As a treat I thought I’d talk about 4 really interesting films that were released amidst the slew of suspense thrillers of the 1940s. Some Gothic melodrama and a few perhaps conveying an almost hybrid sense of noir with their use of flashback, shadow, odd camera angles and elements of transgressive crime. I’ll just be giving a brief overview of the plot, but no worries there are no spoilers!

I recently had the chance to sit with each film and said to myself… Joey, these would make for a nice collection of obscure thrillers so without further adieu, I offer for your enjoyment, The Suspect, Love From A Stranger 1947, Moss Rose & The Sign of the Ram!

THE SUSPECT 1944

Directed by Robert Siodmak (The Spiral Staircase 1945, The Killers 1946, Criss Cross 1949, The Dark Mirror, Cry of the City, The File on Thelma Jordan 1950) and adapted to the screen by Bertram Millhauser and Arthur T Horman from the novel This Way Out written by James Ronald. This film, very loosely based on Dr. Hawley Harvey Crippen’s murder of his wife, was sensationalized at trial in 1910.

The Suspect stars the inimitable Charles Laughton (Dr. Moreau – Island of Lost Souls 1932, my favorite Quasimodo in William Dieterle’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame 1939, the most lovable ghost Sir Simon in The Canterville Ghost 1944, The Paradine Case 1947, The Strange Door 1951, Witness for the Prosecution 1957, Spartacus 1960, Advise and Consent 1962 and notably–director of two films–his masterpiece Night of the Hunter and his uncredited The Man on the Eiffel Tower 1949)

The film also stars the underrated Ella Raines (Phantom Lady 1944, Impact 1949), Dean Harens, Stanley Ridges (Possessed 1949, The File on Thelma Jordan and No Way Out 1950) Henry Daniell, Rosalind Ivan and Molly Lamont (The Dark Corner 1946, Devil Bat’s Daughter 1946) Raymond Severn plays the delicious little urchin Merridew who works for Phillip as he tries to keep the little guy on the straight and narrow. Merridew would make the perfect name for a little tabby cat!

Charles Laughton gives one of his most subtle performances as a kindly man trapped by an abusive wife. Siodmak, as usual, creates a dynamic framework for this psychological thriller, lensed in shades of darkly ominous spaces that seem to shape themselves around Laugton’s comfortable face and Ella Raines’ intricate beauty.

Lux Radio Theater held broadcast of a 60-minute radio adaptation of the movie on April 9, 1945, with Charles Laughton, Ella Raines, and Rosalind Ivan reprising their film roles.

Music by Frank Skinner (Blond Alibi 1946, Johnny Stool Pigeon, The Brute Man, The Spider Woman Strikes Back, and way more ) with cinematography by Paul Ivano. Who did the camera work on director Hugo Haas’s treasures like Strange Fascination 1952, One Girl’s Confession 1953, and Hold Back Tomorrow 1955!

And marvelous gowns and hats by Vera West. (The Wolf Man 1941, Shadow of a Doubt 1943, Flesh and Fantasy 1943, Son of Dracula & The Mad Ghoul 1943, Phantom Lady 1944, Strange Confession 1944, Murder in the Blue Room ’44, House of Frankenstein ’44, The Woman in Green 1945, Terror by Night 1946, The Cat Creeps, She-Wolf of London, Dressed to Kill, Danger Woman & Slightly Scandalous 1946.)

In 1902 London, a respected middle-class Englishman but unhappily married shopkeeper Phillip Marshall (Charles Laughton) develops a loving and warm friendship with young and beautiful Mary Gray (Ella Raines), whose father has recently died, leaving her down on her luck and looking for a job. Phillip Marshall is such a kind and genteel man he stops to say a kind word about his neighbor Mrs Simmon’s garden, loves his son, and shows real affection. He is like a father to young Merridew, and beloved by the community. Even when he approaches Mary, and she hasn’t yet looked up from her tear-soaked hanky, thinking a lecherous man in the park is approaching her, “I’m not that sort,” tells her, only wanting to see if she needs help.

Mary, like Phillip, is lonely. The first night, Phillip begins to walk her home —“A cup of tea, a six-pence novel and a good cry.”
Mary- “I’m afraid you’ve been looking in my window.”

