Torment (Hets)
Directed by Alf Sjöberg
Written by Ingmar Bergman
1944/Sweden
Svensk Filmindustri
First viewing/Hulu Plus

[box] Caligula: Cheating, my good sir, cheating![/box]

Torment is a reminder that Ingmar Bergman was as great a screenwriter as he was a director.  This is his very first time out and it’s impressive.  Certainly not something to watch while depressed though!

All the boys in 4th year Latin hate and fear their sadistic teacher, whom they call “Caligula” behind his back.  Caligula (Stig Järrel) delights in roaming through the class waving his stick around and pouncing on each victim unawares.  He conducts the student’s recitation like a prosecutor cross-examining the defendant in a capital murder trial.  His favorite target seems to be Jan-Erik Widgren, an artistic, sensitive boy who seems remarkably well-prepared with his studies for this treatment.  When he spots some penciled notes in the boy’s text he gives him a demerit for cheating and calls his father.  Unfortunately, Jan’s father seems to share some of Caligula’s characteristics himself.  Jan’s mother dotes on him but is utterly ineffective in dealing with the father.

In the meantime, Jan happens upon a girl he has seen behind the counter at a tobacconist’s shop.  Bertha (Mai Zetterling) is staggering drunk through the streets.  Jan takes her home.  Bertha begs him to stay.  She is scared to death of a man who will not leave her alone, although she has tried to end the relationship.  Despite the idealistic Jan’s previous vow to hold out for love, he does so.  And although Bertha is a “bad girl”, love comes anyway.  But Bertha’s tormenter is still in the picture and Jan’s jealousy gets the better of him.  Then things get much, much worse for everybody concerned.

This movie had me more on edge than any horror film.  I kept waiting for something terrible to happen and then it did.  On the other hand, the acting is superb.  Järrel, in particular, was phenomenal in a role in which he had to be despicable and pathetic all at the same time.  And of course Bergman was a genius at getting at the psychological truths of the human heart.  At least this movie has a somewhat redemptive ending.  It’s a bit more melodramatic than Bergman’s later work but still well worth seeing if you are in the mood for some well-made torment.

Clip – A hard lesson

The Lodger
Directed by John Brahm
Written by Barré Lyndon from the novel by Marie Belloc Lowndes
1944/USA
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Kitty Langley: You can’t love and hate at the same time.

Slade: You can! And it’s a problem then…[/box]

There’s no doubt about the culprit in this remake of the source material for Hitchcock’s silent The Lodger (1927).  Laird Cregar is creepy yet oddly sympathetic as Jack the Ripper and the film drips with Gothic shadows and fog.

Mr. Slade (Cregar) is a mild-mannered eccentric who seeks lodging in a respectable London household.  The landlady Mrs. Bonting (Sara Allgood) doesn’t bother to ask for references since Slade is so obviously a gentleman who has paid in advance.  He takes two rooms, a bedroom to live in and an attic room for his “experiments”.  The Bonting’s niece Kitty (Merle Oberon), who sings and dances in a music hall review in Whitehall, is staying with them for the time being.  The big topic of conversation at the Bontings’, as everywhere else in London, are the horrible series of actresses being stabbed and mutilated in Whitehall by the Ripper.

One of the ladies murdered was a has-been music hall performer who once used Kitty’s dressing room.  She visited Kitty immediately prior to the crime and got money from her. This leads Inspector John Warwick (George Sanders) to Kitty’s door.  It is 1944 (or 1902) and they must immediately fall in love.  But Kitty is kind to Slade and he begins to love her too … or is that a homicidal obsession?

Some might say Cregar goes well over the top but it is the kind of overdone performance that is so compelling as to be almost hypnotic.  There is always a very human sadness behind the histrionics.  Lucien Ballard, Oberon’s husband at the time, makes her look beautiful and the streets of London look superbly eerie.   The score by Hugo Friedhofer is another of the film’s delights.  The story is nothing new but is well worth watching nonetheless.

Trailer (?)

The Curse of the Cat People
Directed by Gunther von Fritsch and Robert Wise
Written by DeWitt Bodeen
1944/USA
RKO Radio Pictures
First viewing/Netflix rental

“He was everything I needed because his entire character had been molded by my deepest wants and desires. He was my rock when I cried, my playmate when I laughed, and my hero when I needed to imagine that one existed for me.” ― Richelle E. Goodrich, Dandelions: The Disappearance of Annabelle Fancher

The bigwigs at RKO decided The Curse of the Cat People would be a dandy title for the sequel to 1942’s hit Cat People. Once again, auteur-producer Val Lewton subverts all expectations by giving us a fantasy about a lonely little girl’s imaginary friend. Not a cat person in sight.

Oliver Reed (Kent Smith) married his secretary Alice (Jane Randolph) after his wife Irena’s suicide in Cat People.  They gave birth to a daughter named Amy (Ann Carter), who is six years old as our story begins. They live in Sleepy Hollow, New York.

Amy is a dreamy child, who as a result has a hard time making friends with other children. Her father thinks she takes after his first wife instead of her actual mother.  Oliver is trying his best to browbeat Amy into living in the real world.  One day, Amy innocently goes to an infamously “haunted” house and makes the acquaintance of batty old actress Julia Farran.  Julia lives with the obviously disturbed Barbara whom Julia believes is impersonating her dead daughter.

Julia delights in acting out “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” in the creepiest of ways for the little girl.  She also gives her a ring.  The Reed’s Trinidadian butler Edward (Sir Lancelot) tells Amy it might be a magic ring and how she can make a wish on it.

Amy’s dearest wish is for a friend.  It is granted in the form of Irena (Simon Simone) dressed as a beautiful princess.  Irena plays with her and treats her tenderly, warning Amy to reveal her presence to no one.  But naturally the child spills the beans, worrying her parents even more.  Things build to a climax when Irena says goodbye and Amy runs out into the night to catch her.

