Classic Films in Focus: OBSESSION (1949)

Released in the United States as The Hidden Room, Edward Dmytryk's Obsession (1949) is an unusual little gem of a thriller, a strangely polite and very English story of murder, jealousy, and revenge. It makes the most of its cast and its setting to craft a thoughtful tale of suspense that never becomes showy or overdone, with especially effective use of Robert Newton and post-war London. In fact, Obsession would probably have enjoyed enduring fame had it featured bigger stars or a different director, but don't let its obscurity dissuade you from spending some time with this unique film.

Robert Newton leads as psychiatrist Clive Riordan, who gets fed up with his wife's affairs and decides to murder the next man she takes on as a lover. Unfortunately for American Bill Kronin (Phil Brown), he happens to be the next man, and Clive soon has him imprisoned in a hidden room beneath a bomb damaged area of London. Clive's wife, Storm (Sally Gray), suspects that Clive has murdered Bill but can't prove anything to the police, while Clive keeps Bill alive as long as there's a chance that Scotland Yard might deduce his role in making Bill disappear. Bill, meanwhile, suffers loneliness and anxiety in his secret prison, even as he hopes that Clive's murderous plans will ultimately fall through.

The consequences and cultural shifts that followed World War II shape the subtext of the film and make it much more sophisticated than a simple murder plot. Like The Third Man (1949), Obsession takes advantage of the ruined landscapes of post-war Europe; Clive's plot hinges on the availability of abandoned and damaged buildings in which to hide his prisoner. The film also captures a strong feeling of English resentment toward American usurpation as a result of the war; not only is Bill poaching Clive's wife, but there are American sailors lolling in the streets, and at Clive's club the conversation inevitably turns to the strange colonials and their omnipotent dollars. Bill, the interloping young American, embodies all that Clive and his peers abhor about the new order of the world, but the American influence proves inescapable, even to the indubitably English Clive.

It's easy to imagine more illustrious stars in the roles, but each actor in the film delivers a compelling performance. Newton, a character actor best remembered as Long John Silver in Treasure Island (1950), here plays a role that would have perfectly suited Claude Rains, but Newton does such a good job that Rains' absence cannot be lamented. Newton keeps Clive in a low register throughout, so that he always seems like a perfectly reasonable human being who just happens to be dead set on murdering his wife's lover. His lethal plans aren't personal as far as Bill is concerned; in fact, he's unfailingly polite to his intended victim, even when Bill cracks under stress. With his slight build, all-American persona, and casual amiability, Phil Brown might be a stand-in for Henry Fonda as Bill, whose inherent decency becomes more apparent after he pays for his caddish dalliance with another man's wife, especially when he rescues Clive's persistent little dog, Monty, from becoming a test subject for Clive's acid bath. The beautiful but unfaithful Storm might have been played by any of the classic Hitchcock blondes, but Sally Gray has the perfect jaw and disdainful gaze to convey Storm's essential nature. Naunton Wayne arrives late in the picture as the Scotland Yard superintendent, Finsbury, but he adds another aspect of the English character to the proceedings as he corners Clive through a series of seemingly harmless exchanges. One can imagine Cecil Kellaway in the part, but Wayne is precisely right for it himself, and to English audiences he would have been quite recognizable from his appearances as the comical Caldicott in previous films.

Edward Dmytryk's directorial career suffered after he was caught up in the anti-Communist hearings of the late 1940s, but for more of his work see Murder, My Sweet (1944), Crossfire (1947), and The Caine Mutiny (1954). In addition to his appearances as Long John Silver in two films and a television series, Robert Newton can be found in This Happy Breed (1944), Oliver Twist (1948), and The Desert Rats (1953). Naunton Wayne turns up as Caldicott in both The Lady Vanishes (1938) and Night Train to Munich (1940), while Sally Gray appears in Green for Danger (1947). You might not recognize Bill Kronin as a young man, but you've certainly seen him; he had in small parts in The Pink Panther Strikes Again (1976) and Superman (1978) but gained a measure of movie immortality as Luke's Uncle Owen in Star Wars: A New Hope (1977).

