I Wake Up Screaming (1941)

I Wake Up Screaming
Directed by H. Bruce Humberstone
Written by Dwight Taylor from a novel by Steve Fisher
1941/USA
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Vicky Lynn: Is that all?

Larry Evans: No, but the rest of it isn’t on the menu.

Vicky Lynn: You couldn’t afford it if it was.[/box]

While The Maltese Falcon, often cited as the first film noir, was wrapping up production at Warners in July 1941, this lesser-known proto-noir picture was starting up at Fox.  While definitely not in the same league as Falcon, the iconography of the lighting, shooting angles, etc. is actually more purely noir than that in Huston’s great film.  And it’s not a bad film to boot.

As the film opens, Frankie Christopher (Victor Mature) is in the hot seat being grilled about the murder of his protegee Vicky Lynn (Carol Landis).  Much of the story is told in flashback as various witness bring us up to the present day.

Frankie, a sport promoter, spots the beautiful Vicky working as a waitress in a coffee shop and bets his buddies that he can make her the talk of the town.  He is as good as his word, taking her to posh nightspots where she gets noticed by the right people.  This all goes to Vicky’s head and her sister Jill (Betty Grable) warns her about setting off on the wrong path to no avail.  Soon enough, Vicky hears the siren call of Hollywood and walks out on Frankie, but not before informing him that Jill is in love with him.

On the day she is to leave, Vicky is found murdered in the apartment she shared with Jill. Detective Ed Cornell (Laird Cregar) considers Frankie the prime suspect.  The heat is relaxed a bit when the switchboard operator at Vicky’s building (Elijah Cook, Jr.) disappears.  But Cornell rounds him up in Brooklyn and determines he is not the killer. From here on, Cornell obsessively pursues Frankie, appearing out of nowhere to issue threats or ferret out evidence.  Finally, when Cornell is on the point of arresting him, Jill comes to the rescue and Frankie starts an investigation of his own.  With Alan Mowbray as a has-been actor and Allyn Joslin as a gossip columnist.

All the performances are adequate or better but Laird Cregar steals every single scene he is in. He is just great as the obsessed, menacing, yet strangely vulnerable copper. Other than that, this picture is notable primarily for its visual style.  It is amazing that the noir style seems to have emerged fully grown in the hands of a director and cinematographer who never utilized it before or after the making of this one film.  Worth a watch.  (See if you can count how many times the “Over the Rainbow” theme is played!)

Trailer