced in the late forties and early fifties, many of which fall into the noir category.
The movie is surprisingly sympathetic toward Miss Young, who, though on the cusp of middle age, still looks pretty damn beautiful.
Robert Cummings is stronger than usual as her "suitor", while Wendell Corey is his inscrutably poker-faced self, as always, hinting between the lines, that had his character been better written he'd be more than up to the task.
In a smaller role, Sam Jaffe is positively mephistopholean, delivering his lines as tartly as Corey, and in his lab scenes photographed to resemble a Dwight Frye hunchback from the thirties.
The Accused is filled with nice touches, as Dieterle and most of his cast are much better than the script, breathing real life into it at times, which makes watching the movie a pleasure.
Structural flaws mar suspense in Loretta Young vehicle.
The twist on what we now call sexual harassment lingers as the most interesting aspect of The Accused, an innocuous suspense story with some effective moments.
Another lingering aftertaste is the midcentury stereotype of the female academic that's foisted on star Loretta Young -- and the viewer.Psychology professor Young (!), guarded and old-maidish (she's even saddled with the glamourproof name Wilma Tuttle), becomes the object of the unhealthy attentions of one of her students (Douglas Dick).
She bashes in his skull and fakes his death to look accidental.Then she begins to attract more attention -- from Robert Cummings, a lawyer friend of the dead boy's family (he falls for her), and Wendell Corey, a dogged homicide cop.
In the acting department, there's no contest; Cummings stays his usual namby-pamby self, while Corey delivers a strong, unsentimental performance, among his best.Much of William Dieterle's direction shows a practiced hand.
Especially well handled are the opening sequence of Young fleeing the crime scene, a boxing match where she suffers a flashback, and the ghoulish reconstructions of the murder by forensic pathologist Sam Jaffe.But a glaring structural flaw keeps The Accused lukewarm.
We know from the outset that Young acted in self-defense, which pretty well leeches all the suspense out of Corey's implacable pursuit; the tightening case against her packs no impact because it's safe to assume she won't be spending any time with those harpies from Caged.
Consequently the film focuses more on her emergence from a cocoon of droopy skirts, a bun in her hair, sleeping pills and swooning spells into a seductive butterfly flitting into Cummings' net.Dick, as the young narcissist, calls to mind such amoral charmers as Robert Walker in Strangers On A Train and John Dall in Rope (a film in which Dick also appeared).
It's he -- not young nor Cummings -- who supplies what faint erotic spark this movie, about a sexually-based murder, dares to kindle..
The Accused This is one of those popular story lines in which the killing is shown early on and then the film deals with the police trying to piece things together while the killer tries to look innocent.In this case, the "accused" is a woman, played by Loretta Young.
She plays a college teacher who defends herself against an obnoxious student but then makes the big mistake of trying to cover up the incident, even though it was self- defense, thinking it would look bad if she was discovered being with this student in the first place.
(Today, we read true-life stories of worse, sad to say.)Bob Cummings and Wendell Corey are detectives who know some foul play is involved but then Cummings, who gets increasingly annoying in here, falls in love with Young.
Cummings gives a good example how "love is blind."Corey, meanwhile, plays the determined cop who doesn't care what people think of him so long as he solves the crime.
Good film noir concerning a prudish, but attractive, college prof that kills a student, during what today would be considered 'date rape.' Cummings and Corey are capable co-stars, and the lovely Young as always, is easy on the eyes..
The Accused is directed by William Dieterle and adapted to screenplay by Ketti Frings from the novel "Be Still, My Love" written by June Truesdell.
It stars Loretta Young, Robert Cummings, Wendell Corey, Sam Jaffe and Douglas Dick.
Krasner.Wilma Tuttle (Young) is a college professor who is prompted into an act of self defence when one of her students attacks her sexually.
The damage done, Wilma covers up her crime and finds her conscience gnawing away at her, especially as she is actively involved in the police investigationGood sturdy story is well played out by a good sturdy cast, The Accused makes up for what it lacks in noir visuals with noir infected psychological smarts.
Helps that Wilma Tuttle is a strong characterisation in Young's excellent hands, the whole film hinging on the fact that Wilma's crime is perfectly understandable to us viewers, she has our sympathy, more so since she has the chance of love with Cumming's amiable and cunning lawyer.We follow the police investigation through its various strands of science, with Wilma privy to what is going on as well.
This puts a devilish kink to proceedings as Lieutenant Ted Dorgan (Corey) is pretty sure he knows what really happened (an inquest had previously ruled the death as an accident caused whilst diving).Further spice comes with the knowledge that Dorgan also has the hots for Wilma, thus this puts Wilma in a whirlpool of fear and fret, conscience battering and the amorous attentions of two male suitors, both of whom are intricately bound to the investigation.
Plus she's trying to keep it together at work whilst she's teaching her students psychology!It all builds to a good conclusion, which is nicely open ended, to round production out as an entertaining noirish meller.
