'The Reckless Moment'

The Reckless Moment is a pretty run-of-the-mill film noir. Good and all, but nothing really to right home about outside of it being a Max Ophüls and also starring James Mason.

With that said, I’m willing to talk Mason. 

Mason was a British actor, who made as much of a name for himself in the states as he did in his homeland. By my count, he’s in six of the 1,001 films you should see before you die. 

Mason was in countless films working under  a range of directors  like Ophüls, Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick and others. 

He portrayed Brutus, Humbert Humbert, Captain Nemo, Gustave Flaubert, Joseph of Arimathea and Erwin Rommel (twice!). Quite the career to be perfectly honest. 

He was born in 1909, which would put him in his early 50s when he portrayed Humbert Humbert, which makes it even creepier that he was going after Dolores. It also made him 50 when he had his first cardiac issues in 1959, which he would later die of in 1984. 

I think most satisfying was the fact that he wrote and illustrated a book about he and his wife’s love for cats titled The Cats in Our Lives, which is one more singularly awesome details of his life. The drawings of the cats are honestly kind of neat looking. Good luck finding a copy.