Classic Films in Focus: ALIAS NICK BEAL (1949)

The Faust story has inspired many revisions over the centuries, so it's no surprise that director John Farrow's 1949 film noir, Alias Nick Beal, re-imagines the familiar tale of a man who sells his soul to the devil and comes to regret the bargain. In this version, however, it's not the Faust character who gets top billing, but the Devil himself, aka Nick Beal, brilliantly played by Ray Milland with suave menace and brimstone eyes. Thomas Mitchell's tempted attorney seems rather mild to warrant such a satanic charmer, but Audrey Totter's reluctant seductress makes a perfect feminine (and ultimately very human) foil to Milland's diabolical antagonist. It's a bit too tame and moral - especially in the final scenes - to be a truly outstanding adaptation of the tale, but Milland and Totter make it well worth viewing.

Thomas Mitchell plays righteous district attorney Joseph Foster, who unwittingly summons the demonic Nick Beal (Ray Milland) when he says he would give his soul to convict a notorious local criminal. Nick soon enables Foster to realize his goal and also promotes his candidacy for governor, but his help inevitably pushes Foster into deeper entanglements and more unethical situations. Foster's wife, Martha (Geraldine Wall), and friend, Reverend Garfield (George Macready), try to warn Foster against Nick's machinations, but Nick enlists the help of the attractive Donna Allen (Audrey Totter) to undermine Foster's marriage. By the time Foster climbs the steps of the governor's mansion, he realizes how far Nick has caused him to stray from his original ethics, but the only way out might literally lead him through the gates of Hell.

As its title and billing hierarchy imply, this movie belongs to its villain, and the good man exists mostly to give the Devil something to do. I don't mean to malign Thomas Mitchell, who is truly brilliant in films like Stagecoach (1939) and Gone with the Wind (1939), but his character, like Adam and Eve in Milton's Paradise Lost, proves far less interesting than the infernal antagonist. Milland has a way with dangerous, sly types that makes him absolutely perfect for the role. If you've seen him in Dial M for Murder (1954), or the less familiar So Evil My Love (1948), you know what a terrific heel he makes, and with Nick Beal he gets to inhabit an inhuman being of pure evil. Beal never makes much of a secret of his identity, even remarking to the Reverend Garfield that Rembrandt painted his portrait, and he simply appears and disappears wherever he likes. The human characters eventually catch on to his supernatural nature, but it takes Foster a surprisingly long time to confront the fact that he really has made a deal with the Devil.

Audrey Totter has long been a particular favorite of mine, and here she's perfectly cast as the temptress struggling with pangs of conscience over her part in Foster's corruption. Nobody aims a hard, hateful glare better than Totter, but she also shows her mastery of more complex emotions like fear, doubt, and deep regret. We first meet Donna at the low point of her life thus far, and Nick clearly believes she'll stoop to anything for a little worldly comfort. For a while she plays along, posing as a civic-minded socialite to infiltrate Foster's personal and political circles. Once she gets to know both Foster and Nick better, she proves that she's not nearly as morally bankrupt as Nick would like, although she finds him impossible to escape. Totter's performance helps to elevate Donna; she's far more than a mere phantom of desire like Faust's Helen of Troy and a more serious character than Lola in Damn Yankees (1958). After her role as Donna, Totter moved on to play both a faithful wife in The Set-Up (1949) and a truly vicious femme fatale in Tension (1949), but Alias Nick Beal gives her a complex character who possesses both good and evil qualities.

 John Farrow earned an Oscar nomination for Best Director for his work on the WWII war picture, Wake Island (1942), and he won Best Adapted Screenplay as a writer for Around the World in 80 Days (1956). His other noir pictures include The Big Clock (1948), Where Danger Lives (1950), and His Kind of Woman (1951). Ray Milland won Best Actor for The Lost Weekend (1945), but for lighter roles see him in The Major and the Minor (1942) and Rhubarb (1951). For more of Audrey Totter, try Lady in the Lake (1946) and The Unsuspected (1947). If you're interested in other classic films inspired by the Faust story, check out The Devil and Daniel Webster (1941), Angel on My Shoulder (1946), Bedazzled (1967), Doctor Faustus (1967), or the cult classic musical, Phantom of the Paradise (1974).

