The October Man (1947)

“Perhaps I DID kill her and I don’t remember...”

It’s time for another British noir, this one directed by Roy Ward Baker, another future Hammer horror film director, (though most of his titles in that series were toward the later half of the studio’s heyday) like Terence Fisher, whose editing work I noted in 1943’s They Met in the Dark.

The deliciously murky, ominous cinematography is by Erwin Hillier, and the effectively colorful and melodramatic music is composed in prime noir fashion by William Allwyn, whose career spanned from the british noirs like this, Odd Man Out, and Green For Danger, all the way through Disney’s london-based productions of Swiss Family Robinson and In Search of Castaway (starring the Haley Mills, daughter of the lead actor in this production).

The story opens, as all good noir should, on a dark and stormy night, where we meet Jim Ackland, John Mills, who would become one of England’s most beloved performers (and who died at the ripe old age of 97 in 2005).  He is a passenger on a perilous bus ride, where we see him tying some knots in his handkerchief to create a make-ship bunny puppet to cheer the mood of the young child (played by his own real-life daughter and future star Juliet Mills) who shares his seat on the bus. A palpable sense of tension is created intercut shots of a bolt coming loose on the wheels of the bus. Suddenly, just as we hear the mournful whistle of a train passing by a set of tracks adjacent to the road, the bus wrecks.

Cut to a year later, at a hospital, where we learn the child died that night, and that Ackland received a traumatic skull/brain injury from which he is now recovering well enough to leave and get back to work. He shared with his doctor (Felix Aylmer) his plans live in London at a hotel and get back to work as an industrial chemist, and maybe even find a wife and settle down.  He also expresses his sense of guilt for the child’s death, despite the doctor’s confirmation that the child’s family (and his old friends, apparently) do not hold him to blame.

The doctor has reservations about his health, but can see no reason to keep him on, though in confidence with the insurance claims manager, he admits concerns that of faced with excessive hardship, his fragile emotional state could lead him to suicidal thoughts.  This bit of foreshadowing and setting up of the stakes is all handled efficiently, though not necessarily as dramatically as it might be.  There is a lot of such expositional dialogue in the film, but generally the pace stays moving well enough.

At the inn, we are introduced to all the players in the drama to come, while watching Ackland being led to his room by the manager, Miss Selby (Catherine Lacey). The drafty old building with its twisted staircase and dimly lit corridors is a perfect setting for the dark tale that follows. Like the plot, it is beautifully laden with shadow and ambiance.

There is Miss Heap, a dotty old lady lodger played by Esme Beringer, and the gossipy Mrs. Vinton (Joyce Carey).  In the room below Ackland’s is Mr. Peachy (Edward Chapman), a retired businessman who Miss Selby suggests is very rich.  and in the room next to Ackland is Molly Newman, a troubled but beautiful woman played by Kay Walsh.

Finally left to himself in his room, Ackland opens a window, only to hear a train whistle, and experience a frightening flashback to the accident.  In that moment of anxiety, he unconsciously ties his hankerchief into knots, recreating the bunny- before a symbol of charm, not a sign of his tangled inner turmoil of regret and sorrow.

The next day introduces Ackland to his new job and Harry Corden (Patrick Holt), a coworker who he readily befriends, and who eventually invites him to a party to meet his family.

Before that meeting though, there is a seemingly innocent encounter with Molly Newman after a fuse goes out in the hotel and he helps to replace it for her.  they share a drink in her room, and she expresses how much nicer he is than Peachy, whom she discloses has previously made passes at her when invited in.

Title in the dialogue moment: Molly has an interest in horoscopes, and, discovering Ackland to be an “October Man,” reads his horoscope to him. “Libra- that means the scales.  October people are affable, suave, dapper, and have a sense of beauty.  The October people love gaiety, friends, and all the good things.  Above all, they love life.”

He laughs at this decription. “affable and suave, eh?”

“Well, you love life don’t you?” she insists.

“Doesn’t everybody?”

“No, not everybody,” she replies sadly. She is in love with a married man, whose wife won’t give him a divorce.

Peachy witnesses them parting in the hall, and seeing him there, Molly uses the moment to try to ward off his advances by planting a kiss on Ackland. Peachy clearly is bothered by this.  By Ackland takes it as merely an awkwardly over-friendly greeting.

Instead, upon finally Cordon’s family, in particular his beautiful younger sister Jenny (Joan Greenwood), Ackland is quickly and mutually smitten, and that relationship quickly grows into an intensely warm romance.  Something hold him back from committing to a deeper level though - he feels his mental history would unfairly burden her if they married.

But more trouble than this is brewing for them. Molly comes again to Ackland for some financial help, and, being a soft touch, he writes her a check. Unfortunately she never lives to cash it, but instead is found strangled out on the commons.  “It must have been a lunatic,” opines one resident of the inn.  And when the other residents pick up the rumor of Ackland’s hospital time, they have a suspect, confirmed in their minds by the discovery of Ackland’s check at the scene of the crime.

The police seem to agree with this conclusion, and Peachy feeds this belief with the insertion of malicious disinformation into the investigation. Initially his remarks seems less than sinister, but merely inquisitive or investigative but is it just a clever cover-up for someone else?

Even Ackland is unsure of his own innocence. He remember being out in the general area for a walk that night but little else.  His nightly walk back from work takes him over a bridge that crosses the railroad, just as a train is coming through.  That ghostly whistle haunts him with recollection of the accident, and we see him watching as the train passes below, and the smoke and steam envelope him, a fitting metaphor for the the cloud of uncertainty about his own memories. This evocative depiction of the terror that comes when  you can no longer rely upon the accuracy of your own memories is potent, but perhaps under-explored in the film.

His uncertainty about his own wherabouts, in addition to his medical history and a misunderstood moment involving his compulsive hanky-tying habit, does nothing to help his cause with the law. Complicating Ackland’s problems is the arrival of Molly’s lover, Wilcox (Jack Melford) who at first behaves like a suspect, then treats Ackland like one, ambushing him and beating him up, then driving off.  Finally, Ackland has had enough of these accusations and wrongful suspicions, and resolves to find the real killer and clear himself.

