The Reckless Moment (Max Ophuls 1949)

Bea Harper: When you're seventeen today, you know what the score is.

Lucia Harper (Joan Bennet) is a busy mother in this blend of noir and melodramatic movie. She takes care of her middle class family while her husband – who never appears in the film - is away on business. Her teenage daughter Bea (Geraldine Brooks) is seeing Ted Darby (Sheppard Strudwick), an elder man of dubious reputation. Lucia travels to LA to ask him to stop seeing her daughter. He only agrees to do so if he is given a good sum of money, however Bea wants to see him again.

After Ted’s accidental violent death Lucia will handle the situation. In a reckless moment she will get rid of the body in Balboa Harbour. Later she will be the victim of blackmail by Martin Donelly (James Mason) who has the love letters Bea and Ted had exchanged. Lucia tries to face the situation herself, keeping the family away from the whole affair. Martin, who has fallen in love with her, is impressed by her efforts to protect her daughter and he is willing to stop the pressure on her, however, his boss named Nagle (Roy Roberts) doesn’t agree…

A remarkable performance by Joan Bennet, in a mature and maternal role, far from the femme fatale she was in some of her Lang movies.

Martin: She's lucky to have a mother like you.
Lucia Harper: Everyone has a mother like me. You probably had one, too.

…

Lucia Harper: You don't know how a family can surround you at times.
Martin: Do you never get away from your family?
Lucia Harper: No.

Hollow Triumph, aka The Scar (Steve Sekely, 1948)

Evelyn Hahn: “It’s a bitter little world…”

The fatalism of a bitter little world is ever present in this movie. Former medical student John Muller (Paul Henreid) has just been released from prison. He has planned a robbery at a casino which turns out to be a failure. Muller has to escape to L.A. where he takes a job but the menace of being caught casts a permanent shadow on his life.
He comes to know by chance that he looks almost exactly like psychiatrist Victor Bartok. He sees a chance of escaping his fate if he can impersonate the doctor: He has a good psychiatry practice and a nice secretary (Joan Bennet).
This becomes Muller’s objective and he plans carefully how to “become” Dr Bartok. To make this resemblance more likely he manages to reproduce a facial scar and later he kills and gets rid of the doctor.
When Muller has succeeded impersonating Dr Bartok he suddenly has to face the troubles of the dead man. Muller will be a victim and pay, not for his crimes but for the doctor’s past troubles… His fate was following him all the way…
This is not one of the great films of the noir style (it is not usually in the top lists), however it has the essence of the genre… there is a fatalistic quality in the movie with a menacing shadowy photography (great work by John Alton).

John Muller: “It’s too late and what’s the use? You can never go back and start again… You don’t see what’s happening to you. It just happens”