Without Honor (1949 film)


Without Honor is a 1949 film noir directed by Irving Pichel and starring Bruce Bennett, Laraine Day, Dane Clark, Agnes Moorehead, and Franchot Tone.

Plot

A housewife is confronted during her daily chores by her married lover. The man, after a long affair, tells the woman that he has to break off their relationship. The woman threatens suicide, but when she picks up a shish kabob skewer, the two struggle and the man is stabbed in the chest and collapses. The housewife hides the body in the house. Before she can leave, her brother-in-law arrives and tells the woman that he knows about the affair and that he has invited her husband, her lover and his wife to her house that evening so that he can tell them about the affair. The woman, in a panic worrying that they will find out about the killing, attempts to flee but cannot get away from her vengeful brother-in-law.

Cast

Arthur Lions notes in Death on the Cheap: The Lost B Movies of Film Noir, "A top-notch cast is wasted in a total clunker. The film takes the award, however, for the movie with the shortest performance by a top-billed star. Leading man Tone, after his brief initial appearance, spends most of the picture as the "corpse" in the laundry room."
The film was entered into the 1949 Cannes Film Festival.