Interesting investigation of the dilemma of having committed a crime unintentionally..
This is actually a love story and, as is usually the case with noirs of the 40s, a very well written one, especially since it deals with some rather tricky psychological matters, of which guilt complex resulting in fear approaching the borders of possible schizophrenia is just one.
What makes this film more than average of classy noirs of the 40s with a romantic and seriously psychological intrigue is the interesting peripatetic moment of the boxing match, when Loretta Young unintentionally gives herself away, and how very interestingly Robert Cummings as her lawyer and lover reacts to that.
To all this comes Victor Young's endearing score fashioning the experience with a golden frame, the beauty of which increases all the time.
Additionally (and ironically), these characters are all involved in recognizing and dealing with such behavior, being a psychology professor, a detective and a lawyer respectively.
The performances are rock-solid and properly understated for the most part (even by Robert Cummings) in keeping with the conservative small town atmosphere; but there are effective contrasting performances as well, in the smaller roles of the few relatively unbalanced characters, as played by Douglas Dick, Suzanne Dalbert, and especially Sam Jaffee..
"The Accused" is a pretty good movie with some good acting turns by some reliable Hollywood stars.
It is not a film noir but primarily a love story with some melodramatic moments.
Right off the bat, in the opening scene, we find out that Loretta Young kills one of her students while fighting off an attempted rape.
The rest of the picture involves a cat-and-mouse game between her and Police Lieutenant Wendell Corey, with lawyer Bob Cummings trying to pick sides.The picture moves along spasmodically (as I said, it's too long) to its eventual denouement but spiked with some genuinely interesting plot turns.I must say I always felt Wendell Corey was a bit of a stiff but here he shows some depth, and Bob Cummings is the opposite of his usual feckless, irresolute self.
But the film is Miss Young's and her legion of fans will not be disappointed - plus, she's beautiful as always.
I have to think this was released as an 'A' picture, as they hired Victor Young to write the music - it doesn't get any better than that.This movie really is worth watching but don't go out of your way - unless you're a Loretta Young fan..
A college professor (Young) commits murder while defending against an over-amorous student.That noirish opening scene of a dark figure struggling along a deserted nighttime highway is iconic, especially when followed in flashback by deserted city streets and a lonely all-night bus.
But once the flashbacks end, the movie settles into a fairly routine game of cat- and-mouse with strong psychological overtones.
I'm also tempted to say the movie becomes a vehicle for Young, who gets to transform from dowdy career woman to fashionable beauty.
However, the male roles (Cummings & Corey) are too large and well acted to allow that.
Nonetheless, the film remains a Young showcase where the diva even gets to do the little fashion pirouette that distinguished her TV series.
Too bad that alcohol got the best of this unusual actor.All in all, the pace may drag at times, but the movie still features enough points of interest to keep the momentum going..
At the time of release, THE ACCUSED was probably considered a daring story for Hollywood to tackle--a teacher about to be assaulted by a student kills him rather than being subjected to rape.
The prim schoolteacher is played by LORETTA YOUNG with all her virginal modesty bolstered by wearing her hair in a bun with Peter Pan collars adorning her neckline.Rather than confess to her crime, she tries to conceal it from the prying eyes of detective WENDELL COREY and lawyer friend ROBERT CUMMINGS.
Both of these actors have given stronger performances in other films but apparently neither one had their interest in these roles heightened by a lackluster script.Slowly, the film tries to build suspense until a final courtroom scene, but by that time the tale has lost a lot of its credibility and the characters are so poorly etched that you won't care that much about the outcome.Young is as pretty as ever but her role has no depth and what should have been a taut exercise in suspense has been turned into a mushy romantic drama rather than a gripping film noir..
THE ACCUSED - 1949 Loretta Young, Bob Cummings, Wendell Corey and Sam Jaffe headline this rather dated noir.Psychology professor Young has a student who is a bit on the forward side.
After class, he offers Young a ride home after seeing she missed her bus.
She then makes it look like an accidental death by dumping Dick off a cliff.Soon everyone seems to be knocking on her door, starting with Bob Cummings.
Cumming is a lawyer who works for the dead man's family.
Several days later the body is fished out of the water and a coroner's inquest held.The death is ruled an accident which off course makes Young happy.
Police Detective Wendell Corey is not quite so sure and decides to look deeper into the death.
Young spends the rest of the picture trying to make sure she covered her tracks, as well as falling for Cummings.
Cummings likewise takes a shine to Miss Young.Hanging around being a pest is Detective Corey.
Helping him in this is forensic expert Sam Jaffe.To cut to the quick, Cummings also tumbles to Young being the killer.
Corey charges her and presents his case but knows it is going nowhere with a jury.The film is good looking, but somewhat lacking in the suspense area.
We know she was only defending herself which eliminates the femme fatale angle.Director William Dieterle did better work on his other film noir, ROPE OF SAND, DARK CITY and THE TURNING POINT.
