Dangerous Crossing (1953): Jeanne Crain Goes Crazy.... Or Does She?

Folks who follow this blog and its corresponding page on Facebook know what a fan I am of 1940's/50's cutie Jeanne Crain.  She never made it into the really big time but she had quite a run at 20th Century-Fox while it lasted.  Well, in 1953 that run ended and one of her last vehicles at the studio which had been her cinematic home for a decade, was Dangerous Crossing, a low(er) budget mystery-suspenser that did little to furthur her career or the careers of anyone associated with it.  However, it was the very first Jeanne Crain film I ever saw as a youngster and, though not very plausible at times, it really is a fun and suspenseful potboiler.

Based on a 1943 radio play called "B-13" by noted mystery writer John Dixon Carr, Dangerous Crossing follows the they're-crazy-as-a-bat, they-claim-their-relative-vanished-but-they-were-never-there-in-the-first-place plotline.  This style of mystery had been filmed several times before and would be afterward.  Besides Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes, one notable version of the theme was So Long at the Fair (1950), a British historical mystery with Jean Simmons.  Dangerous Crossing was actually remade as a TV movie in the 90's called Treacherous Crossing with Lindsay Wagner.

Ruth Bowman (maiden name Stanton) is a wealthy and beautiful yet emotionally unstable (or so it would appear) young bride (or so she says).  Okay, okay, I know I'm being vague here so I'll just get to it.  Ruth is on a passenger ship bound for England on her honeymoon.  We see her.  We see her groom, John.  The thing is, no one else sees them together on the ship and he up and disappears, making beautiful, confused Ruth seem off her rocker.  It's no wonder, as she is listed on the passenger list as Ruth Stanton and there is no Bowman listed.  To make matters worse when her past is looked into, she seems to have had some emotional issues regarding her father's death.

She interacts with various passengers and crew members as the puzzle just gets more and more tangled.  Among those trying to help her, either solve her mystery or just keep her sedated, is the handsome ship's doctor, Paul Manning (Michael Rennie; you knew he wouldn't be a troll, didn't you?).  As frustrated as she is with her situation, she can't help but be attracted to the tall doctor who is genuinely trying to help her.  So where's her husband?  Or did he even really exist?

As stated above, I love Jeanne Crain.  Her beauty and elegance are top notch in my book and she brought some fine performances to the table when challenged.  This, however, wasn't one of the most challenging ones.  She races around the ship with wide eyes expecting to see Frankenstein's monster at every turn.  When she's happy she's ecstatic and when she's stressed (which is often here) she takes the wide-eyed approach.  She's still lovely though and the movie is still fun.

Besides Crain and Rennie, the cast is scattered with various character actors of the day.  Longtime supporting actress Mary Anderson is on board (couldn't help the pun) as a stewardess who seems to know more than she should.  Casey Adams (aka Max Showalter), a Fox regular, oogles, respectfully of course, Crain as the ships Second Officer, and as the long lost hubby is Carl Betz, betz...uh, er best known as Dr. Alex Stone on the 1950's television comedy "The Donna Reed Show."  Also notable is a friendly and attractive passenger who befriends Ruth, Kay Prentiss, played by Marjorie Hoshelle, who just happened to be Mrs. Jeff Chandler in real life.

When she decided to leave 20th Century-Fox after ten years there, Crain said:  "Fox was wonderful to me but I wasn't happy for the last few years.  I wasn't permitted to go to other studios on loan-outs, and lost the leads in Quo Vadis and Carrie.  Other girls were signed for the roles I wantedat my own studio.  I asked for singing and dancing roles, but the answer was always 'no.'  Now, after ten years, maybe I'll get my big chance."  She didn't.  Nonetheless, she DID get to try a few different characterizations, as with Man Without a Star as a redheaded tough, yet glamorous, ranch owner, out to tame Kirk Douglas and The Joker is Wild (1957) with Frank Sinatra.  When she and Betty Grable, who left Fox shortly after, ended their tenure at the studio, their portraits in the Fox commissary were replaced by images of Terry Moore and Jean Peters.

Uncle Silas (1947): Gothic Thriller, British Style

Filmmaking in England during the 1940's, in many cases, was an adventure in visual design. Whether strong crayon coated Technicolor or chiroscuro laden black and white, the photography was exquisite and historical dramas were draped with period costumes and interiors that displayed the most intricate detail. Uncle Silas (1947), known in the United States as The Inheritance, is a perfect example of how these creative elements came together, along with atmospheric music and distinctive acting to fashion a stylized installment of 40's British cinema. It is an English Gothic thriller in the most traditional "Gothic" sense, with a dark, mysterious castle, hidden passages, and danger lurking around every musty, candle lit corner for its young and unsuspecting herione.

