The moment JANIS CARTER pays GLENN FORD's fine for driving recklessly you know the two are going to meet their fate together in FRAMED. At this point in his career, Ford seemed to be specializing in playing men hooked by a dame at first glance and willing to suffer the consequences.

FRAMED is a neat little crime melodrama from Columbia in which the title almost gives away the plot. Carter and BARRY SULLIVAN devise a crooked scheme to get their hands on a quarter of a million dollars, involving GLENN FORD and a bank robbery.

JANIS CARTER resembles a blonde version of Ann Sheridan as she plays a cunning femme fatale with silky ease planning to make mining engineer Ford take the fall for an embezzlement.

Like all good noirs, there's a final plot twist that comes as a surprise and confirms suspicion that Carter was even more of a schemer than she let on.

Well worth seeing--maintains taut suspense all the way. And, of course, Ford's moral fiber wins out over Carter's amoral seduction.

"Framed." A great title. Plus there is Glenn Ford, who brought so much torque to the role of heedless avenger in "The Big Heat." Then there is the plot, involving embezzlement, attempted poisoning, drunkenness, betrayal, murder, and playing doctor.

The narrative is really too twisted to go into in any detail but the general idea is that Barry Sullivan is a banker who pretends to lend the grizzled old prospector, of which there is no other kind, a quarter of a million dollars, then steal the money himself, murder the old prospector, and frame the innocent mining engineer, Glenn Ford, for the crime. After that, Sullivan and his girl friend, Janice Carter, will take the loot and leave town. I hope I got that right.

Sadly, although it looks like a neat noir thriller, it's just an ordinary, rather slapdash story of greed and treachery.

Example of "slapdash." There's a scene towards the end in which Janice Carter realizes that Ford suspects her of the murder of which she is, in fact, guilty. She offers to make him some coffee. Alone in the kitchen, she reaches for a bottle of poison in the spice rack. Now, this bottle deserves some attention. It's not labeled "rat poison" or "weed killer." It's just labeled in bold black letters "POISON", as it would be in a Laurel and Hardy short. Add to it that the bottle is simply tucked in among the sugar and condiments -- probably alphabetized, just after "paprika" and just before "rue." She dumps some in his cup of coffee. Anyone who imagined how, say, Hitchcock would have handled this scene must have wept.

Ford does little to help the narrative along. He's sullen and intense throughout, though capable of a much better display of skills. Janice Carter may have been a genuinely nice lady in real life -- kind to children and small animals. And she was a singer too. But her every expression, each utterance, each movement, are variations on the theme of perfidy. She telegraphs what she's thinking, and she does it with the subtlety of a traffic light. This is "worried." Now I'm "plotting." Here is "lying." Edgar Buchanan gives what is, for him, an animated performance. He's good natured and trusting, but dignified and practical too. He's a delight in a solemn movie like this.

Glenn Ford plays a stranger who drifts into town one day. However, he soon finds himself in a tiny bit of trouble and a beautiful lady (Janis Carter) comes to his rescue. However, this is NOT a kind lady but a femme fatale with an evil plan. Her and her married lover (Barry Sullivan) plan on murdering him in order to cover up some embezzlement. However, two huge monkey wrenches are tossed in--Carter's character is evil more evil than you might expect and Ford's is not nearly as stupid as she hoped. While the plot is decent (not great),the film is ultra-stylish, smoking hot and full of femme fatale badness--exactly what I like in a film! Not quite as hot and exciting as Ford's later film, "Gilda" but still quite good. It makes you wonder why Carter never really took off as an actress--she was exquisitely nasty and hot.