Phillip’s dreadful wife Cora (Rosalind Ivan –ideally suited to play the emasculating harpy-she had a similar role tormenting Edward G Robinson in Scarlet Street 1945) is a reprehensible shrew who humiliates and demeans both her husband and her son (Dean Harens who had more room to act in Siodmak’s terrific noir Christmas Holiday 1944 which starred a very different kind of Gene Kelly and the self-persecuting Deanna Durbin) John is shown moving out of the house because his horrible mother has burned some important papers of his. She got into one of her rages, and before he could stop her, she burned a whole week’s work.

Cora Marshall is vicious and cruel, showing no maternal feeling and caring little that her son is leaving home.

They wrestle with his clean, folded white shirts, which he’s busy moving out of the bedroom. She tries to grab them, but he finally loses his composure and yanks them away.

Saddened by John’s departure, whom he loves and will miss, Phillip prompts Cora to move into his son’s room. Cora, so bent on appearances, is driven to tirades of abusiveness toward the meek and genteel Phillip, harassing him at every turn. I might have thrown her down the stairs myself or given her one of those late-night glasses of milk!

The scene with Merridew tickles me and shows how kind, compassionate, and caring Phillip is. He calls Merridew over talking to him in a quite earnest and fatherly tone, all the while you can tell he’s quite fond of the little fellow and visa versa.

tears in Merridew’s voice make it quiver as the camera shows Mary listening in, she smiles and laughs at this whimsical inquisition.

Merridew- “But I’m not an embezzler.”

Phillip- “Yes, but you can get started that way. It’s the first step that counts… after that, it all becomes too easy. Six pence tomorrow, half a crown the day after… then a five-pound note… I know you’ll always mean to pay it back, but I’m afraid you’ll finish by paying it back in the Portland quarries.”

Merridew- “Don’t send me to no quarries, please, Mr. Marshall (sniffling).”

Phillip- “Well, not this time, Merridew. Now stop sniffling and wipe your eyes.” he hands him a hanky.

Mary has come into the shop looking for employment. When Phillip tells her there isn’t a position available, he later finds her crying on a park bench. He takes her to dinner, gets her a job with a colleague and the two begin a very tender friendship.

Phillip continues his platonic relationship with Mary, but once his wife finds out that he’s been seen supping with the young lady, he breaks it off, as he’s a gentleman who truly thought his wife would want out of a loveless marriage.

Still, Cora threatens him with scandal as well as making trouble for Mary. When Cora refuses to divorce him, worried that gossip will spread that she has failed to hold onto a husband, he is driven to the point of frustration and despair. She tells him the neighbors are all beginning to gossip about him coming in at all hours.

Phillip- “None of that business, Cora.”

Cora- “Ha! Married people’s lives is everyone’s business, and I’m not going to be made an object of pity in front of my friends, do you hear!… I wonder what ever possessed me to tie myself up with a poor stink like you… walked through the forest and picked a crooked tree that’s what I did. A crooked, fat, ugly tree.”

Even after she’s been so cruel, he tries to reason with her about getting a divorce and face things honestly by admitting that they’ve never been happy together. He asks her to let him go. But she wants to punish him because she is a bitter and cruel woman, calling him immoral and indecent.

Phillip is very decent; in fact, even though there’s only been friendship between him and Mary, he breaks it off with her so as to do what’s expected of him, telling Mary that he behaved badly, but he was afraid that she wouldn’t want to see him again. He was sure Cora would let him go… Phillip tells Mary, “And I couldn’t let you go once I’d met you.”

But Cora won’t be happy til she drives them both ‘into the gutter where you belong!”

Because of his gentle nature, Laughton is affable and wonderfully believable as a romantic figure.

His murderous response is more to protect Mary from Cora’s wrath, who tells him with a face like a Victorian harridan spewing poisonous vitriol.

And so, Phillip murders his wife. We see him grab one of his canes and assume, though we don’t see him actually bashing her head in with it, that he has, in fact, brained her. The next morning, she is found dead at the bottom of the stairs, and it is deemed an accident.