The film's star, Jean Simmons, was in the bloom of youthful beauty in 1947. She had played young Estella in David Lean's Great Expectations the previous year, appeared in Powell and Pressburger's Black Narcissus the same year as this picture and would star as Ophelia in Olivier's Hamlet the following year, quite a resume for an 18 year old young lady. In Uncle Silas Simmons plays Caroline Ruthyn, a teenaged heiress who goes to live with her mysterious uncle upon her beloved father's death. Silas (Derrick De Marney) is a creepy degenerate, shady past and all, who is after his niece's sizable fortune, unbeknownst to her. The damsel only sees a loving and exciting uncle until the veneer starts to crumble and her existence becomes one of a prisoner, her jailor the weird and rambuncteous Madame de la Rougierre (Katina Paxinou). Throw in Silas' amoral son and you have our fair maiden facing danger at every turn, with only Lord Richard Ilbury (Derek Bond) and a boy hero to come to her aid.

Uncle Silas is based on a novel of the same name by writer J. Sheridan Le Fanu, an Irish author of eerie ghost stories. Directed by Charles Frank, who also directed the Simmons Victorian suspenser So Long at the Fair (1950), it features the moody cinematography of Robert Krasker (an Oscar winner in 1949 for The Third Man), whose lighting and camera shots produce pieces of Gothic art. Sharing the front of the camera with Simmons were scenery chewers Derrick De Marney and Katina Paxinou. A madwoman on speed, Paxinou is a Greek fireball letting it all hang out, literally eating every scene she is in with over the top face mugging and gesturing. These two make a ham dinner look like an after school snack. Seriously, De Marney's performance is more irritating than menacing. His character is supposed to reek of evil, but instead comes off silly and annoying. The pair are cut some slack merely because the story itself is a melodrama of the old order, so that their pantomime performances seem to fit right in with all the shenanigans.

There are times when the movie's pacing is a bit slow, others where the suspense is high. With high marks on the visual and creative elements, mediocre ratings for De Marney and Paxinou's cartoon caricatures and fair to low scores for overall pacing, the film is still very watchable. As previously stated, it is a great example of the British playbill in the mid to late 40's and early 50's.

Cast a Dark Shadow (1955): Bluebeard Bogarde

Dirk Bogarde was a cinema star of international magnitude in the 1960’s and 70’s, his films being screened across Europe and North America. In the 50’s however, his star shone mostly in Britain (albeit shown very brightly) and he was cast in a variety of roles including the comedic “Doctor” series. But some of his best roles from this period and precursors of those parts which made him a mega star, were those which cast him in a dark shadow. How’s THAT for a segue way?

Cast a Dark Shadow (1955) is a shadowy suspenser, very British and highly enjoyable. Bogarde plays Edward “Teddy” Bare (really, Teddy Bare?), a modern day Bluebeard, an unsavory charmer of well-off widows. As the film opens, Teddy is married to the much older Monica or ’Monnie’ as he affectionately calls her (Mona Washbourne). Innocent and trusting Monnie enjoys her drink a little more than she should, thanks to the coaching of her lay about husband. Unbeknownst to Teddy, she means to change her will in his favor, leaving him everything. Believing she is meeting with her attorney to adjust her estate without him in mind, he kills her, making it appear an accident, she being the victim of a gas fireplace. He later discovers he has slain the goose AND done away with the golden eggs.

Running low on funds (as most gigolos) our Teddy Bare seeks the green pastures of a recently widowed barkeep, Freda, who is coarse, loud and heavily endowed financially. Freda (convincingly played by Brit powerhouse Margaret Lockwood) is no shrinking violet and takes the slick Mr. Bare on toe to toe. They marry with the new Missus thinking her husband has as much spinach as she herself. He soon realizes Freda is no soft touch and his eye turns to a new, attractive widow in town named Charlotte (Kay Walsh).

Shadow is based on a play called “Murder Mistaken” by British playwright Janet Green. It has twists, turns and is a bit Hitchcockian in feel, Agatha Christie in theme. The deep black and white photography is brought to the screen via cinematographer Jack Asher, who would shoot many of the best known Hammer thrillers later in the decade and into the next. And not to be left out is the performance by Kathleen Harrison as Emmy, the slow witted, guileless servant, a role very similar to the one she played in her more famous film, the 1951 version of A Christmas Carol.

