The Clairvoyant
Directed by Maurice Elvey
1935/UK
Gaumont British Picture Corporation
First viewing
Clairvoyant, n.: A person, commonly a woman, who has the power of seeing that which is invisible to her patron – namely, that he is a blockhead. – Ambrose Bierce
I am moving into 1935 for the moment in order to catch a couple of films that are disappearing from Netflix Instant on May 1. This is the story of Maximus, a fake music hall mind-reader (Claude Rains) who with the assistance of his wife (Fay Wray) performs such stunts as “guessing” items she collects from the audience. One night when Christine (Jane Baxter) is present in the crowd, Maximus experiences a true clairvoyant trance. Later, he begins to prophecy the future when Christine is around. This eventually gets him into trouble as is blamed for the catastrophes he predicts.
This movie started out extremely strong. Claude Rains is, of course, brilliant and Faye Wray is appealing. The screenplay was written by long-time Hitchcock collaborator Charles Bennett and made at Hitchcock’s British studio and early parts of the piece had a definite Hitchcockian feel. Unfortunately, the story descends into melodrama and the ending is really weak. Still, I’m glad I watched this while I could. I love Rains and he was in top form here.