Added to the plot’s layering of Sturm & Drang is the always wonderful scoundrel in Henry Daniell’s Gilbert Simmons, Phillip’s neighbor a stumbling drunkard who also beats his wife (Molly Lamont) Mrs Simmons and Phillip also have a very sweet relationship, one that ultimately anchors Phillip to his integrity. But I won’t reveal the outcome of the story. The miserable Gilbert Simmons also has the distinction of turning to blackmail, adding to his other earthly vices.

Amidst all these dreary, grim, and dark ideas, the film still emerges as a beautiful story, partly due to Siodmak’s ability to guide suspense along its way with an appealing cadence. As Foster Hirsch states in his must-read Film Noir-The Dark Side of the Screen, “Siodmak films like Christmas Holiday and The Killers have an extremely intricate narrative development…{…} the relative extremeness of Siodmak’s style is reflected in his obsessive characters.”

The Suspect works as a great piece of Melo-Noir mostly due to Laughton’s absolute perfection as the sympathetic, trapped gentle-man. As always, he is masterful with his intonations, sharpened wit, and ability to induce fellowship with the characters he’s playing… well, maybe not so much with Dr. Moreau, Capt. Bligh, Judge Lord Thomas Horfield or Sire Alaine de Maledroit in The Strange Door. But he’s a lovable sort most of the time, one can’t deny.

Ella Raines is just delightful as Mary. She’s such a treat to watch as you start to believe that this beautiful young woman genuinely has fallen for this older, portly, yet kind-hearted misfit. You find yourself hoping that he gets away with his wife’s murder and that the two find happiness together.

Phillip is staunchly pursued by Scotland Yard Inspector Huxley (Stanley Ridges), who has the tenacity of Columbo. Speaking of which, a poster of The Suspect appears in an episode of Columbo – “How to Dial a Murder” in 1978.

LOVE FROM A STRANGER 1947

On the darker, more sinister side of these suspense yarns, we find Sylvia Sidney as Cecily Harrington at the mercy of a very deranged bluebeard in John Hodiak as Manuel Cortez.

Directed by Richard Whorf, who became more fluent in television directing. Written for the screen by Philip MacDonald (Rebecca 1940, The Body Snatcher 1945 for Val Lewton, The Dark Past 1948, Boris Karloff’s Thriller episode The Fingers of Fear 1961, The List of Adrian Messenger 1963) based on Agatha Christie’s short story Philomel Cottage. Hair Stylist Eunice Helene King is responsible for slicking back Hodiak’s swarthy and murderously Lothario hair, he’s almost Draculian. He definitely covets his slickety hair as he shows his first sign of deranged pathology when Cecily tries to stroke his locks, and he lashes out at her, telling her not to touch it.

The marvelous costumes equipped with capes, sequins, and ostrich feathers are by Michael Woulfe (Blood on the Sun 1945, Macao 1952, Beware, My Lovely 1952).

Isobel Elsom plays Auntie Loo Loo with her usual exuberance; Ann Richards is Mavis Wilson’s faithful friend. Anita Sharp-Bolster as Ethel the maid (wonderfully crabby Christine in The Two Mrs Carrolls)

And again, a terrific score by Hans J. Salter. This period piece is lavishly framed by Tony Gaudio (The Letter 1940, High Sierra 1941, The Man Who Came to Dinner 1942). Once the protagonist and her murderous husband honeymoon at their hideaway cottage, the lens turns the film into an almost chamber piece, becoming more claustrophobic as Manuel and Cecily begin to awaken to the revelation of his dangerous nature.

Sylvia Sidney plays Cecily Harrington, an unassuming English girl in Liverpool who has just won £50,000 in the Calcutta Sweepstakes, which was a fortune in turn-of-the-century England. Cecily meets Manuel Cortez (John Hodiak) when he sees her name in the newspaper next to the headline of his latest murder. He follows her and then arranges to make it appear as if he’s looking to rent her flat. She is taken with this mysterious stranger and suddenly breaks off her engagement to her fiancee Nigel Lawrence (John Howard), rushing into marriage with the mysterious stranger, who turns out to be a Bluebeard who is after her money.

