Jeopardy

Directed by John Sturges, Jeopardy follows Helen (Barbara Stanwyck) and Doug (Barry Sullivan) as they and their young son (Lee Aaker’s Bobby) encounter a series of dangerous situations while on vacation in Mexico. Filmmaker Sturges, working from Mel Dinelli’s screenplay, delivers a mostly engrossing thriller that benefits from its ongoing emphasis on tense, suspenseful stretches, as the movie, which kicks off with an innocuous opening that’s hardly indicative of what’s to follow, boasts a stirring midsection that details the decidedly treacherous exploits of its central characters – with the picture ultimately at its best during an early sequence involving Helen’s race-against-time efforts at finding help for her imperiled husband. It’s clear, certainly, that Stanwyck’s solid work as the sympathetic protagonist goes a long way towards perpetuating the nail-biting atmosphere, while Ralph Meeker, cast as a sketchy figure named Lawson, brings a palpable sense of menace to his scenes within the movie’s propulsive second half – which, when coupled with a satisfying climax, undoubtedly cements Jeopardy‘s place as a consistently compelling effort that hardly wastes a minute of its appreciatively (and appropriately) brief running time.

*** out of ****