His whole demeanor changes during this time, and he is no longer the kindly, generous October man, but a man on a mission, with little time for niceties or proper channels.  He abuses and berates his potential suspects and witnesses, beginning with returning Wilcox’s violence to him in kind.  His search gets on wrong track frequently, but he presses on, convinced at last of his innocence but grasping to find the proof he needs.  The chase builds up dramatically, but after a startling encounter with Peachy, in which he remorselessly admits his guilt to Ackland, knowing he’s got no evidence to prove it to police, Ackland gives up on the solution, and decides he must turns himself in to the hospital for help.

Joan Greenwood’s character is unfortunately given all too little to do during all this but sit and wait for the vindication of her man to happen. This is boring dramatically. She does have one useful moment in the plot, that is a climactic event on his road to emotional recovery, when, in despaor, Ackland finds himself at the bridge again, thinking clearly of throwing himself over into the path of the oncoming train, only to be spotted by and prevented by the cries of the girl.  Not enough is done to build up to the moment for her character, so it seems a bit contrived for dramatic effect.

The most dramatic moments are in the opening sequence, and the scene of the murder is atmospheric enough, but despite an interesting and intricately arranged plot, the film lacks lacks largely in the kind of dramatic tension  acheived so well in the beginning.
Still, with its depictions of shadowy, furtive encounters, its psychological themes, and its excellent performances, this is still a film worth viewing for a lover of all things noir.

** out of 5

The Dark Mirror (1946)

 Hollywood loves twins and look-alikes, and actors love playing them.  Instance of this phenomena show up in numerous noir films, and are a reliable means of depicting the noir theme of the "wrong man."

This film, another Robert Siodmak-directed gem, stars Olivia De Havilland as twin sisters- one sweet and innocent, the other crafty, murderous, and just wee bit off her gourd. I really loved her dual performance here, especially the way she handled distinguishing the two sisters from one another.  Her acting choices are subtle and nuanced, a brilliant and appropriate direction to go, especially for this story. The differences are visible and distinctive, and she generally avoids the trap of making it blatant and overly-obvious. I found I liked the actress going this route much more than the over-the-top histrionics of Better Davis in Dead Ringer (though that can certainly be appreciated on a different level).  In my opinion, this little-touted thriller deserves to be ranked among the best of such Double Features.

Following the opening titles (cleverly designed with Rorschach ink blots, a theme that become relevant to the plot later on), the story begins dramatically with the scene of a murder- no action, just the suggestion of it - broken mirror, a dead body half obscured from view.  Cut to police headquarters to introduce Thomas Mitchell as the head investigator, and a rapid-fire series of interviews that serve to introduce the witnesses, whose testimony and lead the police to look into a cigarette counter girl named Terry (De Havilland), who the witnesses positively ID as the person who was seen leaving the apartment of the victim.

Upon hearing why she is being sought by the police, the girl at the counter passes out and is rushed into the next-door office of psychiatrist Dr. Scott Elliott (Lew Ayres) and revived.  Follow-up interviews lead to a meeting at her apartment, where it is revealed that she has a twin sister.  Mitchell's investigator tries without success to get one of the sisters to talk, but neither is admitting anything, so they are effectively set up a stalemate in which he cannot arrest one or the other for the crime.

Instead, he talks Dr. Elliott into trying to use psychology to determine which of the sisters has the propensity to murder.  In one scene, speaking of Dr. Elliott, Mitchell's character confides humorously to a colleague,"He's a very smart  guy, for a college man,"

Reluctantly, Dr. Elliott agrees to investigate the sisters & tip off Mitchell of anything he discovers of relevance to the case.  But in his efforts to analyze the two under the guise of a simple research project of his own, he winds up finding himself falling for...one of the sisters. The other, he discovers, is insane. But which one?

The film clearly revels in the ambiguity of the situation, dropping hints, but never tipping its hand until near the climax.  The viewer is left to puzzle along with the detective and the psychiatrist- Which is guilty of the murder? One, both, or none? Does the innocent sister know what the other has done? Why is she shielding her sister from prosecution? Is she being intimidated or threatened, or innocently protective of a sister she feels would be wrongly accused? And what is the motive of the killer? The answers are carefully revealed as the plot progresses, and we begin gradually to see things in the sisters' behavior and mannerisms- subtle things- that help us to tell them apart.  Sure, to set off their matching clothes and hairdos,the sisters often wear kitschy matching jewelry with their names or initials garishly emblazoned on them, but is the jewelry always on the right sister?  Are there times when one is impersonating the other?

When we finally begin to distinguish who is who, and which is guilty of killing the man in question, who it turns out was in love with her sister, a veil of ambiguity is still teasingly cast over our eyes.  What is her motive? Did she do it because she is possessive of her sister?  Because she is jealous of the affection of the man and, in her insanity, unable to see what the difference is in their appearance to make him love one and not the other?

Her breaking point comes when she suddenly discovers that Dr. Elliott and her sister are falling in love.  This time, she will do everything in her power to get back at the perceived slight against her, in somehow finding her identical sister as more appealing than herself. Through crafty plotting and some deviously fiendish sisterly gas-lighting (involving, among other things, a carefully planted music box that plays "Frankie and Johnny"), Terry begins to build up an illusion that her sister is the crazy one, and get her to believe it too.

But by this time, Dr. Elliott is onto her and together with a clever trap set by Mitchell's team of detectives, he tricks her into confessing her own crime in a highly dramatic scene that is among De Havilland's finest moments as an actress.

The film succeeds due not only to De Havilland's perfectly pitched performance, but also because of a combination of good editing and the well-crafted and ingenious work of the special photographic effects team, whose three most notable players were cinematographer Milton Krasner, whose subtle lighting and mesmerizing shadows are a work of art themselves, Paul K. Lerpae (who later worked on Jerry Lewis's comic split-personality classic, The Nutty Professor), and Devereaux Jennings, who also had a great deal of effects work to his name (much of it in miniatures, but no doubt all involving techniques that were applicable to the problems posed by this film's premise).

There were three or four shots in particular that stand out for the sublime illusion they successfully pull off, which had the effect of cementing the audience suspension of disbelief and helping get the viewer get past the gimmick and become drawn into the story.  One, in which the sister (both De Havilland, mind you!) embrace one another in such a way that both are facing the camera (eliminating the possibility of a body double in a wig), had me stumped as someone who has tinkered with such things myself for fun.  The second shot that was remarkably well-executed shows one sister in bed, facing camera, and the other come over (also facing camera) and place her arm around her sister as she talks to her.  This shot shows the seams of the split if you look carefully for it, but still works as well or better than many such effects done even in movies that claim the advantage of modern technology.  Others, involving the careful choreography of moving cameras, and carefully staging off-screen actions with on-screen doubles, serve further to make the overall results highly believable and keep the story from falling into the trap of seeming overly stagy and stiff due to noticeable over-reliance on static split shots and awkward pauses that come from too mechanically on-screen timed dialogue exchanges between the twins.

