The Reckless Moment is a 1949 American noir melodrama film[2] directed by Max Ophüls, produced by Walter Wanger, and released by Columbia Pictures with Burnett Guffey as cinematographer.

While her husband is away on business, Lucia Harper leaves her home in Balboa Island and drives to Los Angeles to confront Darby, a low-life L.A. criminal, and demands he stop seeing her 17-year-old daughter, Bea.

When she comes upon the distraught girl, who has just come indoors after her ordeal and reveals it to her mother, Lucia goes to the boathouse; there is nothing amiss and she does not see Darby.

Another L.A. criminal, handsome and smooth-talking Donnelly, the partner of Nagel, a brutal loan shark, shows up in possession of letters Bea had written Darby.

When she meets Donnelly to hand this over, he announces that she is in the clear, a man has been arrested in relation to Darby's murder.

He will not accept her story and says that while the man in custody may be innocent of this he is "guilty of a hundred other things" and it does not matter, she needs to think of her family.

Afterwards, Donnelly talks about his warm feelings for Lucia; she says she will call the police and straighten everything out, she cannot allow him to spend the rest of his life wanted for murder.

While driving, Donnelly reaches into Nagel's pocket to retrieve Bea's letters; he loses control, smashes through a fence and into a tree, overturning the car and trapping himself under it.

Bea tells Lucia how the police mentioned that, just before dying, the man pinned beneath the vehicle admitted to killing Darby.

Although it is rather well staged, with credible location settings in Balboa and Los Angeles, it is a feeble and listless drama with a shamelessly callous attitude.

[4] It has been highly regarded by film critics, historians and audience, and entered in the list of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die.