They Won't Believe Me, directed by Irving Pichel (1947)

 Although They Won't Believe Me does not have the trappings of many film noirs -- shadowy photography, references to WW II -- it does have a mood of fatalism and betrayal that puts in squarely in the film noir category; at one point Robert Young says, "fate has dealt me one from the bottom of the deck."  It's also a film of collaboration, including major contributions by producer Joan Harrison (who worked with Hitchcock on a number of films), writer Jonathan Latimer (crime novelist and writer of The Glass Key, 1942), cinematographer Harry J. Wild of Murder My Sweet (1944) and composer Roy Webb, who did the music for ten films in 1947, including Out of the Past.  Major contributions were made by actors Robert Young as Larry Ballantine, Susan Hayward as Verna Carlson, Jane Greer as Janice Bell and Rita Johnson as Greta Ballantine.  Veteran director Irving Pichel, a sometime actor himself, got superb performances from the cast, which also includes a number of effective character actors, such as Don Beddoe and Frank Ferguson.

Robert Young does a great job against type as the amoral Larry Ballantine, who almost leaves his wife Greta for journalist Janice Bell, until the wealthy Greta buys him a partnership in a brokerage firm and Larry just doesn't show up for a trip out of town with Janice.  At the brokerage firm he meets secretary Verna Carlson, who rescues him from a scolding by his boss, and they fall in love, sort of.  Once Greta finds out about Verna she sells Larry's role in the firm and says they are leaving for California and if he doesn't want to go he will be left without a job or money, so he leaves Verna and goes to an isolated ranch with Greta, without even a telephone.  Larry is bored and contacts Verna; she picks him up at the general store and they head for Reno so Larry can get a divorce,  On the way their car crashes and Verna is severely burned and is unrecognizable, so everyone thinks it is Larry's wife who has died. Larry now realizes he can freely kill his wife and goes back to the ranch, where he finds his wife has committed suicide and he dumps her in the water at the bottom of her favorite waterfall.  Meanwhile Larry's boss at the brokerage film, who had fancied Verna, is looking for her with the help of Janice, and the cops discover Greta's body when they search the ranch.  Larry goes on trial for the murder of Greta -- the film is narrated by him on the witness stand -- and he has one last ambiguous meeting with Janice in jail, but before the jury's decision is announced Larry is shot trying to escape, or perhaps attempting suicide.  The verdict is "not guilty."

When They Won't Believe Me was re-released in 1950 it was cut from 95 minutes to 80 and only recently was the cut restored.  I haven't seen that latter version for some time but I do feel fairly certain that the major cut was a scene when Larry and Verna flee from Greta and on their way to Reno stop at a beautiful lake for a swim.  Larry had convinced Verna to impersonate Greta and take $25,000 from her account and at that point Verna gives Larry the check, which Larry, to Verna's pleasure, tears up.  This scene makes Larry seem slightly less of a heel, which perhaps was why it was cut.  In any case, director Pichel deserves considerable credit for how he directed the actors, especially Robert Young and Susan Hayward, in their complex relationships between love and greed.