User Reviews

***SPOILERS*** On his first vacation in years New York cop Let. Ed Cornell, Richard Boone, sees the local newspapers headline story of the brutal murder of top fashion model Vicki Lynn, Jean Peters. It's then without as much as a second thought Let. Cornell drops everything and shoots back to the Big Apple in trying to solve Vicki's murder.

With Vicki's publicist Steve Christopher, Elliott Reid, found at Vicki's murder scene, her hotel room, it becomes very obvious to Let. Cornell that he's the murderer and doesn't bother looking for anyone else. Even though Christopher emphatically denies killing Vicki saying that he just happened to come upon the scene after Vicki's killer left the room. Despite being brutalized by a brutish Let. Cornell, who in some scenes looks and behaves like the famed movie Creeper Rando Hatton, Christopher sticks to his story; As him being the wrong man in the wrong place at the right time, for Let. Cornell, when Vicki was murdered!

It's later when Christopher checks out Vicki's murder for himself that he runs into her big sister Jill, Jeanne Crain, whom she shared her hotel room with. It's Jill that informs Christopher about this creepy looking guy who was aways watching her little sister when she was a waitress at the Webster Cafeteria in midtown Manhattan. Even though the very outwardly and sociable Vicki took it all in stride Jill was very concerned about him and what he had in mind for her kid sister! It later turned out that this weirdo was non other then Let. Ed Cornell! The man who insisted to be placed in charge of the Vicki Lynn murder case!

Re-make of the 1941 film noir classic "I Wake up Screaming" the movie Vicki is pretty good on its own merits. Jean Peters is absolutely gorgeous as the ill fated Vicki Lynn whom men just go completely bananas over at the very sight of her. In fact it was Vicki's haunting and smoldering, as well as all-American girl, good looks that in the end lead to her brutal murder! Let. Cornell had it in for Steve Christopher even before Vicki's murder in him being jealous of Christopher being Vicki's lover, which in fact he wasn't, while he, an admitted Peeping Tom, was left out in the cold, with his raincoat, or the outside looking in.

****SPOILERS**** As we and Christopher later learn it was Let. Cornell who was at the Vicki Lynn murder scene doing his usual Peeping Tom act by staying hidden in her closet. And it was Let. Cornell, in not wanting to expose himself, who let her killer go free. Not wanting to be exposed as some kind of pervert, why was he hiding in Vicki's hotel room in the first place, Let.Cornell instead turned his sights on the innocent Steve Christopher who dropped in to see Vicki after her killer checked out! Not because Christopher murdered Vicki but because it was him, not Let. Ed Cornell, whom she was in love with!

A beautiful waitress (Jean Peters) is spotted through the front window of an all-night diner by a couple of public relations types, who decide to make her into a high fashion model. After a few weeks, her image is plastered everywhere, for cigarettes, perfume, etc. The Cinderella story ends abruptly with her murder. The film mixes the mystery of who did it, because all the men who knew her fell for her, with the obsessive desire of the homicide detective (Richard Boone) who, it turns out, was watching her nightly through the same window, but never went inside to ask her out or even to introduce himself, thus scaring the poor girl, who thought he was some kind of weirdo. It turns out, for the benefit of the film, he was, and that, by far, is the film's most intriguing aspect.

VICKI (guess they thought changing "Vicky" to "Vicki" would look more modern or something) plays like a watered-down version of the original I WAKE UP SCREAMING (IWUS), though it tries real hard to remind you of another classic 20th Century-Fox thriller, 1944's LAURA. A LAURA-like painting of title character Vicki Lynn can be seen behind the opening credits. Listen carefully to the background dialogue during the scene where our protagonists hide in a movie theater (we don't see the film-within-the-film, we just hear it): the dialogue is from LAURA! To be fair, VICKI is watchable, but despite the filmmakers' best efforts to evoke superior Fox mysteries, it's ultimately pedestrian and forgettable, lacking the pizazz of its predecessors. Director Harry Horner, who was also the Oscar-winning art director and production designer of THE HUSTLER and THE HEIRESS (THE HUSTLER AND THE HEIRESS -- now that sounds like a fun picture! :-)), worked from Dwight Taylor's earlier IWUS script, this time given a little uncredited tweaking by Leo Townsend. Perhaps Townsend's the one responsible for the nice touch of having Vicki's face plastered all over almost every frame of the film, on posters, magazine covers, etc., even after her death, until the film's wry final shot.