Because we are ushered so effectively past the premise to become engaged in the plot, it is easy to appreciate all the care that is taken in crafting the story itself, rather than being hung up on effects work.  This is the hallmark of excellent effects- that they go unnoticed. We are able to revel in such artful touches as the recurring themes of mirrors and images that are artfully woven through the film.  It is book-ended by two scenes involving broken mirrors, a perfect framing device highlighting the driving cause of Terry's madness and murders - she breaks the mirrors in rage- because when she looks into them, she sees not herself, but the sister who everyone seems to love better than they love her.

Nunally Johnson's script is eminently well crafted. The clues are sprinkled (at times in ways maybe too on-the-nose) throughout the sisters' sessions with Dr. Elliott.  Terry's grim interpretation of Rorschach images stands in stark contrast to her sister's rosy view. During a word association game, one sister responds to "Mirror" with "Death," and "Knife" with "Scissors" (a foreshadowing as well as a Freudian confession).  She also fails her lie detector test miserably.  This kind of use of psychological theories in the film is common for Hollywood at this time, but one unique idea this film bring to the table is the depiction (though never stated in so many word) of the sisters as the ego (or super-ego; I'm not all that deep into the subject myself) and the id.  One sister is driven by instincts and impulses, and seldom controlled by reason and moral compunctions. Craft and cunning are aspects of her personality, but she still lacks restraints, except those exercised by the supplicative influence of her loving sister, who, though the submissive one in the relationship, has also thus far kept her rashness in check.

Also noteworthy is the music of Dimitri Tiomkin, whose score here is equally adept at painting the dark moments in ways that reflect (heh, pun, heh) the dramatic undercurrents of the moments it accompanies, but which also is not afraid to go for comic touches where appropriate.
The end result of all this great talent thrown together in one film?  A pretty great piece of entertainment.

**** out of 5




As a side note, having recently watched several of these, I think there is an interesting  common thread running through the following list of films, and if you've seen or are familiar with them you may be able to pick up on it:

A Stolen Life (1946)
La Otra (1946)
The Dark Mirror (1946)
Hollow Triumph (1948)
Whatever Happened to Baby Jane (1962)
Dead Ringer (1964)
Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte (1964)

Here's the connections as I see them:

Bette Davis vs. Bette Davis
Olivia de Havilland vs. Olivia de Havilland
Dolores Del Rio vs. Dolores Del Rio
Paul Henreid vs. Paul Henreid
Bette Davis vs Joan Crawford
Bette Davis vs Bette Davis (directed by Henreid)
Betty Davis vs Olivia De Havilland

Watching these all together would I think be very interesting experiment, as these actresses overlap in their traversals of similar thematic territory, sometimes together, or opposite one another, and occasionally giving their own take of similar roles and situations.  It is interesting, first, to see three different prominent actresses in dual roles in a single year.  Then, to see how Paul Henreid, having played a dual role himself, chooses to direct a film with another dual role, by Bette Davis, for whom it is the second such film.

Finally, I find a funny subtext in the progression from Baby Jane to Dead Ringer, to Hush Hush.  In the first we finally have the face-off of the two notorious Hollywood rivals, Davis and Crawford.  Then in Dead Ringer, which has similar sister-drama themes, it's as if Davis says, "well, who needs Joan Crawford, when I can do both parts this time!" and in the third of the cycle, after having played both parts, Davis must face off in another gothic-type gas-lighting drama, against Olivia De Havilland, in a duel of the two actresses who had both played dual roles with these themes of murder and madness.

The Chase (1946)

"You loved her, so you killed her... that's understandable."

This film is sort of an oddity.  Face it, if you've seen Arthur Ripley's filmography leading up to this, you wouldn't immediately pick him to direct this brooding, nightmarish (literally) thriller.  He was, prior to this, more closely associated with short comedy, having started with Mack Sennett, writing a number of Capra-directed Harry Langdon stories, as well as directing for a number of talkie shorts, including a couple of earl W.C. Fields shorts.

The story itself is certainly replete with Noir credentialed names.  It is based on a novel by Cornell Woolrich, whose works also inspired such memorable film noir titles as Black Angel, Fall Guy, The Guilty, Fear in the Night, The Night Has a Thousand Eyes, The Window, No Man of Her Own, Deadline at Dawn, Obsession, and, most famously, Hitchcock's Rear Window.
The screenplay was crafted by Philip Yordan, the scribe behind The Big Combo, Panic in the Streets, House of Strangers, Detective Story, No Way Out, Edge of Doom, Reign of Terror (also starring Robert Cummings), and No Way Out.

Robert Cummings is our disillusioned, damaged veteran antihero, Chuck Scott.  We meet him in the opening scene, down on his luck in downtown Miami, and gazing longingly through a restaurant window while a cook prepared pancakes and bacon.  The scene betrays director Ripley's silent film comedy roots, and efficiently sets up the character and his situation with a light comic touch and without any spoken words. A scene like this in other hands might have been needlessly verbose.

As he is about to leave the window in dismay, he discovers a wallet with a tidy sum of money just waiting at his feet. He eats breakfast with some of the money, then tracks down the rightful owner like a good scout.  Life may have brought him low, but he still retains hi youthful sense of honor.

Eddie Roman (Steve Cochrane), the rightful owner, it turns out, has no such compunction or sense of honor.  When we meet him, he is alternating between making untoward suggestions about his lady barber's reasons for choosing her profession, and berating, then slugging the manicurist (Shirley OHara, who the year prior had been Athena in Tarzan and the Amazons) for nicking his finger when he moved. The man is, simply, a brute. Sure, he's tender enough with his pet attack dog, but anyone else is fair game for his impulsive outbursts of temper.

He displays a carelessness toward risks, gambling with his own life and the lives of other with little concern for the consequences.  And like George MacReady's character in Gilda, there is in his interactions with others a kind of alpha-beta dominance contest.  At one point, a friendly exchange of drinks with a business rival (Mr. Johnson, played by Lloyd Corrigan) ends with a killing in wine cellar by the aforementioned attack dog.