Drug Store Delilah: Audrey Totter in TENSION (1949)

Audrey Totter is one of many actresses we naturally associate with noir; her best remembered films include noir classics like Lady in the Lake (1947) and The Set-Up (1949), and she also appears in a supporting role in The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946). Less well known than these other pictures is director John Berry’s 1949 MGM film, Tension, in which Totter stars as one of film noir’s nastiest femmes fatales, an adulterous wife who drives her milquetoast husband to change his identity and contemplate murder. While noir devotees may disagree about the overall merits of the picture, Tension undoubtedly provides Totter with a fabulously unrestrained example of the bad girl type, and her Claire Quimby merits a place in the film noir hall of dangerous dames right alongside Phyllis Dietrichson, Kathie Moffat, and Elsa Bannister.

Totter’s character, Claire, is the wife of Warren Quimby, a mild-mannered pharmacist played by Richard Basehart. While Warren works the late shift at an all-night drug store, Claire carries on an affair with a hairy lug named Barney Deager (Lloyd Gough) because he has money and a more macho personality, and eventually she leaves Warren altogether. Humiliated by a confrontation with his wife’s lover, Warren plots an elaborate scheme to murder Barney, but his plans falter when he meets Mary (Cyd Charisse) and begins to fall in love with her, just as he finally realizes that his wife is no good.

From her very first appearance Totter oozes malice and selfishness; her viper’s eyes brim with disdain for her husband and the life he provides for them. Even the way she eats a sandwich reveals her crass, wasteful nature; she only takes a few bites of it before moving on to pie. For reasons we never quite grasp, Warren lives only to serve her, but she gives him the cold shoulder and sends him scurrying back to his customers. Freddie, the soda fountain jerk, recognizes her ability to wreck men’s lives without a second thought and begs her not to flirt with him. “Don’t stink me up,” he implores. Claire finds his fear of her amusing. “OK, Junior,” she says, even as she makes him lie to Warren when she leaves with another man.

Like many of noir’s bad women, Claire cares most about material possessions and status. “What’s better than money?” she asks early on, and she isn’t being sarcastic. Her eyes linger lustfully on a fur coat in a magazine, but she does nothing to help earn the money she wants to spend. She expects men to give her everything that she desires, and it’s clear that her husband isn’t measuring up. When Warren protests her appropriation of an expensive bottle of perfume from the pharmacy’s stock, she retorts, “A big guy would spend this much on me in one evening,” and then she proceeds to more or less take a bath in the stuff, daring her unhappy spouse to stop her. Claire dominates her husband with a baleful glare, constantly belittling and abusing him, even as she puts on her best, most feminine airs for Barney and, later, the homicide detective Collier Bonnabel.

In another key scene, Totter embodies the femme fatale’s rejection of bourgeois feminine ideals of domesticity and motherhood. Warren has secretly saved his money to buy the couple a real home in the suburbs, which he naively assumes is the kind of life Claire wants. When they arrive at the house, however, Claire refuses even to get out of the car. Once again giving Warren a poisonous stare, Claire drowns out his remonstrances and pleas by leaning on the car horn. She wants no part of middle-class monotony, and very shortly afterward she decamps with her lover, whose beachfront property offers something more like the constant party Claire imagines as the good life.

Audrey Totter’s performance really sells the depth and intensity of Claire’s rotten heart. She never lets us think that Claire has any real class; she’s a two-bit tramp through and through, ready to jump from one convenient lover to the next in order to look out for her own immediate interests. Like the painted doll she carries around with her, Claire is pretty but vulgar, and we’re not surprised late in the picture to learn that she has a long criminal record lurking in her past. Totter plays Claire without any redeeming qualities; she’s a lethal combination of vanity, greed, and deception. André Previn’s score also provides Claire with a slinky theme that highlights her lack of subtlety; whenever she enters a room the music reminds us that she’s all kinds of trouble, especially for Warren. Unlike many of noir’s other deadly dames, Claire never comes across as a strong character; instead, she is grasping and vicious because she is weak. A human parasite, she needs men to earn money for her, protect her, and lie for her, but even as she feeds off of them she poisons them with her own venomous nature.

Totter’s drug store Delilah makes Tension essential viewing for those interested in the femme fatale archetype, and the character provides a pointed contrast to Totter’s turn as the anguished, sympathetic wife in The Set-Up. Totter also offers a different take on the bad blonde in The Unsuspected (1947), in which she plays Claude Rains’ duplicitous, gold-digging niece. Although Audrey Totter never became a huge star, and her film career stalled in the 1950s, she made an indelible mark on film noir with her performances. When it came to being a bad girl, she was truly one of the best.

This essay originally appeared in The Dark Pages, a newsletter devoted to film noir. Follow the link to subscribe.

