“The Lodger” (1944) is reckoned by many to be the best Jack the Ripper movie ever made, and with good reason. Expertly cast, and beautifully directed by John Brahm, this 20th Century Fox production drips with atmosphere, menace and a wow of a sexual subtext which somehow managed to escape the censor’s eye.
As I’ve said before in previous postings, I’ve always enjoyed Fox’s evocations of fog-drenched Victorian England, and “The Lodger” is no exception.
The film is based on a very successful novel by Marie Belloc Lowndes. In England, Alfred Hitchcock directed a silent version in 1927 with stage star Ivor Novello. It was the film that started Hitchcock on his road to critical and commercial success. Novello remade it in 1932 as a sound version, and Fox re-made it yet again in 1952 as “The Man in the Attic” with Jack Palance in the title role.
As good as the Hitchcock version is, however, it’s the 1944 version that continues to resonate with viewers.
The scene is London in 1888, and the city is paralyzed by the Jack the Ripper murders. The victims are all actresses or have ties to the theater. (Actresses make a handy substitute for prostitutes, the real victims of the Ripper, and a profession that would not have made it past the censors).
One night a mysterious stranger, Mr. Slade (the brilliant Laird Cregar) comes to a house seeking lodging. The house is owned by the Bontons, a kindly older couple (Cedric Hardwicke and Sara Allgood) who agree to rent him an upstairs bedroom. He tells them he is a doctor, and also requests to use the attic as a place for experiments. He tells them he works odd hours, and will use the back staircase as he will be coming going at all hours of the night.
Soft spoken and gentle, Mr. Slade seems an ideal tenant, save for a few peccadilloes, such as turning to the walls paintings of old time actresses. He doesn’t think much of actresses which could be a problem since the Bontons’ niece Kitty (Merle Oberon) is a celebrated musical comedy star and is living with them.
And in the film’s most disturbing scene, Slade shows Mrs. Bonton a picture of his brother, who he obviously harbors disturbing feelings for. This scene is beautifully played by Cregar, and while it might have gotten past the censors, I’m sure 1944 audiences knew that Slade’s feeling toward his sibling were more than normal brotherly love. An actress caused his brother’s ruin, which explains Slade’s deep loathing of the acting profession.
But is Slade the Ripper? He does come and go at all hours of the night, and is seen with a mysterious black bag, and comes home one night with a blood-stained coat. A Scotland Yard Inspector (George Sanders) harbors suspicions about Slade, but isn’t sure. Certainly a fingerprint clue seems to rule Slade out.
The climax is very exciting, and one of the most memorable of 1940s horror cinema. More I will not say.
This is one beautiful looking film. Anyone that thinks black and white is boring should look at five minutes of “The Lodger.” Atmosphere drips from every scene, with each shadow and alleyway a potential Ripper murder scene. One scene of the Ripper approaching a cowering victim has the camera take the point of view of the Ripper, the camera shifting from side to side as he gets closer to her, the victim quaking with fear. Similar scenes were found throughout countless 1980s slasher movies, but “The Lodger” was first (albeit, less graphically).
“The Lodger” was a smash hit with 1944 audiences, not least for the cast, strong script and atmosphere. So successful was it that Fox ordered a follow up film the following year with another Victorian horror melodrama, the superb “Hangover Square”, re-uniting Cregar, Sanders, director Brahm and screenwriter Barre Lyndon. It was another big hit but there were to be no more reunions.
Cregar was one of the most striking actors of the 1940s and would have gone on to bigger and better things, but he had a tortured private life. Standing over six foot three and weighing more than 300 pounds, he went on a crash diet to lose over 100 pounds in hopes of becoming a leading man. He was also homosexual, and thought if he could be made attractive to women he would be cured of his gayness. The crash diet proved too much for his system, and he died of a heart attack at the age of 28 following shooting of “Hangover Square.”
What a career he could have had. As it is, in his short, brilliant career, Laird Cregar still stands as one of the great actors of the 1940s. Unfortunately, he probably understood his characters all too well.
Rating for “The Lodger”: Three and a half stars.
Showing posts with label Laird Cregar. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Laird Cregar. Show all posts
I Wake Up Screaming
Friday, December 28, 2007
“I Wake Up Screaming” (1941) is a terrific title for a neat little crime drama. While the DVD release has it under the Fox Noir label, it’s really not a noir in the traditional sense but the theme of obsession, and some of the lighting effects achieved, do point the way toward latter noirs.