The 39 Steps (1935): Hitchcock Breaks Through

“If it's a good movie, the sound could go off and the audience would still have a perfectly clear idea of what was going on.” ~ Alfred Hitchcock

This statement by Hitchcock sums up perfectly his attitude about directing the film that really made the public sit up and take notice of his talent, both in England and the United States. It is the inspiration for his creative, yet very straightforward direction of The 39 Steps (1935), a movie still revered today for its masterful style and pacing. It’s been remade more than once, but none have begun to touch the Hitchcock bravura.

As the film begins, in an English music hall, the mood is very raucous and lighthearted, and one wonders where the trademark Alfred Hitchcock suspense will enter in. That alone makes it exciting, because you know it will, just not where and how. But enter it does and with both a vengeance and the director’s panache. The featured act at the theater is a novelty called “Mr. Memory”, a fellow who is a walking encyclopedia and as he is spouting his wisdom to the jeering crowd a shot is heard, leading to mass hysteria. Richard Hannay (Robert Donat) is a Canadian visiting London, who gets caught up in the frantic hustle bustle to find an exit. In all the pandemonium, he meets a mysterious foreign lady who nervously persuades him to take her back to his lodging. Turns out Miss Mata Hari is a secret agent, being sought out by a couple of nasties who are scoping out Hannay’s building. Our hero Hannay thinks she’s not exactly on the up and up at first, but quickly sees which way the wind is blowing when the spy falls upon him in the night with a knife in her back. With a dead body in his place and knowledge passed on to him by the mysterious mademoiselle, he takes it on the lamb with both the police and foreign agents on his tail.

He goes from one scrape to another, and eventually meets up with a blonde maiden fair (Madeleine Carroll), who, thinking him the murdering monster he has been painted by the newspapers, holds only contempt for him, and when they become handcuffed by “the bad guys”, Hannay has a hard time, keeping one step away from capture while trying to keep the wild beauty from surrendering him.


The success of Hitchcock’s previous release, his original version of The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934) allowed him more freedom in his next cinematic venture. The 39 Steps was based on a spy yarn from 1915 by Scotsman John Buchan, though the director made the story his own. For film buffs and historians, the picture marks the first of a few oft used Hitchcockian themes, the most relevant being that of the “innocent man on the run” which was duplicated again in Saboteur (1942) and North by Northwest (1959), among others. Another is his casting of Madeleine Carroll, a beautiful and cool blonde leading lady, and a precursor to icy fair hairs Grace Kelly and Tippi Hedren in several of his 50’s and 60’s films. Carroll’s character, Pamela, wasn’t actually in the original novel and both the character and the potential romantic element she brings to the story were successfully added by the formidable director.

The film offers Hitch a chance to display his mastery of his craft, as well as the creative use of the camera. He claimed that with The 39 Steps, he wanted each scene to be like a short film unto itself and indeed he achieved quite the effect to culminate the whole as a quick and smoothly paced film. Upon finding the body of the initial female spy in Hannay’s flat, an elderly charwoman screams in close-up, her scream not from her own vocal chords, but the sound of a train whistle which is segued into the next scene of a railway. It is a three second spot, but very chilling and effective.

A well known episode from the film is that of Hannay making his way to a remote farm while on the run and asking the farmer to put him up for the night. The farmer, a strict and extremely pious old coot has a much younger wife, who finds the handsome and urbane Hannay attractive, and helps him escape when the police track him to the farm. This is yet another scene which was absent from the original book but developed for the screen. The vignette, although pertinent to the rest of the movie, is a short story in itself.


Carroll’s casting as Pamela is perfectly complemented by Robert Donat’s Hannay. The actor had just hit it big the previous year in The Count of Monte Cristo and had become fondly known as “the Monte Cristo man”. The 39 Steps added to his growing repertoire of quality films, and led him to MGM in the States to make The Citadel (1938) and Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939), the latter for which he won an Academy Award. The suave Brit exudes just the right amount of energy, humor and intelligence to make him a very worthy Hitchcockian hero. With fine support by Lucie Mannheim, Godfrey Tearle and Peggy Ashcroft, the film is superbly cast.

Atmospheric, humorous and exciting, The 39 Steps is definitely a must-see. There is a lot to transpire in the movies 86 minutes, with suspense and fun aplenty, which is the least to be expected from an Alfred Hitchcock feature. Oh, and if you get a chance to view this classic, see if you can spy the director in his trademark cameo….cheers!