Classic Films in Focus: THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE (1946)

Adapted from the novel by James M. Cain, The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946) delivers all of the classic noir conventions, with a special emphasis on the ironic workings of fate. Tay Garnett directs this MGM contribution to film noir, which features an iconic performance from Lana Turner as the resident femme fatale, along with John Garfield and Cecil Kellaway as the doomed flies caught in her attractive web. Leon Ames and Hume Cronyn also make memorable appearances as a pair of lawyers who care more about competition than actual justice. Modern critical opinion of Postman goes both ways; David Thomson applauds it, while David N. Meyer derides it, but it's still required viewing for any serious noir fan.

Garfield is drifter Frank Chambers, who takes a "Man Wanted" position at a roadside station because of the owner's seductive wife, Cora (Lana Turner). Frank and Cora begin an affair, but Nick (Cecil Kellaway) seems like an impossible obstacle to their happiness, and they start to imagine their lives without him standing in the way. When Nick announces his plan to sell the station and take Cora away to Canada, the lovers rush into desperate action, but the district attorney (Leon Ames) has his eye on the murderous pair, and their plot becomes far more complicated than they intended.

Each of the three main characters is a loser in his or her own way, but Postman presents them in shades of gray that slowly slip toward black. Kellaway's Nick seems jovial and kindly at first, until we realize how tight-fisted and dictatorial he is, especially where Cora is concerned. When Frank and Cora first think of killing him, we feel bad for the old man, but his abrupt decision to force Cora to Canada to play nurse for his invalid sister goes a long way toward justifying the second attempt. Cora just wants to make something of the diner. She isn't afraid of hard work, and at first she resists Frank's advances. "You won't find anything cheap around here," she tells him. As her spotless white outfits shift to black, however, she reveals a dangerous jealousy and even mental instability. What kind of mother would such a woman have made? We get the feeling that Junior might have grown up to be the Norman Bates of the Twin Oaks establishment, had fate not conveniently stepped in. Frank himself is the first to blame; he only takes the job to chase Cora, and he doesn't let up until it finally dawns on him that he might be in over his head. He does try, at least, to walk out, but by then he has already set the dominoes in motion.

Oddly enough, the most despicable people in the film are the lawyers, played with predatory cunning by Leon Ames and Hume Cronyn. Ames' district attorney pretends to be on the side of justice, but he seems perfectly content to let Frank and Cora commit murder so that he can prosecute them, when he actually has plenty of opportunity to stop the murder from happening in the first place. His moral posturing at the movie's end reeks of irony, given his cavalier bet with the opposition about the earlier trial's outcome and his willingness to make plea deals. Cronyn's Arthur Keats lacks even the veneer of morality; he's a sharper, as crooked as they come, and ready to do everything but commit murder himself to control the verdict in Cora's trial. Cronyn is so gloriously sleazy that he more or less steals the movie every time he shows up, and that's quite a feat when Lana Turner's ample charms are on display.

Audrey Totter, another notable femme fatale, adds an extra touch of irony as the girl Frank runs off with when he gets mad at Cora; he clearly has a thing for dangerous curves. Take note of Fred Flintstone voice actor Alan Reed as the lumbering crook, Kennedy. For more from Tay Garnett, try China Seas (1935), The Cross of Lorraine (1943), and The Valley of Decision (1945). Cain's novel was also adapted in Italy as Ossessione (1943), which makes a provocative double feature with Postman. See John Garfield in They Made Me a Criminal (1939), Tortilla Flat (1942), and Gentleman's Agreement (1947). Lana Turner turns heads in Love Finds Andy Hardy (1938), Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941), and The Three Musketeers (1948). Don't miss Cecil Kellaway in Harvey (1950) and Hush... Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964), and be sure to appreciate Hume Cronyn in Lifeboat (1944). Leon Ames is probably best remembered today as the Smith family patriarch in Meet Me in St. Louis (1944), but you'll also find him in Lady in the Lake (1947) and Little Women (1949).

Classic Films in Focus: THE SET-UP (1949)

With Robert Ryan as his punching bag protagonist, director Robert Wise delivers one of film noir’s most staggering blows with The Set-Up (1949), an unsparing revelation of boxing’s dark side and the bloodthirsty nature of the crowd. Playing out in real time, The Set-Up follows Ryan’s veteran boxer through one fateful night in his career, where the violence of his life in the ring is contrasted by the anxious tenderness of his wife. The fight scenes in this movie are justly celebrated for their realism, but the heart of The Set-Up lies in the wrenching performances of Robert Ryan and Audrey Totter, who press upon us the human cost of other people’s business and pleasure.