The cast is also decidedly un-noir like, though it is an appealing one. Vicky Lynn (Carole Landis) is a waitress in a small New York City diner when she is a approached by slick publicist Frankie Christopher (Victor Mature) who thinks he can turn the beautiful waitress into a star. He accomplishes this but she soon rebuffs his efforts and tells him she has just signed a Hollywood contract. When she is later found murdered, Frankie and her sister Jill (Betty Grable) are the prime suspects. Investigating the case is a police detective named Ed Cornell (Laird Cregar) who seems to have acquired an unhealthy interest in the dead girl.
Mature, Grable and Landis at the time were known for their performances in musicals and comedies, but they adapt to the material just fine. 20th Century Fox knew what they had with their stars, so even in this crime drama they find room for a short scene where Grable dons a bathing suit to show off those famous legs. Grable also shot a scene where, as an employee pushing sheet music and records at a department store, she sings a song called “Daddy.” The scene was wisely cut but it is here on the DVD as an extra. I love watching deleted musical numbers from films and this number was one I thought I would never see. I love DVDs.
Cregar steals the show, as he usually does, as the hulking police detective. Cregar was over six feet tall and weighed over 300 pounds and dominates every scene he’s in. There’s also a first-rate supporting cast, including Allyn Joslyn as a columnist, Alan Mowbray as an actor, both vying with Mature for the affections of Vicky; weasely Elisha Cook Jr. as one of the suspects; Morris Ankrum as a district attorney, and in one scene each, Charles Lane and the great Frank Orth.
Contemporary audiences might look at performances like Mature’s and Grable’s here and laugh them off, saying they are just playing themselves, but that’s not true. Their line readings and expressions are more the adequate and they perform just fine. Not every performance has to be an angst-ridden one to get a story across. What’s more, we like them and don’t want to see them unjustly accused.
The film was directed by H. Bruce Humberstone, who directed several of the better 1930s Charlie Chan titles starring Warner Oland. His lighting effects are interesting and evocative and pave the way for the more dramatic lighting that would occur throughout the 1940s as film noir matured.
I’ve always liked Victor Mature. He was a most likeable actor and had the good sense to spoof himself later in his career in “After the Fox” (1966) and “Head” (1968). In the 1950s my mom worked for a gentleman who served on a submarine with him during World War II. He said Mature was one of the greatest guys he ever knew, just a regular joe who did now want any special attention brought to him. He was equally liked and respected by the rest of the crew as well. A good guy, who never took himself seriously.
The film’s musical scoring is particularly interesting as it incorporates two well-known themes. In 1931 Alfred Newman composed the score for “Street Scene” and re-used the music throughout the 1940s and 1950s for various big city dramas. I think it’s used in “Kiss of Death” (1947), “Cry of the City” (1948) and others too numerous too mention. Long popular with audiences, it received its most spectacular performance as a prologue to “How to Marry a Millionaire” (1955) where the 20th Century Fox orchestra was filmed performing the famous piece to highlight Fox’ new stereo surround recording system.
Oddly, the other piece of music used to denote Cornell’s growing obsession with Vicky is “Over the Rainbow.” It was almost unheard of for a song from a rival studio, in this case M-G-M’s, to be featured in another studio’s production. I would love to hear how this came about, and when I watch the movie again, I will listen to the commentary to see if any light can be shined on this. I can’t think of another instance where this occurred during the studio system.
“I Wake Up Screaming” runs a brisk 81 minutes and is a fine way to spend a cold winter evening.
Rating for “I Wake Up Screaming”: Three stars.
The cast is also decidedly un-noir like, though it is an appealing one. Vicky Lynn (Carole Landis) is a waitress in a small New York City diner when she is a approached by slick publicist Frankie Christopher (Victor Mature) who thinks he can turn the beautiful waitress into a star. He accomplishes this but she soon rebuffs his efforts and tells him she has just signed a Hollywood contract. When she is later found murdered, Frankie and her sister Jill (Betty Grable) are the prime suspects. Investigating the case is a police detective named Ed Cornell (Laird Cregar) who seems to have acquired an unhealthy interest in the dead girl.
Mature, Grable and Landis at the time were known for their performances in musicals and comedies, but they adapt to the material just fine. 20th Century Fox knew what they had with their stars, so even in this crime drama they find room for a short scene where Grable dons a bathing suit to show off those famous legs. Grable also shot a scene where, as an employee pushing sheet music and records at a department store, she sings a song called “Daddy.” The scene was wisely cut but it is here on the DVD as an extra. I love watching deleted musical numbers from films and this number was one I thought I would never see. I love DVDs.
