If you’re buying Tension as a “physical”, it often comes packaged together on DVD or Blu-ray with Where Danger Lives, as if it were a makeweight. Strange, since it’s a cracking film in terms of plot and character. Ostensibly designed as a vehicle for Audrey Totter, it ended up with Richard Basehart’s name first in the billing – studio reasons – though in all honesty it’s Barry Sullivan who’s the standout here, excellent though Totter and Basehart are.
She plays the femme fatale who’s somehow wound up married to sappy and dutiful drugstore manager Warren Quimby but who’s carrying on a not-so-secret affair with local tough guy Barney Deager (Lloyd Gough), a believer in the “treat em mean” system of woman management. When Deager humiliates Quimby in front of his wife – more or less kicking sand in his face when the cuckolded husband confronts him – the wimpy Quimby comes up with a contorted plan to exact revenge.
Without going into it too explicitly this involves coming up with an alter ego to murder Deager, then discarding said alter ego and going back to his old life. A plan that is short-circuited by fate, which comes up with two ways of spiking his plans – one involving Quimby’s alter ego falling in love with a sweetheart who’s the opposite of his wife.
Quimby does not murder Deager, who winds up dead anyway, leading to a manhunt which will in the fullness of time lead to Quimby’s door.
It’s a more strangled and tortuous a plot than this, but spelling all of it out will ruin the film. Instead I’ll tell you about the performances – Basehart very good as the pussywhipped Quimby (name no mistake) and the more assertive, debonair Paul Sothern. Totter superb as his slattern of a wife with an eye for anything in trousers – watch the way she eats a burger suggestively early on. Sullivan as Lieutenant Bonnabel, the canny cop on the case, who is able to home in on a psychological weakness while carrying on a superficially silly double act with his surly sidekick Lt Gonsales (William Conrad, much made of his weight). Big surprise is Cyd Charisse in a non-dancing role, as Mary (virginal name also no mistake) “Paul” falls for en route to trying to kill Deager.
Totter’s “body acting” is particularly fine – stiff and nasty one second, loose and sexy the next. It matches the switchback psychology of the movie, which is all about the mutability of character. Claire married Quimby in a moment of weakness – he looked “kind of cute in uniform”. But she’s a more complex character than the standard femme fatale. What is the meaning of the weird, broken doll Claire keeps on her bed? Why does she like unbending tough guys? For that matter why does Mary like a man in trouble? And what about Quimby and his alter ego, who seems able to shortcut through all the nonsense that average guys, like Quimby, struggle with?
John Berry directs with a loose but not flamboyant style, dollying in and out elegantly though for the most part leaving the plot and the actors to convey the film’s message. There is terrible stuff in here, like the slinky sax firing up every time Totter arrives on screen. We know, we know, you might find yourself sighing. But on the whole this is a film worth watching. It looks great, thanks to the lighting of Harry Stradling Sr – of Jamaica Inn, Intermezzo and My Fair Lady fame. And it has a great edgy atmosphere, of things being in a state of permanent flux. It really deserves more than being part of a double bill on a DVD box set.
Tension (in a box set with Where Danger Lives) – Watch it/buy it at Amazon
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© Steve Morrissey 2026