Roman surrounds himself with similarly unstable and unsavory characters, like the laconic Gino (a nervously deadpanned Peter Lorre), his slovenly would-be butler Job, (James Westerfield, eternal cast as louts and thugs, in everything from gangster films to westerns), and Fats, a character who is only mentioned once twice, is seen twice and speaks once in the film. (that is probably appropriate, given the strange choice of casting Jack Benny's jovial announcer Don Wilson in the role).

Chuck Scott unassumingly stumbles into this world with no notion of what he's getting himself into, though in his first meeting with Eddie Roman, he is not a complete naive, but has a jaded side as well.  When Roman scoffs at him for coming all the way from town on foot to return the wallet, sneering, "someone give this guy a medal," Scott retorts, "I got a medal."  The low value he places on that bit of ribbon and metal is clear in his tone.

Roman recognizes that cynicism in the reply, and decides maybe he has a use for someone like this in his little organization.  He has his chauffeur fired and gives the job to Scott, who after some weak protests about taking someone else's job, agrees.  He needs the money. Little does he know the troubles that come along with the job.

The first of these he discovers rather quickly, when, on his first drive with the boss, he is given an unusual driver's test...and I don't mean parallel parking.  Roman's car has been set up with a second set of pedals and an override switch in the back seat.  It's never really clear what value this has outside of testing the driver's nerves, but it proves quite effective at that.  Roman has the timing down exactly for this road, and floors the gas, much to Scott's surprise.  But he holds up under the pressure, even with a train coming full steam ahead over he tracks that cross the road ahead.

The second problem that comes with the job is discovered more gradually-  as Scott gets to know Roman's wife (French-born actress Michele Morgan) while taking her on her daily drive to a secret spot she has in an out-of-the-way stretch of road that leads down to a broken down old dock that looks out over the stormy seas.  Here, Franz Planer's camera captures a beautiful shot that encapsulates the essence of her character: a troubled woman gazes out at the roaring sea of agitated waves that reflect the anguish within her own mind and heart.   We see her as Scott sees her, and like him, we are drawn in and want to see her safely away from the dangerous man she's married.

She longs to escape to Havana, and as she and Scott grow closer, they hatch a plan to go there together on the sly.  But when the day comes when their plans are to be executed, everything begin to go horribly wrong.

Don't worry though-  Will Hay's censorship office won't let it get to bad for them; it turns out their entire trip to Havana, with all the awful things that follow them there, all turn out to be a bad dream brought on by Scott's "anxiety neurosis," a side effect of some trauma he encountered during the war.
That's too bad, because some of the best and most dramatic sequences take place during this extended dream scene.  There is a murder, for which Scott is implicated, and he is then pursued by Havana's police, led by Lieutenant Acosta (Alexis Minotis).  There are all sorts of great plot twists in this nightmare. A treacherous asian pawnbroker (Nina Koshetz), a missing photographer with evidence that could identify the real killer, pursuit through a quarantined apartment, and the deadly efficiency of Peter Lorre's staging of this frame-up are all part of the titular chase.

But then Scott wakes up. The boat hasn't left, he's overslept his appointment with Mrs. Roman, and he has the realization that "it's happening again."  He calls his psychiatrist, arranges a visit, and gets his mind straightened out, and rescues the girl for real, and the bad guys pay the piper as justice and the Hays Office demand.

Despite being a bit of a cop out, this dream is better integrated and incorporated into the noir atmosphere of the film than similar plots in films like The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry, or The Woman in the Window.  Even though it serves to satisfy Hays codes that required that depictions of law enforcement be strictly rosy, with no wrongly accused ever getting punished, but all guilty persons be shown to getting their due ends, this particular dream still maintains the feeling of post-war cynicism, by how it depicts the causes of the dream as the results of some kind of PTSD.

Gone is the hopeful optimism of the troop-supporting wartime cinema.  Now we begin to see the aftereffects and the precious costs of that war on the ones who fought it.  This is a common theme in noir, and one that would be more thoroughly explored later, but this film makes a fine start on the subject. And dream or no dream, this film leads the viewer on a merry chase through some very dark and frightening places.

*** out of 5

Gilda (1946)

Before watching this film, I took in some of the extra features on Criterion's (superb) bluray edition.   In the "appreciate" by Martin Scorsese and Baz Luhrmann, one comment by Luhrmann stuck out to me-  He made some comparisons between Gilda and Casablanca.  On the surface, this made some sense.  3 exiles in an exotic location far from home, caught in a triangle of passions; a married  couple bursts into the life of a man who has a secret past with the woman in the picture.

But as I watched the film I quickly saw just how superficial the comparison was.  Indeed, if anything, Gilda is a complete inversion of the Casablanca formula.  Gilda is Casablanca if Bogart and Bergman despised one another, and Paul Henreid were a preening, jealous, villainous scheming jerk.  Still, I suppose superficial comparisons ought to be expected from a director who is more skilled as a visual stylist than as someone who is known for his ability to draw out deep and subtle, genuine human performances from his actors.

But rather than comment on the commentary, let's dig right into the film itself.  Gilda is produced by former screenwriter Virginia Van Upp, who previously worked with the film's star Rita Hayworth on Cover Girl, and would work again with her on Affair in Trinidad, as well as working on the script for both those titles.  Collaborating on the script for this film, as she had with Cover Girl, is Marion Parsonnet. It is my opinion that the influence of these two had a definite influence on the films success in introducing an authentic feminine voice to the tale, which after all, is titled for the female lead.

Despite the outstanding performances delivered by all three leads, this in not titled Gilda, Johnny and Ballin, or even just Gilda and Johnny.  Gilda is Rita Hayworth's picture all the way, even with Glenn Ford's character Johnny Farrell providing the narrator's voice and the audience's window into the drama. All the attention is squarely directed toward her, delivered by the  careful framing and adoring direction of Charles Vidor and cinematography of Rudolph Mate. And why not, when you see what she is able to do with the part?  Beyond the way she torches the screen with her two musical numbers, (one of which, Put the Blame on Mame, I will confess to having had stuck in my head all day after watching the film.  It may not be her own voice doing the singing, but who's counting? It's Anita Ellis, if you're curious) she creates a character that burns into the screen with a dazzling brilliance that leaves an unforgettable impression.

