Monthly Archives: September 2023

Let There Be Light
Directed by John Huston
Written byline John Huston and Charles Kaufman
1980/US
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/YouTube

Narrator: However different the symptoms, these things they have in common: unceasing fear and apprehension, a sense of impending disaster, a feeling of hopelesness and utter isolation.

The documentary was made in 1946 but it was not released until 1980. It’s an interesting look at the what we would now call PTSD.

The film was made at an army hospital that treated soldiers who were suffering from “psychoneurosis” (PTSD) on their return to the U.S. The main treatment seemed to have been giving the men some kind of hypnotic drug and then hypnotizing them to reverse their psychosomatic symptoms. This works like a charm in the film.

Although the documentary does portray the army program in a positive light it evidently was not positive enough for the authorities and was shelved.

I’m glad it was released as I have a weakness for WWII documentaries. I also liked seeing what mental health care was like in the 1940s.

Experiment Perilous
Directed by Jacques Tourneur
Written by Warren Duff from a novel by Margaret Carpenter
1944/US
RKO Radio Studio
IMBd page
First viewing Criterion Channel

Nick Bederaux: Life is short and the art long. Decision difficult, experiment perilous. (Quoting Hippocrates)

I watched Jacques Tourneur’s Experiment Perilous” (1944), which is currently on the Criterion channel as part of its Noir by Gaslight collection.

Doctor Huntington Bailey (George Brent) is on a train when he is approached by an old lady. When she learns where he is going, she describes the many strange circumstances surrounding the Bederaux family. She raised both her brother Nick (Paul Lukas) and his future wife Allida (Hedy Lamarr). Later he learns that the woman died while visiting her brother.

Nick is the epitome of a control freak when it comes to his much younger wife. He tries to enlist George in the effort “cure” her of her supposed mental illness. But of course George falls in love with her first. The conflict between Nick and George builds to an explosive climax.

I understand that people love George Brent but I don’t get his appeal and think he is one of the blandest actors around. Hedy Lamarr looks gorgeous throughout but she is also not much of an actress in my view. So this heavily “Gaslight”-inspired film did little for me.