Tonight we honor the fifties housewife--film noir style--in the persons of Audrey Totter in Tension, Barbara Stanwyck in Crime of Passion. Unfortunately, neither is particularly well suited to the plodding pace of suburban domesticity; in fact, the mere thought of it drives them to murder. A taut rubber band is the central iconographic image of Tension, an intriguing thriller in which mild mannered druggist Warren Quimby (Richard Basehart) works nights towards the purchase of a tract home, while his wife Claire (Totter) dreams of other men and finally goes out and gets herself one. Obsessed with her infidelity, he hatches a convoluted plan, involving a complete change of identity, to murder her new lover. The fact that someone beats him to it holds no sway with the police, and the quivering Quimby finds himself the object of a manhunt. Claire's cynicism seems to permeate the entire mood of the film (femme fatalism is catching); she may not be able to cook an egg, but hard boiled dialogue is her specialty.