Classic Films in Focus: CROSSFIRE (1947)

Shadowy cinematography and a twisted murder plot make Crossfire (1947) seem like standard noir fare, but this movie also has a serious message for its audience about the dangers of prejudice and bigotry. Anti-Semitism is the particular concern, with the murder of a Jewish man setting the action in motion, but the film encourages us to recognize the connections between this type of hatred and many others. Moral purpose does not, however, lessen the entertainment value of the picture as a whole; director Edward Dmytryk has a top-notch cast to work with, including Robert Young, Robert Mitchum, and Robert Ryan, with Gloria Grahame also putting in a memorable appearance. Five Oscar nominations, including a nod for Best Picture, prove that Crossfire struck a chord in Hollywood in the late 1940s, and it still has a lot to say to viewers today.

Robert Young plays police detective Finlay, the man in charge of figuring out who killed Joseph Samuels (Sam Levene). Evidence seems to incriminate Corporal Mitchell (George Cooper), one of three soldiers known to have been drinking with Samuels at a bar that night. Mitchell's friend, Keeley (Robert Mitchum), believes that Mitchell is innocent and tries to protect him from the police until the truth can be revealed, but even Mitchell isn't quite clear about what happened. The only people who seem to know what really took place are Mitchell's companions, Montgomery (Robert Ryan) and Floyd (Steve Brodie), and they have their own reasons for letting Mitchell take the blame.

Robert Ryan earned an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his performance, which drives the picture forward and increases in intensity as the investigation proceeds. Early on, Ryan's character tries to pass himself off as an average guy and upstanding citizen, but Robert Mitchum's Keeley quickly casts doubt on his motives, and Montgomery gives himself away as a bigot with his cracks to Finlay about non-soldiers and people with "funnier names" than Samuels. Ryan plays Montgomery as a stick of dynamite always ready to explode; he shifts from false friendliness into dangerous rage at the barest provocation, making even his unit mates afraid of him. Next to Montgomery, George Cooper's Mitchell looks like a lamb led to the slaughter, and he's actually one of the film's most passive characters, drifting through a mental haze and completely led by the smarter and more active Keeley. During Mitchell's night of confused rambling, he encounters a jaded but ultimately sympathetic working girl, Ginny, played to great effect by Gloria Grahame, who also picked up an Oscar nomination for her performance.

Although anti-Semitism serves as the picture's specific focus, Crossfire invites the viewer to see this kind of prejudice as just one instance of a larger problem. Finlay draws a pointed comparison between the way Jews are mistreated in the 20th century and the way Irish Catholics were abused in the 19th, and he also observes that a minor character, Leroy (William Phipps), is subjected to similar treatment by Montgomery simply for being from Tennessee. Anti-Semitism stands in for all kinds of prejudice, even within the context of the story's production history; in The Brick Foxhole, the original novel by Richard Brooks, the subject was homophobia, but RKO knew that kind of story would never get past the Breen Office, and the screenplay changed the identity of the victim. Crossfire was not the only 1947 picture to deal with the topic of anti-Semitism; the Best Picture winner for that year was Gentleman's Agreement, in which Gregory Peck plays a reporter who pretends to be Jewish in order to find out about bigotry and prejudice for himself. Gentleman's Agreement went home with eight nominations and three wins, while Crossfire struck out with all five of its nominations, but the two movies still make for a provocative double feature.

Edward Dmytryk earned an Oscar nomination for Best Director for Crossfire; his other films include Murder, My Sweet (1944), The Caine Mutiny (1954), and Warlock (1959). See more of Robert Ryan's noir work in The Set-Up (1949), On Dangerous Ground (1951), and Bad Day at Black Rock (1955). Don't miss Robert Mitchum taking the villain's role in The Night of the Hunter (1955) and Cape Fear (1962); you'll find both Mitchum and Ryan in the 1951 noir film, The Racket. Robert Young transitioned to television and lasting fame as Marcus Welby later in his career, but for more of his work from the 1940s see Lady Be Good (1941), The Canterville Ghost (1944), and The Enchanted Cottage (1945). Gloria Grahame later won her Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in The Bad and the Beautiful (1952); she's best remembered today for roles in It's a Wonderful Life (1946), The Big Heat (1953), and Oklahoma! (1955).