The swarthy Manuel Cortez has already alluded the police for the murder of three women believed to have drowned while trying to escape. He has changed his appearance, with darker hair and no beard. Dr Gribble (Philip Tonge), who is a crime connoisseur, collects journals and books, one with a drawing of him showing his beard. It also mentions his earlier crimes in South America and New York (Hodiak’s character is given several Spanish aliases- Pedro Ferrara and Vasco Carrera).

The newlyweds spend the summer at their secret honeymoon cottage, where he’s been planning to kill her and bury her body in the cellar.

Love From A Stranger is perhaps the more melodramatic and Gothic of all these films I’ve talked about in this post, but perhaps the most unrewarding in terms of its depth. While there are some truly terrifying scenes, the queer chemistry between Sidney and Hodiak creates a distance from the narrative. It’s still worth watching as part of the canon of 40s suspense melodramas.

Sylvia Sidney has a certain edgy sensuality to her that doesn’t make her performance thoroughly implausible for the story, but perhaps a different actress might have brought another style of vulnerability to the role. And Hodiak has an unctuous, gritty sort of sex appeal, which makes his part as a psychopath believable. He’s got intensely dark, focused eyes, sharply defined features, and an iron jawline that slams shut when he’s internally scheming. Toward the end, he brings it a bit over the top, but he’s sort of good at playing a surly mad dog.

Perhaps the one issue I have with the casting is the chemistry between Sidney and Hodiak, which never truly rings authentic. He’s too internally frenetic to be romantic. It’s mysterious, but he’s not convincing in his wooing of Cecily. The character of Cecily doesn’t seem to have the layers that peel innocence away, unveiling a vulnerable yet eruptive sensuality that would be unconsciously drawn to the scent of a dangerous man. That’s why Ingrid Bergman in Gaslight and Joan Bennett in Fritz Lang’s Secret Beyond the Door 1947 work so well.

John Hodiak is a puzzle for me. I’ve been trying to decide whether he’s one of the most intriguingly sexy men I’ve come across in a while or if I find him completely cold and waxen in his delivery as a leading man. I’m leaning toward sexy.

He had me going in Hitchcock’s Lifeboat 1944. I would have thrown my diamond Cartier bracelet over the bow to tumble under the tarp for a few hours with that sun-kissed, salt-sprayed crude adonis, sweaty, brash, unshaven -the whole deal. I just watched him in Somewhere in the Night 1946, and once again, I found Hodiak’s character of George Taylor compelling in his odd way of conveying vulnerability but faithful to the lure of the noir machismo. I felt sorry for a guy who can’t remember who he is or if he should stay forgetting- in case he was a rotten human being.

But as the cunning and psychopathic lady killer in Love From A Stranger, he sort of makes my skin crawl, which I suppose means he did a fabulous job of inhabiting the role of Manuel Cortez. Maybe he would have had better chemistry with someone like Alexis Smith or Audrey Dalton.

Now, I haven’t yet seen Basil Rathbone’s version in director Rowland V Lee’s 1937, also known as A Night of Terror with Ann Harding -still based on the short story by Agatha Christie but set in contemporary England, Rathbone plays the intrepid type of urbane gentleman who sweeps Ann Harding off her feet and plunges her into a sudden and dangerous marriage. Where he then plots to kill her and take her money. In the earlier version, the heroine gradually realizes that she’s in danger.

Sylvia Sidney looks stunning as the new bride who begins to notice her husband’s strange behavior and realizes once she goes down into the cellar that Manuel is hiding something. He spends hours locked away down there, preparing for the moment he will kill Cecily, and has forbidden her to go down there, claiming that he’s doing experiments that are dangerous. Well, that’s true since he’s mixing poisons and digging her grave.

This version places it back in Victorian England, perhaps due to the success of the melodramatic thrillers that were proving to be so successful in the 40s like, Rebecca, Gaslight, The Lodger, Hangover Square, The Woman in White, Fritz Lang’s The Secret Beyond the Door 1947, and The Two Mrs Carrolls 1947.

The Two Mrs. Carrolls (1947) The ‘Angel of Death’ and a nice glass of warm milk!

Continue reading “Women-in-Peril – 4 Obscure Gothic Thrillers of the 1940s!” →