Part of Lonely Places: Film Noir and the American Landscape
Saturday, November 14, 2015, 2:00 p.m.

Dir. Max Ophüls. 1949, 82 mins. 35mm. With Joan Bennett, James Mason. Ophüls’s last Hollywood film shows his trademark elegantly moving camera and sophisticated use of space, but authentically captures the look, sound and feel of a prosperous yet anxious postwar America and what screenwriter Robert Soderberg called “the American woman—the trapped woman,” a willing prisoner of her family. The Reckless Moment is a complex and ambivalent treatment of suburban values and that controversial icon, the American mother. In this tender, understated love story, the underworld blackmailer threatening a respectable housewife whose daughter accidentally killed a man turns out to be the one person who truly understands and appreciates her.

Tickets: $12 ($9 for senior citizens and students / free for members at the Film Lover level and above). Order tickets online. (Members may contact [email protected] with any questions regarding online reservations.)

All tickets include same-day admission to the Museum (see gallery hours). View the Museum’s ticketing policy here. For more information on membership and to join online, visit our membership page.