There are a couple of thrills and a foreboding atmosphere, largely thanks to the beautiful low key cinematography by noir great Nicholas Musuraca, but precious little horror.  The film rests on the shoulders of child actress Ann Carter and fortunately she plays it exactly right.  There is a touching sadness to her Amy.  Simone Simon is appropriately magical. There is some period-type corn on the margins but mostly this is an enchanting film.  Recommended.

This was Robert Wise’s directorial debut.  He took over when director Gunter von Fritsch got seriously behind schedule.

I have not mentioned this before but the films on the DVDs in the Val Lewton Horror Collection all have excellent commentaries.  This one is by film historian and horror guru Greg Mank with brief input from Simone Simon.  Mank considers this film one of Lewton’s most autobiographic works and relates various incidents to the producer’s life.

Clip – Christmas scene

The Suspect
Directed by Robert Siodmak
Written by Bertram Millhauser; adaptation by Arthur T. Horman from a novel by James Roland
1944/USA
Universal Pictures
First viewing/YouTube

[box] Cora Marshall: I’d like to know what goes on in your head.

Philip Marshall:  It’s much better that you shouldn’t, Cora. It might frighten you.[/box]

Director Robert Siodmak is batting 1000 in my book.  This film, which features one of Charles Laughton’s better performances, really deserves a proper restoration and release.

The place is Victorian London.  Philip (Laughton) and Cora (Rosalind Ivan) Morrison are a very unhappily married couple.  The story begins as Cora forces their grown son out of the house for failing to help her fix the kitchen sink.  Turns out that the shrewish Cora threw a week’s worth of the son’s work into the fire in revenge first.  Philip, without much fanfare, moves into the son’s bedroom.  But it is impossible to avoid an argument with Cora.

Soon thereafter, Mary (Ella Raines) comes to the tobacco shop that Philip manages to ask for work as a stenographer and typist.  They have none to offer.  When Philip finds Mary crying in a park later that evening, he comforts her and asks her to join him for dinner.  He says he has no one to go home to.  Thereafter, they meet frequently and develop a deep friendship.  Mary sees beyond the unlikely exterior of the much older Philip and begins to fall in love with him.

Philip asks Cora for a divorce which she refuses, threatening to ruin Philip with his employer if he goes through with it.  Philip says goodbye to Mary but it doesn’t last.  Cora starts tracking his steps and discovers the affair.  After she threatens to ruin Mary’s life as well, Philip can take no more and kills her.  Things are looking up after the coroner’s inquest finds death by accident.  Then a man from Scotland Yard appears and an intricate game of cat and mouse begins, with the unflappable Philip more than holding his own. With Henry Daniell in a wonderful performance as Phillip and Cora’s next door neighbor, an alcoholic “gentleman” rotter.

Despite seeing it on YouTube in parts in a rather dodgy print, I just loved this one. Laughton is so great.  He is very, very restrained but conveys such emotion in the subtlest of ways.  He easily convinces you that this is the kind of man that a young and beautiful woman, with the requisite sensitivity, could fall in love with.  The story is interesting with some nice twists and turns.  I’m sure that Paul Ivano’s cinematography would look beautiful in a restored version.  Recommended.

Opening ten minutes

Cover Girl
Directed by Charles Vidor
Written by Virginia Van Upp, Marion Parsonnet, and Paul Gangelin from a story by Erwin S. Gelsey
1944/USA
Columbia Pictures Corporation
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Genius: [From the song “Who’s Complaining?” which dealt with food rationing during World War Two] “Because of Axis trickery, my coffee now is chicory, and I can rarely purloin a sirloin… No complaining, through the campaigning. Who cares if the carrots are few? I’ll feed myself on artichokes, until that Nazi party chokes, so long as they don’t ration, my passion, for you!”[/box]

With this cast, Cover Girl should have been a much better musical.

Rusty Parker (Rita Hayworth) is dancing in the chorus in a show at the nightclub owned by Danny McGuire (Gene Kelly).  Rusty and Danny are in love.  Editor John Coudair (Otto Krueger) and assistant Cornelia Jackson (Eve Arden) are searching for a “new face” to be the cover girl for a special wedding edition of Vogue magazine.  One of the girls who dances on the line with Rusty decides to try out and Rusty tags along.  The girl manages to sabotage Rusty’s interview.

But when Coudair goes to the nightclub to see the other girl at work, he spots Rusty and she reminds him so much of his lost love, her grandmother, that he is hooked.  Danny is none too happy at the prospect of Rusty’s opportunity but puts a good face on it.  Then, when Broadway beckons, we get the inevitable conflict over Rusty’s new found fame and her love for Danny.  No fear that love will not win out.  With Phil Silvers as a comedian at the club and pal of Danny and Rusty.

I love musicals but not this one.  Something seemed so overdone and hokey about all of it. Even the musical numbers didn’t send me.  Kelly can dance, obviously, but the choreography did not capture his magic.  Eve Arden is wonderful as always.  Phil Silvers should stick to his Sgt. Bilko persona and avoid singing.  The one special part was Hayworth and Kelly’s duet to the Oscar-nominated song “Long Ago and Far Away”.  Even these filmmakers could not mess up a Jerome Kern tune.

Cover Girl won the Academy Award for Best Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture.  It was nominated in the categories of Best Cinematography, Color; Best Art Direction-Interior Decoration, Color; Best Sound, Recording; and Best Music, Original Song (“Long Ago and Far Away”, music by Jerome Kern and lyrics by Ira Gershwin).

Clip – Kelly, Hayworth and Silvers sing and dance to “Make Way for Tomorrow”