The film is still worth a look, but one is not likely to give it second viewing..
Guess I was the only one here who really enjoyed the characters of Warren Ford (Robert Cummings) and Wilma Tuttle (Loretta Young), as I looked beyond the fact that their 'circumstances' were what brought them together in the first place, to why I still consider this to be a true film noir despite it.
Loretta's character was dead on in the way she 'handled' what happened to her with Bill Perry (Douglas Dick), because I've seen the same 'incidents' in other movies during the 1930's and 40's done almost in the exact same manner, and I won't have really expected anything different here to keep the storyline moving along.
Wendell Corey (Lt. Ted Dorgan) was like a thirty bloodhound with a 'clue' that he didn't want to let go of, until he'd gotten exactly what he'd come for, and his 'quips' made it that much better to keep you watching just to see if he finally 'got his man'.
As for Douglas Dick (Bill Perry), what can you say about character who thinks he's the 'cats meow', is slicker than a bottle of 'Brylcreem', feels that all women are fascinated by him, but refuses to take 'NO' for an answer?
And my answer is 'yes', I do believe the plot of this film 'could' work by today' standards, 'if' it isn't changed too much in the long run..
Loretta Young plays a repressed psychology professor who kills one of her students in self defense, then covers up her crime.
For a short time, Young actually stays in character before the script changes her from a frumpy spinster to the glamorous movie star, the better to hide her original appearance from a truck driver who gave her a ride on the evening of the killing.
The movie displays many nice touches provided by director William Dieterle.
Wendell Corey makes us wish he had been given better roles and the untalented Robert Cummings makes us ask if he was cast as a favor to someone..
Loretta Young plays a psychology professor who has quite a few neuroses (this is quite the cliché--for once, I'd like to see a movie with a well-balanced psychologist!).
One of her students is a cocky young war vet who thinks he's quite the ladies' man.
Only later when she is thinking clearly does she realize that she should have gone to the police and reported the attempted rape--but by now it was too late.A problem occurs with the film at this point.
Young's character is so flaky that she gets sick and is a delirious state for days.
Soon, it's ruled an accidental death but a determined homicide detective refuses to give up the case.Now had Ms. Young's character not behaved so strangely throughout the film (remember, she is a trained psychologist and professor), THE ACCUSED would have worked a lot better.
Think about it--a film from 1949 that was willing to actually tackle the topic of rape and killing the attacker.
"The Accused", while it is not one of his major films, is an excellent example of this technique.Ketti Frings at this stage was a writer with primarily a radio and stage background (though she had written the 1940 novel, "Hold Back the Dawn").
The director builds up what is essentially a synthetic Loretta Young vehicle into a psychological thriller of considerable suspense and class.
Admittedly, too much footage is still taken up with the familiar Young heart-burnings and hysteria (she even has a pervading off- camera commentary as well), but many of the sequences (particularly those with Sam Jaffe and Wendell Corey) deliver a taut, tense, powerful impact.While the conclusion is somewhat abrupt and predictable, it's a movie that moves all the way thanks to Dieterle's frequent changes of set, scene and camera set-ups, and his skilled use of tracking shots and similar fluid camera movements.For all its aural orientation, the dialogue has a realistic edge to it which fine actors like Wendell Corey know how to deliver with the right amount of intensity.
Corey has a tailor-made part, and receives excellent support from character players like Sam Jaffe, Sara Allgood, Bill Mauch (one of the Mauch twins from "The Prince and the Pauper"), Francis Pierlot, Al Ferguson, Charles Williams and Henry Travers (yes, Henry Travers making a surprise unbilled appearance as Jaffe's assistant).Wallis has dressed "The Accused" in great production values, including sets, locations, and a vast crowd of extra players, among whom Bess Flowers can be spotted as a wardress at court.
"He used me to try to make something out of very second-rate material." This movie is an intriguing example of that fascinating and entertaining "something"..
This movie begins quite well,and,unlike some people wrote,it's not that much dated.Douglas Dick is as disturbing a student as he is handsome.But his part is too underwritten and he disappears too soon.What remains is much too predictable: as soon as Bill's guardian appears ,you know what they're up to from mile off;for instance guess with whom,this respectable man,portrayed by Robert Cummings will fall in love with?In a thriller,the hero(or here the heroine) must be in jeopardy:we know early in the story that the teacher is not risking anything ;maybe if they did not show the scene by the sea?
maybe?We are left with the Cummings/Corey duel :both actors deserved a better script.Loretta Young plays a very educated professor (she teaches psychology of course) and she 's got to show tricky to frustrate the enemy (that is to say the cops) in his plans.Aren't there better movies to remember Loretta Young ?
This movie starts in an unusually interesting place.
But unfortunately after that, the movie which started so interesting descends into bland convention and melodrama.
It makes the movie less engaging by the minute, and really shrinks the possibilities of what it can be.
Cummings is not terribly interesting and Wendell Corey plays yet another irksome investigator.