Alimony (1949)

Sadly, it's only the musical career of "Dan" (John Beal) that is very promising in this rather disappointing, run-of-the-mill, marital melodrama. He has the misfortune to meet the money-grabbing "Kitty" (Martha Vickers) who has one goal, and one goal only - to get rich quick. She inspires him to write one hit and things look set fair. Except, well it seems that might be his only flirtation with success and pretty soon she has dumped him and moved onto a wealthy businessman. "Dan", meantime, returns to his decent fiancée "Linda" (Hillary Brooke) and that might have been the end of it. Thing is, "Kitty" only married "Burt" (Douglass Dumbrille) for his money and when she starts to make noises about divorce and substantial alimony, he discovers a litany of corrupt activities from his venally motivated wife that drags poor old "Dan" back into a toxic mix of greed and duplicity. The cast actually delivers adequately here, but the story is thin and over-scripted and at times it comes across as a radio play with pictures - and not very inspired pictures either. The characterisations are all too shallow and, to be honest, Vickers makes for a rather unlikely seductress. They do their own singing, to be fair, but otherwise there's very little here to recommend it, sorry.