Cregar steals the show, as he usually does, as the hulking police detective. Cregar was over six feet tall and weighed over 300 pounds and dominates every scene he’s in. There’s also a first-rate supporting cast, including Allyn Joslyn as a columnist, Alan Mowbray as an actor, both vying with Mature for the affections of Vicky; weasely Elisha Cook Jr. as one of the suspects; Morris Ankrum as a district attorney, and in one scene each, Charles Lane and the great Frank Orth.
Contemporary audiences might look at performances like Mature’s and Grable’s here and laugh them off, saying they are just playing themselves, but that’s not true. Their line readings and expressions are more the adequate and they perform just fine. Not every performance has to be an angst-ridden one to get a story across. What’s more, we like them and don’t want to see them unjustly accused.
The film was directed by H. Bruce Humberstone, who directed several of the better 1930s Charlie Chan titles starring Warner Oland. His lighting effects are interesting and evocative and pave the way for the more dramatic lighting that would occur throughout the 1940s as film noir matured.
I’ve always liked Victor Mature. He was a most likeable actor and had the good sense to spoof himself later in his career in “After the Fox” (1966) and “Head” (1968). In the 1950s my mom worked for a gentleman who served on a submarine with him during World War II. He said Mature was one of the greatest guys he ever knew, just a regular joe who did now want any special attention brought to him. He was equally liked and respected by the rest of the crew as well. A good guy, who never took himself seriously.
The film’s musical scoring is particularly interesting as it incorporates two well-known themes. In 1931 Alfred Newman composed the score for “Street Scene” and re-used the music throughout the 1940s and 1950s for various big city dramas. I think it’s used in “Kiss of Death” (1947), “Cry of the City” (1948) and others too numerous too mention. Long popular with audiences, it received its most spectacular performance as a prologue to “How to Marry a Millionaire” (1955) where the 20th Century Fox orchestra was filmed performing the famous piece to highlight Fox’ new stereo surround recording system.
Oddly, the other piece of music used to denote Cornell’s growing obsession with Vicky is “Over the Rainbow.” It was almost unheard of for a song from a rival studio, in this case M-G-M’s, to be featured in another studio’s production. I would love to hear how this came about, and when I watch the movie again, I will listen to the commentary to see if any light can be shined on this. I can’t think of another instance where this occurred during the studio system.
“I Wake Up Screaming” runs a brisk 81 minutes and is a fine way to spend a cold winter evening.
Rating for “I Wake Up Screaming”: Three stars.
Hangover Square
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
“Hangover Square” (1945) is a fine, fine film, boasting one of the great film music set pieces of all time. More on that later.
The film is a splendid example of the Studio System at its apex, in this case 20th Century Fox. The film takes place in Victorian England and concerns George Harvey Bone (Laird Cregar) a promising symphonic composer who is working on his piano concerto. When he hears discordant noises or sudden, jarring sounds, he blacks out and goes on a murderous rampage. (Not giving anything away here, as the opening scene shows him killing a pawnbroker. The camera takes the place of Bone as he approaches his screaming, cowering victims, pre-figuring the slasher films of the 1980s).
An essentially decent (though obviously troubled) person, Bone turns himself into the police when he finds a bloody knife and awakens in the neighborhood where the pawnbroker killing took place. But the evidence is not against him, so he is free to go though a police doctor (George Sanders) harbors suspicions against Bone.
Unwinding one night, Bone goes to a music hall one night and becomes smitten with one of the singers there, Netta (Linda Darnell). After successfully writing a song for her, she sees Bone as her ticket to fame and fortune, while being cruelly dismissive of him in public.
Unfortunately for Bone, his condition worsens as the film goes on, leading to a truly memorable climax featuring the premiere of his piano concerto. More than that I will not say, though the film’s final image is indeed a haunting one, one worthy of Poe.
The film’s score, including the concerto, was penned by the great Bernard Herrmann. The last 10 minutes is a performance of the concerto and a marvelous sequence it is, with the camera swinging through the orchestra to and fro and becoming more frenzied as the concerto increases in intensity (as does Bones’ dementia). Director John Brahm pulls out all the stops in filming the sequence, and matched to the brilliance of the music is a sequence I never get tired of watching. Herrmann later dubbed the piece “Concerto Macabre for Piano and Orchestra” and it’s a real showpiece, one that has been recorded several times.
The rest of the score is mainly drawn from themes later played in the concerto, though there’s other first-rate music not included in the concerto (love those screeching piccolos when Bone’s insanity kicks in).