The film opens with Ford as Johnny, a gambler, scratching for quick money on the docks of a city in Argentina, and introduces the circumstances that lead to his getting tied up in a subservient partnership with the German casino owner and cartel head Ballin Mundson (George MacReady), but it only really comes to life when Hayworth's character Gilda is introduced.  She bursts onto the scene like a spark into a powder keg.  She is introduced to Johnny as Mundson's wife, but we immediately pick up on a still raw and recent history between Gilda and Johnny.

So does Ballin Mundson.

He doesn't like what he sees.

Mundson is a man who is driven by a lust for power, and dominance over everyone around him. He refers to his trick switch-blade cane dagger as his "faithful and obedient friend," which apparently is he idea of what the word friend means.  Only absolute submission to him is grounds for being considered a friend.  Johnny understands this, and gamely plays along, working his way into Mundson's trust and into a position for himself that is significantly cozier than the position Mundson found him in the opening, being held up for the few dollars he had just cheated off a bunch of sailors. Now Johnny runs the casino for Mundson, like a faithful and obedient friend.

Gilda's introduction into this suddenly creates an unbearable tension that threatens to break up the happy family.  Their past is never totally spelled out, but that is part of the beauty of this story that revels in portents, shades of meaning, dark undercurrents, hints, suggestions, and innuendo that serves to heat up the pressure-cooker of dramatic conflict.  More is said by what the character leave out than what they say.  Even the narration is never willing to be expositional, but instead just adds to the blanket of ambiguity the film takes great pleasure in casting over its characters and its audience.

The only important thing about the shared history of Gilda and Johnny is that now they hate each other, or so they tell each other and themselves repeatedly.  Plot is less important to the point of the film than is the psychological warfare waged by the three characters.  The wire thin line between love and hate is the film's central theme, and everything else is subordinate to that,  cloaked in uncertainty and shadow, so the white hot passions of the central players are highlighted brighter than any of the subplots involving ex-nazi tungsten cartels or the rest of it.

When Mundson questions her about her past with Johnny, Gilda proclaims her hate for him. "Hate can be a very exciting emotion," says Mundson darkly.  Gilda repeats the phrase later to Johnny, but there is a striking contrast in context and subtext when those words are uttered the second time. Mate's camera echoes and enhances that vagueness of meaning, with several scenes of characters speaking in total silhouette or under dark shadows that hide the expressions of faces to obscure their emotions and motives.

There are many twists and turns in this three-way conflict- with murders, faked suicides, and more, as each of the three strive for supremacy over the others.  Johnny is seeking bitter revenge on Gilda for the unhappy way in which they had parted before; MacReady is seeking to preserve his Alpha Male status that he feels has been robbed by Johnny's prior relationship with Gilda; and Gilda seeks to punish Johnny for his wrongful suspicions, which have left her so hurt she is willing to destroy herself to break him down with her.  All three ultimately demonstrate the suicidal tendencies that hate and bitterness invoke in those who cling to them.

Only one person really seems to have an understanding of what's going on, Uncle Pio, the sage old washroom attendant played to terrrific effect by Steven Geray, who that same year starred in a memorable noir of his own, So Dark the Night.  Uncle Pio has these characters pegged from the moment he meets them, as Johnny finds out in their first encounter. A pretty girl passing by catches his eye as he leaves the washroom, but Geray warns him, "she's a harpy."  Startled, Johnny asks, "you can size a person up that quick?  What am I then? A Gentleman or a Peasant?"
"Peasant," Pio replies, following up this assessment with a characteristic raspberry.

The other clear-eyed character in the tale is the police detective Obregon, played by Joseph Calleia.  He says little but keeps his eagle eye on everything that goes on, and seems unsurprised by any of the many plot twists that occur in the course of the story. And between him and Uncle Pio, they play Jiminy Cricket to Johnny's Pinnochio, eventually pointing the way out of his darkness into the supposed happy final moments of the film.

I say "supposed" only because, after sitting through the 110 minutes leading up to that ending, it may be difficult for many viewers to believe the couple is headed to a real happy ending after the credits roll.  Still, following that preceding pitched battle, one can't deny they've earned a respite from it all.  And one can't help hoping things will all work out for them.

Gilda is dynamite, exactly the sort of ten-ton block-buster of passion and drama one expects from prime noir films, and deserves all the high praise it gets.

It is masterfully directed, tightly plotted (especially for a story whose plot is so secondary to its dramatic effectiveness), and well performed -  both by its leads, who hold nothing back in their viceral performances, as well as by its secondary cast, which, in addition to those previously mentioned, includes character bits by Joe Sawyer, Philip Van Zant, and Gerald Mohr, who would go on to portray Raymond Chandler's famous character Philip Marlowe for the radio series that broadcast in 1950-51).  Special props go to Don Douglas for his brief appearance as Tom Langford, which has a surprising range to play with for so short an amount of screen time as he is given.

**** out of 5
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0038559/

The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry (1945)

"You know Letty, you look up at the stars, you feel awfully small.  Our problems seem so petty against all that space on space out there.  We're mere drops of nothing compared to the sun, that has a hundred million miles for a back yard.  So why do we torture ourselves trying to discover what's good and what's evil, what's right and what's wrong?  It's so unimportant."

These lines, spoken by George Sanders as the titular Harry Quincey, eloquently express the essential feeling of noir. The degree to which the rest of the film follows suit is variable.  Some of that may be due to Hays office meddling, but they were not entirely to blame for the mixed results seen here.

Certainly it's not for want of cast and crew with some hefty noir credentials.  Producer Joan Harrison has several key films of the cycle to her credit, including those she worked on in her formative years along side Alfred Hitchcock.  The director, too is an iconic name in noir - Robert Siodmak, whom we have to thank for just black gems as The Killers, Criss Cross, Cry of the City, and The File on Thelma Jordan.