Classic Films in Focus: CAPTIVE WILD WOMAN (1943)

Director Edward Dmytryk's Universal horror is not without its flaws, but Captive Wild Woman (1943) transcends its low-budget tactics with quality performances and a narrative loaded with variations on the usual genre motifs. In addition to memorable horror stars like John Carradine and Evelyn Ankers, this story of a gorilla gone wrong features the inscrutable and alluring Acquanetta as a mysterious girl who literally comes between a struggling big cat tamer and his dangerous charges. Themes of female agency and desire also make Captive Wild Woman a worthwhile picture for fans of films like Dracula's Daughter (1936) and Cat People (1942), which give the ladies a chance to be the monsters for a change.

John Carradine stars as glandular specialist Dr. Sigmund Walters, who gets acquainted with the members of the Whipple Circus when he begins to treat Dorothy, an ailing performer (Martha Vickers). Not long after Walters tours the circus grounds, a newly acquired ape named Cheela goes missing, and Walters returns with Paula, a mute but attractive girl who proves to have a strange power over the circus animals. Paula becomes an assistant to cat tamer Fred Mason (Milburn Stone), whose fiancee, Beth (Evelyn Ankers), is Dorothy's older sister. None of the circus folk suspect the truth about Paula or the dangerous relationship she has to Dorothy, but Beth soon becomes convinced that something connects Paula, Dr. Walters, and the increasing illness of her sister.

Nobody is going to be fooled by the gorilla suit version of Cheela for an instant, but the transformation sequences are handled well, and patently fake gorillas are more or less standard in films of this era. The lions and tigers, however, are terrifyingly real, although recycled footage of the cage scenes makes it painfully clear that Milburn Stone never sets foot near an actual cat. The man in those shots is famed lion tamer Clyde Beatty, who appeared as himself in several films, including The Big Cage (1933), which Captive Wild Woman borrows from liberally for its big cat sequences. Fortunately, the movie has the irresistible screen presence of John Carradine to make up the weakness of Stone as a leading man. No special effects are necessary to make Carradine the epitome of the obsessed scientist who pursues his forbidden research at any cost, including the life of his nurse (Fay Helm).

As memorable as Carradine is, Captive Wild Woman is really about its women, especially Paula and Beth, who advance the plot in between Fred's bouts with the big cats. Acquanetta has the perfect look for Paula; like Kathleen Burke as the Panther Woman in Island of Lost Souls (1932), Acquanetta has a wild, exotic beauty that mingles innocence and menace. Her racial ambiguity was a key part of her Hollywood persona, although claims that she was really African-American add a troublesome subtext to her role as a half-human, half-animal being. Evelyn Ankers is the film's real protagonist; her character, Beth, struggles to protect her sister and solve the mystery of Paula's identity. Fred has his hands full at the circus, so it's up to Beth to confront Dr. Walters and save Dorothy, which Ankers' determined heroine is perfectly capable of doing. Fred, meanwhile, has to be saved on more than one occasion by Paula, although why either she or Beth like him is beyond anyone's ability to guess.

Be warned that the animal act sequences are violent, abusive, and not for the squeamish. The Big Cage was shot before the American Humane Association began monitoring productions in 1940. Captive Wild Woman did well enough to warrant a sequel, Jungle Woman (1944), which reunited Acquanetta, Ankers, and Stone for another confrontation. See more of Ankers in The Wolf Man (1941), The Ghost of Frankenstein (1942), and Son of Dracula (1943), and check out Carradine's turns as Count Dracula himself in House of Frankenstein (1944) and House of Dracula (1945). You might recognize Martha Vickers for her other role as a little sister in The Big Sleep (1946). Edward Dmytryk, though a prolific director, did not generally make horror; his best known films include Murder, My Sweet (1944), Crossfire (1947), and The Caine Mutiny (1954).