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Here are some recommendations regarding the article above:
The 39 Steps (1935) Criterion Collection
Hitchcock By Truffaut. The Definitive Study of Alfred Hitchcock By Francois Truffaut
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Dragonwyck (1946): Gothic Suspense, Fox Style

According to actress Gene Tierney, in her autobiography, Self Portrait, the thing most remembered by her during the filming of Dragonwyck, was her initial meeting of young John F. Kennedy, just home from his service in the South Pacific. “I turned and found myself staring into what I thought were the most perfect blue eyes I had ever seen on a man. He was standing near the camera, wearing a navy lieutenant’s uniform. He smiled at me.” It was the beginning of what would become a heartbreaking romance for the star. But there was certainly much more to remember about the actual film than the off-screen pairing of two very attractive young celebrities. Dragonwyck is a wonderful example of the Gothic suspense genre of films, written and produced in the tradition of Rebecca and Jane Eyre.

Based on Anya Seton’s 1944 novel, Dragonwyck is the name of an enormous estate in the Hudson Valley of New York state in the mid-nineteenth century, owned by patroon Nicholas Van Ryn (Vincent Price). Under the Dutch patroon system, a landholder held rights to large tracts of land in the seventeenth century colony of New Netherland (later New York), which were worked by small farmers for a portion of what they produced (think early sharecropping). Van Ryn invites his “cousin” Miranda Wells, a young country lass from Connecticut, to be governess to his young daughter. When she arrives at Dragonwyck, she senses strange goings on and when Van Ryn’s wife mysteriously dies, he asks Miranda to marry him. All is fine until their firstborn, a male child so desperately wanted by its father, dies shortly after his birth.



Tierney is breathtaking as always. One of the biggest non musical stars at 20th Century-Fox during the mid 40’s, her cool glamour is apparent as it is in so many roles she played during the period. She had just reached a career high the previous year with her Oscar nomination for her starring role in Leave Her to Heaven, and the plum dramatic roles on the Fox lot were being offered to her. Co-star Vincent Price, though not billed above the title, garnered one of his rare starring parts during his tenure at Fox, though the role of Nicholas Van Ryn was first slated for newcomer Gregory Peck, but Peck bowed out and eventually, Price was cast. His creepy, eerily manipulative Van Ryn is a foreshadowing of the definitive characters for which he would become famous in later life.

One important note about the movie is that it marks the directorial debut of intelligent screenwriter Joseph L. Mankiewicz, who would go on to win Oscars for A Letter to Three Wives and All About Eve , both also at 20th Century-Fox. Already writing the script for Dragonwyck, he was called on to direct when scheduled director Ernst Lubitsch became ill. Atmospheric and rich in historic texture, it is a respectable first effort and a memorable film. Excellent support comes in the form of Glenn Langan, as a handsome doctor who falls in love with Gene, Walter Huston and Anne Revere as Tierney’s God-fearing parents, Spring Byington as the wise but giddy housekeeper of Dragonwyck and in a small and early role, Jessica Tandy as an Irish maid.

Suspicion (1941): Cary Grant a Killer?

Although not usually one for spoilers when discussing classic films, the topic of this post has many of the films final elements revealed as they are key to the information examined here. Be warned.

There was so much going on behind the scenes of Alfred Hitchcock's 1941 suspenser, Suspicion, it's a wonder it ever got produced. Actually, it had been floating around for years before Hitchcock finally made it at RKO studios. Based on a novel by Francis Iles called "Before the Fact", the film version starred Cary Grant and Joan Fontaine, and would be one of the first American made Hitchcock films that focused on the psychological aspects of its characters, much more so than his previous year's blockbuster, Rebecca.



At the time Suspicion was made, Alfred Hitchcock was under exclusive contract to producer David O. Selznick, the mastermind behind Gone with the Wind (1939). Together, they formed an unholy union that created Rebecca, Hitchcock's first American film, but Selznick was so unyielding to the British director on creative issues, Hitchcock was more than grateful to be loaned out to make Suspicion (Selznick was notorious for loaning out his talented contractees, making enormous profits off their services, instead of using them for his own films, except on occasion). Another of the Selznick group loaned to make Suspicion was the film's female lead, Joan Fontaine. She too, had been part of the success of Rebecca, being nominated for an Academy Award as the meek second Mrs. deWinter. Hitchcock had been keen on casting her in that role, even though publicity mad Selznick had hoped to recreate the hub bub he had enjoyed with his search for Scarlett while casting Gone with the Wind. The producer cast a wide net to entice established actresses to test for the part. In the end, Fontaine got the role and when it came time to shoot Suspicion, the shy, awkwardness she displayed in Rebecca held her in good enough stead with Hitchcock that he cast her again.