And with a case that includes such names as George Sanders, Geraldine Fitzgerald, and Ella Raines, one wonders what could have been missing.  Well for one thing, Sanders seems terribly miscast as a shy, socially awkward artist with little experience with romance, who works by day designing fabric patterns, and spends his nights ogling the stars through his self-made telescope. Even the avuncular title he is called by is supposed to point to his utter lack of interest to girls- illustrated in an opening scene when he complains to a girl who calls him "Uncle Harry," that he dislikes being called such by an entire generation of people with no such relation to him at all. If you thing any of those things sound like the makings of a good role for him, you must be thinking of a different George Sanders. Still, the premise is nothing if not firmly established by the script, even if Sanders never truly fits into the mold his character is supposed to break out of.  He bemoans his lack of excitement in his work, saying at one point, "I've painted so many rosebuds I see them in my soup." Indeed, there is so much talk of rosebuds, it might well be a sequel to Citizen Kane.

However, once one forces their way past their suspension of disbelief at his casting, the plot itself is certainly noir, though more suburban than most films of the genre.  He lives together with his two sisters, Hester (Moyna MacGill) and Letty (Fitzgerald).  Hester is widowed and a doting sister, if at times too caught up in self-pitying.  Letty is introduced as a sweet but frail shut-in, though what is wrong with her is difficult to guess by her hale appearance (another hurdle for us to overcome as audience). These characterizations are somewhat unevenly maintained by the script and the actors. As the story progresses we see more accurately what these two are really like.  We see the two sisters have a bit of personality conflict with one another, often over how to behave toward their brother.
Letty progressively reveals a protective and possessive attitude toward her brother that dances the line of being a bit more than mere sisterly affection, or even needy invalid behavior - especially when we see how little she is truly ill.

The real conflict, however, begins with the entrance of a NY fashion designer names Debra Brown (Ella Raines), who comes to their sleepy little Post-depression suburban textile manufacturing town of Corinth, to work with Harry at the mill. She begins to show him there is more to life than painting rosebud patterns every day. They spend a lot of time in off hours, going to softball games, dining out, etc.  Somehow, despite his supposed awkwardness with girls, the two are quite close.  Engaged, in fact.

This certainly does not sit well with Letty, though she successfully hides her dissatisfaction from her brother for a while.  Eventually, even he catches on, as she drags her feet in her task of finding a new home for her to live in with Hester once the couple are married.  She seems to believe that as long as she can delay that, she can delay their marriage.  As her plots take more desperate turns (including possibly poisoning his sick dog Weary!), it becomes apparent that she is the femme fatale of the tale.  Or should we say sœur fatale?

She finally drives the couple's patience to the breaking point when, the day before they have planned to go to New York for a honeymoon and marriage, she "has a spell" - an event that forces Harry to choose between staying with his sister or losing the girl he loves.

He stays.  She goes.

It is at roughly this point, that, driven to despair, Harry ponders what to do with his greedy, cruel sister, now that he has lost all purpose for living.

At this point, a certain plot point occurs that you wouldn't recognize as such until the end of the film.
There is a title card at the end warning viewers "Do Not Disclose the Ending."  However, since the film is now over 70 years old,  and since the noted contemporary film critic Bosley Crowther flatly refused not to reveal it, I feel no qualms about doing the same.

He falls asleep and dreams the rest of the plot.  Was this originally the intent of the tale?  Or was it the result of Hays Office censorship demanding changes?  Like The Woman in the Window that came out before this, it is probably the latter.

So here is what he dreams:

Debra goes off to New York to marry the barely-seen John J. Plothole (Craig Reynolds), a widower and would-be suitor who is only seen in one brief scene in the film early on.

Harry decides the only choice he has is to take Debra's leftover poison from killing Weary and use it on her. Unfortunately, the wrong sister gets it, in a classic which-mug-has-the-poisoned cocoa switcheroo. Then things get genuinely noir, in the more commonly thought-of ways.  She catches onto what he has done, but everyone believes she is the perpetrator.  She goes to prison, is tried, convicted and sentenced to hang.

There is a grimly macabre scene showing Harry's friends gathered at a fine restaurant to dine while they wait for the jury to deliberate. Like so many other rural/suburban noirs, such as Cover-Up. this scene paints an ugly portrait of small-town life and Americana. the depiction of these jolly townsfolks glibly discussing the case and their expectations for the verdict is sharply cutting. Similarly pointed imagery is painted in a scene involving a man who comes to asses Letty's belongings to buy from Harry once she is executed.

Harry ultimately is overcome with guilt and tries to submit a signed confession to free his sister, but is shooed away and praised for his sacrificial offering by the police, and sneered at by Letty, who says coldly, "I died months ago. Tomorrow is just routine."  She expresses her pleasure at the fact that he will be tormented forever by his guilt, while she will be free after she is executed.

Finally, at the breaking point,  at what ought to be the moment of most pitched drama, the dream ends.  He awakes to find his sister both alive (and behaving much more kindly than before), and Debra returned to his side, unable to stay away or marry anyone else but him.  Roll credits.

Does it work?  I suppose if you lower your expectations accordingly, you can find a great deal to appreciate in this film.  The actors, even when miscast, are engaging to watch, and the plot, while tangled beyond saving, is at least interesting.  There is minimal music for the most part, but the absence is only occasionally noticeable and wanting.   The supporting cast is colorful and entertaining, with reliable character actors such as Sara Allgood as the stereotypical Irish cook Nona, and radio announcer and comic actor Harry Von Zell has some memorable moments as Ben the druggist.

The final assessment?  Good but not great.  I was able to enjoy it for its pedigree even when its actual execution was less than stellar.

** out of 5

They Met in the Dark (1943)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0036428/

** out of 5

This so-called "British Noir" seems in many ways to be an attempt to recreate the formula so well executed by Hitchcock's 39 Steps (1935), minus the pivotal pair of handcuffs that so prominently figured in that film.  James Mason plays a ship's commander who is accused wrongly of espionage for vital strategic information that is being leaked, apparently from his own crew or someone within his circle.  He seeks to track the source of the leak by first hunting down a manicurist named Mary (Patricia Medina), whose last name, for all the screen time she gets, might as well be MacGuffin.  She turns up dead, and he must continue pursuing a long and tangential trail of clues to find the spies.  In the course of his search, he continually encounters an inquisitive Canadian girl, Laura Verity (Joyce Howard), who throughout the tale alternates between suspecting him, helping him, and needing to be saved by him.  He is also aided by his mate, Mansel, played with hardy good humor by Edward Rigby.

