I found Mark’s take on this one to be a bit overblown, but then again the “show business noir” has a kind of self-referential allure for those who are overly fascinated by Hollywood. Writer Allen Rivkin has a varied filmography with several bonafide noirs in it, including one (TENSION) that is a solid example of “MGM noir” (a phrase that a number of us back in the day used to jokingly call an “oxymoron”). A lot of how Jane is characterized in this film is cribbed from Rivkin’s involvement in the pre-Code classic WHAT PRICE HOLLYWOOD? (1932), so the notion of Tinseltown as a self-consuming hellhole is hardly a fresh perspective in the early 50s.
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