Framed 1947 Film Noir Glenn Ford, Janis Carter, Barry Sullivan , *HD*

Mike Lambert takes to driving a truck when he falls on hard times. When the brakes stop working while driving through a small town, he runs into the car of Jeff Cunningham and is arrested. A total stranger, barmaid Paula Craig (Janis Carter), pays his bail, and Mike is quickly drawn into a criminal plot devised by the seductive femme fatale. Paula talks a married man, Steve, into robbing the bank that he manages. The two then drug Mike, intending to frame him for the crime. Paula proceeds to kill Steve and take all of the stolen cash. She is able to convince Mike that he is the one who killed Steve in a drunken rage and that she has covered up for him, thereby implicating herself. She begs him to run away with her. Mike considers her offer until he learns that Jeff, who has become a friend, has been accused of the killing—and that Paula intends to pin the robbery that Steve committed on Jeff to give the police a fall guy for the crime. Paula is tricked by Mike into opening a safe-deposit box where the stolen money is, and the police quickly place her under arrest. Film critic Dennis Schwartz liked the film and wrote, "Janis Carter gives a very sexy and dangerous performance, which plays off very well against Glenn Ford's very earnest one of the good guys who can't get a lucky break. Even when he finds someone he could love she turns out to be poison, someone who was about to poison his coffee until she was reassured that he does not know something incriminating about her role in the crime. It was an entertaining B-film that ably caught how an honest but desperate man reacts after hooking up with a falsehearted woman. The good performances overcame the cheap production values and slight story."