However, while the actors are capable and easy on the eyes, the principals just don't have the edge, charisma, and screen presence of the original 1941 leads. In the title role, unlike IWUS's luminous Carole Landis, Howard Hughes protégée Jean Peters is just another pretty girl, albeit with ambition and a hard edge. Indeed, as Vicki's nice, sensible sister Jill, Jeanne Crain is more classically beautiful than Peters. If I were a promoter, Jill's the sister I would've been trying to groom for stardom! :-) But maybe that was the point: our promoter hero is trying to manufacture a star out of the raw material that is Vicki, like so many promoters and stars then and now. Film noir historian Foster Hirsch suggests this, too, in the DVD's interesting commentary track.

Speaking of our hero, instead of Victor Mature's beleaguered promoter hero Frankie Christopher, formerly Botticelli, VICKI gives us Elliott Reid as Steve Christopher (a tip of the hat to source author Steve Fisher?). Reid was a light leading man best known for comedy. That didn't necessarily have to be a liability, considering the story has comic moments, but alas, I'm afraid it is. I wanted to root for Reid, but he comes across as a lightweight in every way, pleasant without being memorable. Heck, I'm trying to picture him in my mind right now and I'm having a hard time, that's how little impression he made on me.

The sexual tension of IWUS is virtually nonexistent here. I've enjoyed the attractive Peters in more down-to-earth roles such as the 1953 thriller NIAGARA, but here I didn't find her irresistible in either physical or emotional allure. While you can't help but pick up on IWUS's Frankie, Larry, and Robin being drawn to Vicky, in VICKI, the lure somehow isn't as strong between Vicki and benefactors Steve; Robin, played here by suave Egyptian actor Alex D'Arcy; and Larry, played likably by one of our household's fave character actors, Casey Adams. Fun Facts: Under his real name, Max Showalter, Adams co-wrote VICKI's instrumental theme, and he'd also appeared with Peters in NIAGARA, in which Marilyn Monroe commanded the screen in an atypical bad-girl role. Crain and Reid come across like a nice-enough couple, but they simply don't have the sizzle and sparkle that Victor Mature and Betty Grable had between them in the original. At least Carl Betz of THE DONNA REED SHOW is a likable presence as Steve's cop pal.

Frankly, the antagonists are far more memorable than the protagonists. Richard Boone stands out most as obsessed cop Ed Cornell. True, Boone is no Laird Cregar; he's nowhere near as physically imposing or silver-tongued as Cregar was. Still, Boone's rough, harsh quality gives VICKI much-needed energy as he snarlingly invades people's space with wild abandon. Seeing vicious Boone zero in on bland Reid is like watching a feral dog attack a pampered puppy; it's not a fair fight, whereas IWUS's Mature and Cregar are more exciting to watch, being more evenly matched physically and temperamentally as well as in the charisma and screen presence departments. (Even Hirsch agrees in his commentary. Sharp guy, that Hirsch! :-)) Aaron Spelling's no slouch, either, as he takes over Elisha Cook Jr.'s role. Yes, you read that right: before he became one of the most successful TV producers of all time, Aaron Spelling was a quirky young actor, and he makes a great weirdo here. Occasionally, Spelling chews the scenery, but at least he's not insipid like most of the rest of the cast.

Even the film's lighting and staging is flat and bland, except for the expressionistic lighting of the interrogation and the night scenes. There aren't even any little fun quirks, like the use of "Over the Rainbow" in the original. My verdict: I WAKE UP SCREAMING is the clear winner here, with VICKI worth a look primarily for completists.

Imagine if Dana Andrews, the detective in "Laura", had been homely. Suppose he'd had a pock-marked face, a long pulpy nose, a raspy voice, and was utterly lacking in charm. And he fell in love with the supernally gorgeous-beyond-redemption Gene Tierney. Would she have paid him the least attention? Right.

I understand this is a remake of "I Wake Up Screaming" but it tries very hard to resemble "Laura." Behind the opening credits, for instance, we see a large portrait of Jean Peters in the same pose that Tierney adopted for her portrait in "Laura." Like Tierney, Peters has a menial job. Then she runs into a man of some influences who takes a shine to her and squires her about town so she can meet patricians. She becomes a famous model and receives an invitation to go to Hollywood and, with any luck, some day leave in a cement square the imprint of her spaghetti shoes. Before she can do it, she's murdered.

Richard Boone, in his menacing mode, insists on handling the case. Several men are immediately suspected. There is Elliott Reid as the promoter who discovers her behind the counter, in the Clifton Webb part, except that he's heterosexual. There is the drama critic, Max Showalter, who is obviously attracted to her. There is the flighty famous actor, Alexander D'Arcy in the Vincent Price part, who secretes a pen knife she once gave him. And there is Aaron Spelling as the loopy switchboard operator and factotum at Peters' hotel. He has a great face, with pronounced exopthalmia, but he can act only about as well as his daughter, Tori. You and I have as much in the way of acting skills, but we don't have their portfolio.