I’ve always marveled at 20th Century Fox’s evocations of Victorian England, and “Hangover Square” is no exception. The square itself is a marvel of production design; it’s a beautifully designed set.
Laird Cregar was one of the great talents in movies, and this was unfortunately his last film. A giant talent, both in size and talent, at one time he weighed more than 300 pounds and was determined to lose weight and become a leading man. He went on a crash diet and lost more than 100 pounds and was going to have surgery to further reduce his stomach when he died after suffering multiple heart attacks. He was 31 years old.
Linda Darnell is a revelation as Netta. Darnell earned her stock in Hollywood playing sweet virginal heroines in films like “The Mark of Zorro (1940) and “Blood and Sand” (1941) and very appealing she was too, but here her Netta is a shrewish, destructive woman who plays up to George but despises him behind his back. It’s a marvelous portrayal.
Cregar, George Sanders and director Brahm had enjoyed a huge success the year before with “The Lodger” considered by many the best of the Jack the Ripper movies. Both movies, along with “The Undying Monster” (1942), a werewolf picture directed by Brahm, were recently released in a new DVD set called Fox Horror Classics. It’s a marvelous set, and I’m looking forward to re-discovering the other two movies.
Rating for “Hangover Square”: Three and a half stars.
The film is a splendid example of the Studio System at its apex, in this case 20th Century Fox. The film takes place in Victorian England and concerns George Harvey Bone (Laird Cregar) a promising symphonic composer who is working on his piano concerto. When he hears discordant noises or sudden, jarring sounds, he blacks out and goes on a murderous rampage. (Not giving anything away here, as the opening scene shows him killing a pawnbroker. The camera takes the place of Bone as he approaches his screaming, cowering victims, pre-figuring the slasher films of the 1980s).
An essentially decent (though obviously troubled) person, Bone turns himself into the police when he finds a bloody knife and awakens in the neighborhood where the pawnbroker killing took place. But the evidence is not against him, so he is free to go though a police doctor (George Sanders) harbors suspicions against Bone.
Unwinding one night, Bone goes to a music hall one night and becomes smitten with one of the singers there, Netta (Linda Darnell). After successfully writing a song for her, she sees Bone as her ticket to fame and fortune, while being cruelly dismissive of him in public.
Unfortunately for Bone, his condition worsens as the film goes on, leading to a truly memorable climax featuring the premiere of his piano concerto. More than that I will not say, though the film’s final image is indeed a haunting one, one worthy of Poe.
The film’s score, including the concerto, was penned by the great Bernard Herrmann. The last 10 minutes is a performance of the concerto and a marvelous sequence it is, with the camera swinging through the orchestra to and fro and becoming more frenzied as the concerto increases in intensity (as does Bones’ dementia). Director John Brahm pulls out all the stops in filming the sequence, and matched to the brilliance of the music is a sequence I never get tired of watching. Herrmann later dubbed the piece “Concerto Macabre for Piano and Orchestra” and it’s a real showpiece, one that has been recorded several times.
The rest of the score is mainly drawn from themes later played in the concerto, though there’s other first-rate music not included in the concerto (love those screeching piccolos when Bone’s insanity kicks in).
I’ve always marveled at 20th Century Fox’s evocations of Victorian England, and “Hangover Square” is no exception. The square itself is a marvel of production design; it’s a beautifully designed set.
Laird Cregar was one of the great talents in movies, and this was unfortunately his last film. A giant talent, both in size and talent, at one time he weighed more than 300 pounds and was determined to lose weight and become a leading man. He went on a crash diet and lost more than 100 pounds and was going to have surgery to further reduce his stomach when he died after suffering multiple heart attacks. He was 31 years old.
Linda Darnell is a revelation as Netta. Darnell earned her stock in Hollywood playing sweet virginal heroines in films like “The Mark of Zorro (1940) and “Blood and Sand” (1941) and very appealing she was too, but here her Netta is a shrewish, destructive woman who plays up to George but despises him behind his back. It’s a marvelous portrayal.
Cregar, George Sanders and director Brahm had enjoyed a huge success the year before with “The Lodger” considered by many the best of the Jack the Ripper movies. Both movies, along with “The Undying Monster” (1942), a werewolf picture directed by Brahm, were recently released in a new DVD set called Fox Horror Classics. It’s a marvelous set, and I’m looking forward to re-discovering the other two movies.
Rating for “Hangover Square”: Three and a half stars.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