Ryan plays Bill “Stoker” Thompson, a twenty-year veteran of the ring whose manager (George Tobias) arranges for him to lose a fight without informing Stoker himself. Stoker believes that he can win the match; he pines for the moral support of his wife, Julie (Audrey Totter), but she can no longer bear to see him take a beating before the pitiless mobs of spectators who fill the stands every night. Little does Stoker know that if he wins the fight he will have to face the wrath of the dangerous mobster Little Boy (Alan Baxter) and his vicious thugs.

The camera shows us two sides of the boxing world, reversing our sense of who is the more violent, the fighter or the spectator for whom he fights. The boxers, gathered in their locker room, embody dignity, resignation, and mutual respect. Even a young black boxer is treated as an equal and a brother, while a nervous first-timer receives encouragement from the battle-scarred elders. The crowd, on the other hand, pulses with murderous inhumanity; even those we most expect to show pity have none. A blind man and an old woman scream for blood as lustily as any of their peers; they care nothing for the men whose bodies are broken to provide them with a night’s amusement. As brutal as the actual fight scenes are, they are nothing compared to the monstrous appetite of the insatiable crowd.

Audrey Totter, usually associated with femme fatale roles, delivers one of the best performances of her career as Julie, who remains outside throughout the fight. Julie’s anguish reminds us that the fighters are not only human beings but husbands, lovers, fathers, and sons. Each blow that lands wounds a body loved by someone who becomes another casualty of the bloody sport. Unable to bear witness to another fight, Julie roams the city, her eyes filled with anxious hope and terrible dread. To her the aging boxer is not “Stoker” but Bill, the man she loves too much to endure the gory spectacle of his suffering. Still, she will not be spared; her reunion with Bill in the final moments of the film offers a tender but tragic coda to the cruelty that has come before.

Be sure to appreciate David Clarke in a brief but effective appearance as the battered older boxer, Gunboat Johnson. Robert Wise’s other noir films include Born to Kill (1947), Blood on the Moon (1948), and The House on Telegraph Hill (1951), although he is better remembered today as the Oscar-winning director of West Side Story (1961) and The Sound of Music (1965). See more of Robert Ryan in Crossfire (1947), On Dangerous Ground (1951), and Bad Day at Black Rock (1955). Audrey Totter also stars in Lady in the Lake (1947), The Unsuspected (1947), and Tension (1949). Milton R. Krasner, the cinematographer who shot The Set-Up, earned seven Oscar nominations over the course of his career and worked on more than 150 films, including All About Eve (1950), Three Coins in the Fountain (1954), and How the West was Won (1962).

Classic Films in Focus: THE UNSUSPECTED (1947)

Michael Curtiz’s 1947 thriller, The Unsuspected, puts Claude Rains back into the kind of role he had already played with great success in films like Casablanca (1942) and Notorious (1946), so it’s no surprise that he’s equally compelling as Victor Grandison, the suave but manipulative radio host who is really this picture’s protagonist. Fans of the incomparable Rains will enjoy The Unsuspected because it focuses on his character and gives him a series of excellent scenes in which to work out Grandison’s various moods, although the romantic leads aren’t able to hold the screen against their more interesting costar. Despite a few weak spots that hold it back from true greatness, The Unsuspected is certainly worth watching if you like Claude Rains, and it also offers some memorable performances from Audrey Totter, Hurd Hatfield, and Constant Bennett.

Rains dominates the movie as the “genial host” of a murder mystery radio show, who lives with his vicious niece, Althea (Audrey Totter), and her drunken husband, Oliver (Hurd Hatfield), in a mansion that actually belongs to Grandison’s ward, the naive Matilda (Joan Caulfield). When Matilda unexpectedly returns home after being presumed drowned in a shipwreck, she finds not only her familiar housemates but also Steven (Ted North), a mysterious young man who claims to be her husband. Murder, mystery, and hysteria ensue as the apparent suicide of Grandison’s secretary is revealed to be foul play, and the chief suspects are the residents of Matilda’s own home.

A strong Gothic quality hangs over the whole plot, with the imperiled heiress constantly under siege from one quarter or another. Her sanity is already questionable because of the shock of being lost at sea, and the events that unfold do little to improve her mental health. Like Paula Alquist in Gaslight (1944) or Lina McLaidlaw in Suspicion (1941), Matilda Frazier spends much of the story coming unglued, but Joan Caulfield lacks the presence of an Ingrid Bergman or a Joan Fontaine. We never see enough spine in this heroine to root for her or really fear for her safety. In fact, Caulfield’s Matilda is such a milquetoast that it’s easy to see why Althea hates her and much more difficult to understand her appeal to either Steven or Oliver. Steven also comes off as a bland, straight arrow sort, which undermines his guise as the forgotten husband. Joseph Cotten or Cary Grant might have played his role with a little more menace and uncertainty, but Ted North, credited as Michael North, can’t muster the necessary subtlety, and this role would prove to be his last screen appearance.