The film, directed by the Austria-Hungarian Carl Lamac, is a bit disjointed, with a lot of people running around with very little explanation for why. It comes off as a series of situations in search of a plot.  Future Hammer director Terence Fisher is credited as an editor on the film, and no doubt he had his work cut out for him (heh heh).  The plot mainly follows Mason' character, but oddly switched focus about 45 minutes in, first to follow Joyce Howard as she does her own investigating, then, even less logically, to spoil for us exactly who the villains are, by revealing them as they are in the process of pumping one of Mason's crew for yet more information they can funnel to the enemies at sea.

Beyond the theme of the Wrongly Accused Man, and the central plot of the uneasy relationship he has with the girl in the tale, this film has other admittedly superficial similarities with the 39 Steps. There is a suspicious mind reader, known in the film as The Great Ricardo;  initially, he is played more as a fool, but is revealed to be in on the plot, along with the manager of a local talent agency, who uses his clients' various skill sets in the service of espionage-  a hypnotist, a magician, and even, somewhat unusually, a harmonica who performs in a code that is somewhat too easily cracked by the loyal members of Mason's crew who come to his aid in tracking the spies.

This film came out early in the noir cycle, and from Britain, beside, so the elements that distinguish the genre are not heavily featured here.  It begins darkly enough with Mason's court-martial, but he never is less than upright in his actions, and though there are a couple of characters that could easily have been written as femme fatales, there is little of that sort of thing here either.  The most noir it gets is that Mason has been unjustly accused of a crime, and must spend the film's runtime getting out from under the shadow of that judgement.  That is not to say it is unentertaining, just more as a spy mystery than as a noir.

Noirvember 2016 -a before and after pair of criminals

Well, it's that time of year again.  You know. Noirvember-  the one month that sounds good with "noir" portmanteaued onto it. Yeah, I just turned portmanteau into a verb. Well, I wrapped up my annual October horror-viewing marathon early, and got a jump start on this festive time of year with a pair of films that sort of bridged the transition in 2 odd ways: first, I watched the 1964 Bette Davis double-feature (sorry, bad puns are my thing) Dead Ringer, which, if you were going by the image on the posters (and dvd cover), you might think was some kind of horror film. The prominent skull-imagery there originally may have been meant to market the film to fans of Davis's previous creep-show, Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, but now probably serves more to confuse folks who wanted to watch Dead Ringers, the Cronenberg-directed creeper from 1988 starring Jeremy Irons.

The second film I watched was closer in style to a genuine noir, but predates the prime years genre by a good 10 years, with a source novel that was written in 1866. I am speaking, of course, of the Peter Lorre- starring Crime and Punishment adaptation from 1935.  Neither of these films is, strictly speaking, film noir.  It was, however, interesting to me to watch them in the light (sorry) of the noir genre, as films influenced by and an early influence of the genre, respectively.

Let's talk about Dead Ringer, first.  Directed by Paul Henreid (who starred in a similar story of stolen identity himself, Hollow Triumph), this film also went by the working title, "Who Is Buried in My Grave?"  Considering how little time we get to enjoy two Bette Davises for the price of one, the working title might have been more appropriate.  However brief that bit of cinematic trickery may have been, it is just as enjoyable now as it was in 1946 when she starred vs herself in A Stolen Life.  This film however is not a remake or sequel to that, but a remake, of all things, of a Mexican film that starred Dolores Del Rio, called La Otra, or, The Other One.

In it, Davis plays estranged twin sisters, one living the high life the other by rights should have had.  The poor relation, Edie, in this case now runs a cheap cocktail lounge, and occasionally goes out with a police sergeant played by Karl Malden.  Naturally, she is dissatisfied with this life, and when she learns how her sister Margaret tricked her out of the husband and life that could have been hers, she plots a carefully executed murder and switched places with her sister, elaborately staging the death as her own suicide.  Then she discovers just how little she really knows her own sister.

This plot, if filmed in the height of the noir cycle, might have been told with the same details, but the tone is different than most films from that period, and places it clearly as being among the more polished, less moody 60's period.  The cool 60's graphics during the titles, and the cool organ-infused jazz played at Edie's place easily identify it as a film from that decade. As for mood, well, instead of the sense of foreboding darkness and disillusionment of the late 40's and 50's, we have a different tone set by both the cinematography and the score. Andre Previn's score is infused with strings and harpsichords in a way that seems intent on making this a sort of Gothic drama rather than a tale of a character who is swallowed up into her own darkness.  The run time also feels more slow-paced than most noir-  at nearly two hours, the film seems at times to drag its heels. Where noir might have tried to ratchet up the tension. this prefers to take us through every excrutiating detail of Edie's execution of her revenge, and the ultimate demise of all her careful plotting.

First we see her carefully arranging every detail of the fake suicide, and then removing the clothes from the corpse to take on the role of the rich society sister she has decided to replace. she changes her hair, jewelry, even stockings, to carefully adjust her appearance to that of her sister's. Then we watch her discover every important detail she has overlooked about her sister's life, and scramble to cover for the differences between them.  When her butler asks her if she'll have the usual, will she know what that drink is?  When she must open the safe, does she know the combination? Will she fool Duke the great Dane that her sister owns? What about smoking? To puff or not to puff? And can she fake the rituals with her newly acquired Catholic in-laws (which includes the humorous performance of Estelle Winwood, who I first enjoyed as Sheela Sugrue in Darby O'Gill and the Little People)?  Even the sleep patterns of the sisters are noticeably different.  She must find creative solutions to the question of signatures, not recognizing friends, and more.  Some of her solutions are more plauible (I started smoking again) than others (Duke was lonely and likes me now).

The one thing she definitely doesn't expect, however, is Peter Lawford.  Frankly, if I were better Davis in 1964, I might not expect him either.  Their age difference (15 years) is notable, but one must accept it to appreciate what follows his introduction into the tale, because with him comes the cruelest twist of all.  After successfully staging the murder as her own suicide, Edie learns her sister has a skeleton in her own closet; one shared by Lawford.

**SPOILER**

Lawford, it turns out, in Margaret's secret lover, and together they have killed Margaret's husband (who she had stolen from Edie under false pretenses all those years ago).  So just when it seems Edie has gotten away from one murder, she is embroiled in the fall-out from another.  Here we see most clearly the influence of the noir genre, as fate grabs the ankles of another sinner who thought she had gotten away scot-free, and drags her to her final demise.  This ending is not as effective as the best examples of that genre, with some anticlimactic courtroom scenes, a somewhat pointless moment in which the butler reveals he has known all along it was her, but who loyally vows to play it however she wants in court, but the coda that closes the film has definite noir feeling; as Edie is being taken away to be executed, she has one final confrontation with Malden's policeman, who simply must know-  is she really Margaret, or is she Edie?  The answer she gives is perfectly noir in its bitter irony.  "I'm Margaret DeLorca, Sergeant. As you said, Edie would never hurt a fly."