Classic Films in Focus: MURDER, MY SWEET (1944)

Several actors have played Raymond Chandler’s hard-boiled detective, Philip Marlowe, in memorable films: Humphrey Bogart took on the role in The Big Sleep (1946), Robert Montgomery tried it in Lady in the Lake (1947), and Elliott Gould offered a neo-noir version in The Long Goodbye (1973). George Montgomery, Robert Mitchum, and James Garner have all donned Marlowe’s mantle, as well, but the most surprising actor to appear as the noir icon might be former crooner Dick Powell, who stars as the first big screen Marlowe in Edward Dmytryk’s highly regarded Murder, My Sweet (1944). Joining Powell for this wild, dark ride are Claire Trevor and Anne Shirley as members of a murderously dysfunctional family who pull the detective into a series of deadly encounters. With its fatal females, sardonic voiceover, and tangled passions, Murder, My Sweet has all the hallmarks we associate with classic noir style, although it also offers surreal thrills thanks to Marlowe’s psychotropic adventures.

Powell’s Marlowe is first drawn into his latest case by newly paroled muscle man, Moose (Mike Mazurki), who wants the detective to track down an old flame. Before he can do much with that job, Marlowe finds himself drawn into another mystery when he plays bodyguard to a man who ends up being killed on Marlowe’s watch. The murderer’s trail leads Marlowe to the wealthy Grayle family, where trophy wife Helen (Claire Trevor) is trying to recover a stolen jade necklace given to her by her elderly husband (Miles Mander). Helen’s stepdaughter Ann (Anne Shirley) dislikes Marlowe but wants to protect her father from whatever trouble Helen has caused. Marlowe, however, isn’t sure whether he can trust any of the Grayles, especially since his two cases seem to be strangely entwined.

The story is told in flashback, and in the opening we meet Powell sitting in a police interrogation room with bandaged eyes and a crowd of unfriendly cops, so we know Marlowe’s adventure isn’t going to be any walk in the park. In fact, Marlowe really takes a beating; he gets hit over the head, strangled, drugged, shot at, locked up, and hounded by the police throughout the picture. Murder, My Sweet ventures into really bizarre territory when Marlowe is shot full of mind-altering drugs and experiences hallucinations worthy of a Twilight Zone episode, but the segment works with the unlucky detective’s repeated trips to the “black pool” of unconsciousness. For a guy who’s supposed to be thinking fast, Marlowe spends a lot of time in the dark, an irony not lost on the picture’s attitude toward its dazed protagonist and convoluted plot.

Powell originally gained fame as a musical star in Busby Berkeley productions like 42nd Street (1933), but he plays cat and mouse with Claire Trevor just as well as he had sung to Ruby Keeler. He has a perfect voice for Marlowe's narration and throws his wry lines around with a jaded, casual cool. Powell’s cast mates give him plenty to work with, especially Claire Trevor as the sexy, secretive wife and Mike Mazurki as the tough mug with a one-track mind. Otto Kruger is ominously urbane as Jules Amthor, a crooked psychiatrist who abuses his relationship with his clients in a lucrative, if grossly unethical, manner, although Mazurki is so interesting as both a physical presence and a character that his henchman really overshadows the more intellectual boss.

Murder, My Sweet is required viewing for classic noir fans; try a double bill with one of the other Marlowe pictures for different takes on Chandler's streetwise detective. Catch the lighter side of Dick Powell in Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933), Footlight Parade (1933), and Dames (1934). Claire Trevor won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in Key Largo (1948); she also has memorable roles in Dead End (1937), Stagecoach (1939), and Raw Deal (1948). Anne Shirley earned her own Best Supporting Actress nomination for Stella Dallas (1937), which put her in direct competition with Trevor that year, although both lost to Alice Brady for In Old Chicago (1937). Look for Mike Mazurki's distinctive face in many films from the 1940s and 50s, including The Canterville Ghost (1944), Nightmare Alley (1947), and Some Like It Hot (1959). Edward Dmytryk also directed Back to Bataan (1945), The Caine Mutiny (1954), and Raintree County (1957).