As problematic as the lovers might be, there are several solid players giving top-notch performances here. Rains, of course, puts his talent for slippery types to excellent use, and his hypnotizing voice makes him a perfect choice for a radio host. The great Audrey Totter oozes malice as nasty Althea, who steals Oliver from Matilda just for spite and quickly gets to work on Steven when she finds out that he belongs to Matilda, too. Hurd Hatfield, best remembered today as the title character in the 1945 adaptation of The Picture of Dorian Gray, here looks more like Dorian’s ruined portrait than his ageless original, with the decay of alcohol and self-loathing heavy on his brow. He makes us pity Oliver even as we deplore the weakness that leaves him vulnerable to Althea’s predatory charms. Constance Bennett has a small but effective part as Jane, who works for Grandison and is deeply interested in finding out who killed his secretary. Unlike Matilda and Althea, who could easily relocate to a Gothic castle, Jane is a thoroughly modern woman, cheerful, smart, and independent. Her no-nonsense attitude and strong moral character make her the only female character in the movie who is never in the slightest bit of danger.

Be sure to appreciate comedian Fred Clark in a supporting role as Richard Donovan. See more of Claude Rains in The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), and The Wolf Man (1941). You’ll find Audrey Totter in The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946), Tension (1949), and The Set Up (1949). Michael Curtiz also directed Angels with Dirty Faces (1938), Mildred Pierce (1945), and White Christmas (1954). For even more Gothic thrillers, try Rebecca (1940), Jane Eyre (1943), and Dragonwyck (1946).

The Unsuspected is available on DVD from Warner Archive.

Classic Films in Focus: TENSION (1949)

Noir films like The Maltese Falcon (1941) and Double Indemnity (1944) hover at the very top of our culture's cinematic consciousness, but many of the B movies that helped to define classic noir style have not fared as well. Directed by John Berry, Tension (1949) is a more obscure example of noir, but it remains an extremely entertaining film, in large part because of Audrey Totter's portrayal of an outrageously vicious femme fatale. For those who are new to noir, Tension might well be a perfect primer of the conventions and characters that form its hallmarks, and seasoned aficionados will find much to admire in this short, snappy picture, as well.

Totter dominates the screen as the incorrigible Claire Quimby, a two-timing wife whose boredom with her meek pharmacist husband (Richard Basehart) leads her to look for greener pastures. When Claire runs off with the loutish Barney Deager (Lloyd Gough), Warren Quimby vows to take his revenge on Deager and thereby prove himself manly enough to win his wife back. Quimby assumes a new identity in order to facilitate his murderous plans, but he begins to question his decision when his attractive new neighbor (Cyd Charisse) presents him with a second chance at love. After Deager turns up dead, both of the Quimbys must deal with the consequences of their actions and the investigation of a dogged police detective (Barry Sullivan), who senses the tension between them.

Basehart makes for a sympathetic hero, particularly once he wises up to the fact that his wife is no good, and his early scenes as the milquetoast doormat also have their charms. Cyd Charisse, long and lovely, serves as an elegant foil to Totter's heartless vamp, but the audience's attention belongs to the bad girl, nonetheless. Totter really works the image of the femme fatale as a creature of base desires; there is nothing refined or even very mysterious about her. Even the way she eats a sandwich communicates the essential aspects of her character - greedy, crass, and wasteful. Utterly faithless and interested only in material pleasures, she has no patience with her husband's domestic fantasies, although she proves more than willing to use him once Deager turns up dead. In one particularly telling scene, she flatly rejects Warren's hard-earned purchase of a family home, scorning the roles of mother and wife that he assumes she must desire. Unwillingly even to leave the car, she drowns out his mild protestations with the vulgar blast of the auto horn. In every scene, she's delightfully horrid, trampy, and false, making it that much more awful that a nice guy like Warren is seriously planning to murder another man just to get her back.

Director John Berry also helmed the John Garfield noir, He Ran All the Way (1951). You'll find Richard Basehart in other noir films like He Walked by Night (1948) and The House on Telegraph Hill (1951), as well as in Federico Fellini's masterpiece, La Strada (1954). Cyd Charisse is better remembered for her dancing in musicals like The Harvey Girls (1946), Singin' in the Rain (1952), and Brigadoon (1954). For more of the fabulous Audrey Totter, see The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946), Lady in the Lake (1947), The Unsuspected (1947), and The Set-Up (1949).

An earlier version of this review originally appeared on Examiner.com. The author retains all rights to this content.