** out of 5

Crime and Punishment (1935) was the next on my double-bill.  I won't try to compare it to the novel, which I have not yet read. Josef Von Sternberg, the director, who was essentially forced to film the script by contract, reportedly dislike it as an adaptation, but I can only take the film on its own terms.  And on those terms, I found it a greatly enjoyable production.

Peter Lorre is first billed here as "The Celebrated European Star," and it is among the very first of his roles filmed in Hollywood.  Considering Peter Lawford's role in the last film, I might have titled this post "A Tale of Two Peters," but I doubt that would've gotten past my editor who has a notoriously dirty mind.

Lorre here plays Roderick Raskolnikov, a brilliant criminology student who becomes so disillusioned and broken by poverty that he turns to theft and murder to provide for his family, which consists of his mother and sister.

The mother is brilliantly depicted by Elizabeth Risdon, an actress whose versatility and chops in the realm of both comedy and drama are equally impressive.  Here she is given a wonderfully broad range of emotion to play from.  Her two most notable moments happen back-to-back When, in one scene she is seen consoling Lorre's character like a small child, and in the next scene, she is uttering heart-rending wails of grief when she discovers the evil crimes her son has committed.

The sister, played by Tala Burell, has plenty of material of her own to work with, not merely as a love interest for Lorre's charming old classmate, who is played by Robert Allen, but also as the object of the affections or desires of both Gene Lockhart, the wealthy possessor or TWO government positions, who promises her comfort and stability - at a price, and of the mysterious Douglas Dumbrille character who was formerly her lecherous employer, and later an apologetic and remorseful pursuer, and a character who is by the end a sympathetic figure who attempts to help the family and Lorre to get out of the troubles brought by Lorre's crimes.  

There are also interesting minor roles - for Thurston Hall as an editor who first takes advantage of Lorre's naivete, then later has the tables turned on him when Lorre summons courage to bluff his way into a better deal for the writing he has done for Hall's publications. Mrs. Patrick Campbell, who was once Eliza Doolittle in the original stage production of Pygmalion in 1914, here plays a very different role as a greedy, unsavory pawn broker who Lorre goes to for money, and later kills and robs.

However, the two principle characters with whom Lorre interacts are not among these listed.  The first is a tender yet strong performance of Marian Marsh as Sonya, disreputable young lady of the streets with the soul of an angel, whom Lorre meets at the pawn broker's home where she is selling her greatest treasure, a small family bible, in exchange for money to feed her young siblings.  The development of their relationship turns out to be the ultimate influence in bringing him back out of the depths of his depravity and back among the human race.

The second is the always superb Edward Arnold, here playing a police chief inspector with great panache.  Their first meeting established immediately the contrast between their views on life, crime, and humanity.   On one hand is Lorre, with his intellectual theories of the Ordinary and the Extraordinary, which is echoed by that of the two murderers in Hitchcock's film Rope. His idols are geniuses like Napoleon and Beethoven.  He fancies himself one of them, a pride that ultimately is hus undoing.  Arnold, on the other hand is more practical.  He depends upon the criminal's own sense guilt to eventually reveal himself, no matter how brilliant the man,

Watching Arnold bird-dogging Lorre, one is struck by the skillful way he plies his trade. sometimes canny and coy, then sly, then playing the fool to draw out Lorre's sense of superiority,  It is a brilliant depiction if a highly intelligent investigator, but even this is balanced by something deeper.  Despite a sneer early on that he has no need to "worry about a conscience," he ultimately reveals not only a conscience, but a heart, and a desire not merely for justice, but for redemption.  He plays tough to get his man, but plays even harder for the soul of the criminals he pursues.  

Lorre gives a similarly dynamic performance, with an astonishing array of emotion and attitudes on display; at times playful, petulent, feverish, wrathful, child-like and innocent, indignant and paranoid, then later guilty shamed, and ultimately humbled and repentant,  His character shows early promise in his field, but his pride in his own intellect is his undoing.  His fatal lack of humility is ultimately shown to be at the back of all his troubles, and not The System or The Man, or any other external force he attempts to blame.  Then, after he has has committed murder and theft, we see how it keeps him from confessing even when he is told that it will be better for him to do so, that extenuating circumstances and his own contrition would get a reduced sentence for his actions. He is paranoid and suspicious of everyone around him- not only Edward Arnold's chief inspector, but even his own family and friends, and strangers such as Dumbrille, who he initially thinks is a detective working for Arnold.  My descriptions cannot fully encompass the scope of what he does with this role, except to say weakly that is a bravura performance all around.

I said I would not get into comparisons with the book, and I won't except to surmise that despite the director's distaste for the adaptation, I think possibly it does for the novel what many such adaptations struggle to accomplish-  capture the essence of the philosophical underpinning of the writer's ideas without laying them on so thickly as the produce a work that is overwrought or excessively dense.  Where a writer can afford the space to opine and philosophize, a filmmaker must weave his ideas into the story so that the viewer receives it almost without recognizing it consciously.  It becomes embedded in the entertainment, and is told by the drama, rather than exposition and a talky, dialogue-heavy script that might drag down the pacing of the story. 

The truths the story wishes to convey are revealed not simply through opining narration, but in the actions of its characters.  Ideas of guilt, remorse, repentance, and more all are played out, and we don't mind watching, because it's not preachy like a sermon, but instructive like a parable.  And watching how the story plays out its moral lesson, we find ourselves not merely informed by entertained, a sure sign of great art.

While the film ultimately ends with an uplifting message of salvation though confession, it definitely has same the unflinching view as the later noir genre has of consequences of sin and how they drag a man under to his demise. A good summation of that idea is seen in a conversation between Lorre and Dumbrille, who comes to him seeking an opportunity to apologize to his sister for the trouble he's gone through.  "Haven't you ever done a wrong?" he asks earnestly. "If you have, you'll know - the worse consequences are the unforeseen ones. It's like dropping a stone in a pool, waves spread out in all directions and touch shores you couldn't see before."

**** out of 5