Watch The Pretender (1947) Free Online

Release Date: 1947

Cast: Charles B. Middleton, Alan Carney, Charles Drake, Selmer Jackson, Ben Welden, Linda Stirling, Albert Dekker, Tom Kennedy, Stanley Ross, John Bagni, Ernie Adams

Categories: Movies, Thriller, Crime Fiction, Therimin music, Black-and-white, Film noir

The Pretender (1947) is an American crime film noir directed by W. Lee Wilder and written by Don Martin, with additional dialogue by Doris Miller. The drama features Albert Dekker, Catherine Craig, Charles Drake, among others. The story tells of Kenneth Holden (Dekker) a crooked investment businessman who embezzles a large sum of money from an estate. He hopes to cover his crime by marrying the estate's heiress Claire Worthington (Craig). However, Worthington is already engaged, so Holden arranges for her fiancee to be killed. The hired hit man's only means of identifying the victim is the... MORE

The Pretender (1947) is an American crime film noir directed by W. Lee Wilder and written by Don Martin, with additional dialogue by Doris Miller. The drama features Albert Dekker, Catherine Craig, Charles Drake, among others. The story tells of Kenneth Holden (Dekker) a crooked investment businessman who embezzles a large sum of money from an estate. He hopes to cover his crime by marrying the estate's heiress Claire Worthington (Craig). However, Worthington is already engaged, so Holden arranges for her fiancee to be killed. The hired hit man's only means of identifying the victim is the picture in the society columns. But Claire Worthington changes her mind and agrees to marry Holden. This means that it's his picture that will appear in the newspaper, thereby condemning him to death. Desperately trying to contact the hit man, Holden discovers that the man is dead...but his successor is still at large. Critic Dennis Schwartz liked the film and wrote, "Billy Wilder's lesser known elder brother William Lee Wilder...directs this striking film noir about a successful man becoming paranoiac and placing himself in entrapment. In one amazing characteristic noir scene, the protagonist is LESS