Max Ophuls' American melodramas have been called “the works of a civilized miniaturist” (Higham and Greenberg, Hollywood in the Forties). The Reckless Moment shares with the better known film Caught (also 1949) certain film noir characteristics, as well as an outsider's insights into postwar American society: Ophuls' European perspective on suburban life--in particular, on the illusions harbored by the middle-class woman--is fascinating. Joan Bennett stars as a repressed but contented housewife whose routine existence is shattered by her daughter's involvement with a philanderer, and her own role in his death. James Mason is cast against type as a lower-class blackmailer who smoothes his way into Bennett's life, trying to pin her down. Their intense spider-and-fly relationship gradually softens as his wistful charm turns to sympathy. Ophuls' eye for detail in deep-focus compositions, made famous in his French films La Ronde and Lola Montes, is equally evident here, and Burnett Guffey's camerawork brings the texture of sunny, small-town Southern California locales into a profound light.