That's about as much as "Vicki" owes to "Laura." The rest sets out on its own without going very far. Elliott Reid is a fine comic actor but really doesn't belong in dramatic roles. Even when crushed, he looks about to smile. Showalter and D'Arcy have small roles, and the former's is confusing. He's supposed to be a good friend of Reid's, yet when Reid is on the run from the police, Showalter pulls a gun on him with the remark that he just wanted to be the first to take Reid in.

Jeanne Craine is the star. She's Peters' nice sister. Her job seems to consist of being browbeaten by the men around her, especially the nasty and brutish Richard Boone. She was positively magnetic as Gene Tierney's younger sister in "Leave Her to Heaven" but by the 1950s she seems to have lost interest in her career. She doesn't make a false move throughout the movie, nor an original one. The same, alas, can be said of Jean Peters' performance. She's supposed to be a striking beauty -- and she IS beautiful -- but she's unpleasant in some ways too, ambitious and self indulgent. Maybe that's okay though. People adore media images, whereas they must tangle mano a mano with real individuals.

I saw it years ago and enjoyed it far more than I did this time around. It would have been an improvement if it had been shot on location in New York instead of on sound stages but this wasn't yet a common practice. It's a competent murder mystery with one genuinely pathetic figure -- Boone's -- but it's also pretty routine stuff.

The Victor Mature film, "I Wake Up Screaming", has one of the best film noir titles in film history. It also was a pretty dandy movie. Twelve years later, Twentieth-Century Fox remade the movie as "Vickie". This remake isn't bad at all...but why mess with an already classic film?!

"Vickie" is about a top model (Jean Peters) who has been murdered. The cop investigating the case (Richard Boone) is clearly a very disturbed man--obsessed with pinning the killing on a publicity agent (Elliot Reid) responsible for Vickie's meteoric rise to fame. If that means manufacturing evidence or beating a confession out of the poor guy, then Boone is more than willing to do this. Vickie's sister (Jeanne Crain) is certain Reid is not responsible for the killing and is willing to do what she can to help him prove his innocence...as if Boone really cared! The film is very noir in the way it portrays the police. While Boone is clearly an evil nut-job in the countless ways he violates civil liberties, the 'good cops' aren't exactly angels--trying to force confessions out of people through very dubious means. Civil rights attorneys must have had apoplexies watching this film, that's for sure! Even my 1940s and 50s movie standards, these cops were playing fast and loose with the law.

As for the acting, it's all very good--as is the story. The only really exceptional element, however, is the chance to see Aaron Spelling (yes, the very famous producer) doing some acting! He plays a nutty guy in a very entertaining fashion--kind of over the top but entertaining nonetheless.

Overall, this is a very entertaining film with an interesting plot that is reminiscent of noir films such as "The Killers" and "Sunset Boulevard" because the film starts with a killing and then backtracks to show the events leading up to it. Not a great noir film, but very good.

Richard Boone steals the show here as a completely demented cop. He screams at everyone while harboring a deep secret of resentment.

The picture starts with a picture of the murdered Vicki on the wall. I immediately thought of 1944's "Laura," but it was not meant to be.

The picture offered Eliot Reid, a usual second-hand jerk in films, the opportunity of a life-time in playing a Broadway promoter, hounded by Boone as the major suspect in Vicki's murder.

Boone is a cross between Inspector Javers and the Columbo characters. He screams and is vicious in his ways of trying to obtain the truth. Truth is he knew the real story here and covered it up to get revenge on the man he thought took Vicki away from him. This is where the picture falls apart- the completely off-the-wall cop is hard to swallow yet alone fathom.

Jeanne Crain stars as Vicki's sister, but the plot does her in as well as the picture. Interesting to see Max Showalter in a small role as a newspaper writer. He co-starred with Peters in "Niagara" and was memorable in "With A Song in My Heart," as well as a one-scene stealer as the deaf mute whose hearing is restored in "Elmer Gantry."

In addition to the superbly photographed, fast-paced, totally riveting noir classic I Wake Up Screaming (1941) in which a super-attractive Betty Grable, aided by heavy-handed Victor Mature, has a hard time escaping the minions of the law led by the magnificent Laird Cregar, Fox has also issued the not-half-as-exciting re-make, Vicki (1953), which the studio virtually threw away on its original release so that all attention could be focused on The Robe and CinemaScope.

Vicki starts most promisingly. In fact Jean Peters makes a far more seductive "Vicki" than Carole Landis. Unfortunately, Elliott Reid makes an extremely weak hero, and Jeanne Crain is no Betty Grable. Although Richard Boone makes a fair stab at the Laird Cregar part, it all comes to a most unsatisfactory and unsatisfying climax when the murderer is flaccidly unmasked by an all-too-familiar ruse and then tamely led away without any of the promised action and excitement the script has been leading us to expect!