Fontaine plays Lina McLaidlaw, a reserved young Englishwoman, who comes from a well-to-do country family but is well on her way to spinsterhood, a fact brought to the forefront by none other than her parents. Also a fact noted and filed away by handsome and roguish playboy Johnny Aysgarth (Cary Grant). Johnnie knows a good thing when he sees it (a skill that doesn't always shine through with his regular trips to the racetrack). The good looking ne'er do well woos and eventually charms the awkward lass into marriage, assuming the would be heiress will eventually net a fortune. As the weeks go by, Lina begins to see Johnnie for the scheming, charmingly manipulative man he is, yet still loves him. When his old friend , the lovable but slow witted Beaky (terrifically played by Nigil Bruce) arrives, Lina's suspicions grow even stronger. Johnnie persuades the trusting Beaky to go into a real estate venture with him only to see the friendly fellow die a questionable death shortly afterward. Finally, the shrinking wife, realizes her affable husband has inquired into her life insurance policy and sees his actions from that point in a sinister light.



Studio brass at RKO, didn't think the public would accept Grant as a cold blooded killer and wanted the film's ending to reflect that assumption. According to Alfred Hitchcock, in his famous interview with Francois Truffaut, he wanted the film to end with Fontaine's character realizing that her husband was a murderer, but so in love with him that she couldn't leave him. Instead, she writes a letter to her mother exposing her husband and proclaiming her wish to die. When Grant's Johnnie brings her the "poisonous" milk, she asks him to mail the letter, drinks the milk and drifts off. The final fade out, according to the director, would show Cary, whistling a chipper tune as he slips the letter into the mailbox. The weaker conciliatory ending didn't curtail box office returns and Suspicion was a bonafide hit over the 1941 holidays.

Hitchcock's signature use of creative lighting and camera angles, along with with an atmospheric score by famed composer Franz Waxman, garnered the film a nomination at the next years Oscars. (As to the directors creative genius, he also confessed to Truffaut that a small light was actually placed in the glass of milk carried by Grant up the dark stairwell to make it luminous. He wanted it to be the complete focus of the scene). The big winner at Oscar time was actually Joan Fontaine. The young actress, unhappily married at the time to actor Brian Aherne, felt she wasn't getting the guidance she needed from the formidable director and her sense of loss both on the set and off, brought to her performance the sense of fragility and paranoia, needed to convey Lina's neurosis. It won her the Best Actress Oscar, beating out her sister Olivia DeHavilland and fueling an infamous rivalry between the siblings which was never resolved. Many thought the win was a consolation prize for not winning with her Rebecca role, but as it turned out it was the only Hitchcock directed role to ever win an Academy Award.

The Maltese Falcon (1941): The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of

Sam Spade. An iconic figure in both American cinema as well as American literary fiction. Dashiell Hammett's famed detective cemented stardom for screen legend Humphrey Bogart and Hammett's famed story, The Maltese Falcon, offered a solid directorial debut for legendary filmmaker John Huston. Considered by some the first film noir, The Maltese Falcon was an early 1940's crime drama produced at Warner Brothers, master of this film genre, with an eclectic array of tough talking, fast moving oddball characters who come together with one common goal....possession of a priceless black falcon statue.

Moving at a lightning pace, the film is a masterpiece of mystery, crime, tough dialogue and suspense. Warners had made two less successful versions in the 1930's, one under the original title in 1931, then as Satan Met a Lady in 1936 with young Bette Davis (Davis counted this version among her worst films). The 1941 Huston version is a tight, sophisticated and complicated film, well received by critics and audiences alike and faithful to Hammett's book.

The story revolves around a small statue of a falcon, whose history dates back centuries and whose value certain parties place higher than human life. Bogart plays detective Sam Spade, who is drawn into the intrigue regarding the recovery of the sculpture by the beautiful and lethal Brigid O'Shaunessey (Mary Astor). Brigid's false tale of a missing sister gets private dick Slade on the trail of the valuable bird, only to meet others also in hot pursuit of the object, including notably iconic Hammett characters weaselly and effete Joel Cairo (Peter Lorre); youthful killer Wilmer (Elisha Cook, Jr.); and menacing "Fatman" Gutman (Sydney Greenstreet).

Like many other screenwriters cum directors of the day, Huston, as screenwriter, tired of others directing ~ and rewriting~ his work, sought and was granted by the powers that be (aka Jack Warner), the task of bringing the third version of the famed crime thriller to the screen. Bogart, for the second time in less than a year lucked out thanks to the poor judgement of star George Raft. Months earlier Raft refused the role of Roy "Mad Dog" Earle in Warner's High Sierra. Bogart's casting in the Earle role was the impetus for his starring career and when Raft refused the role of Spade in Falcon, Bogart was again given his cast-off, made it his own and became a star. The role of femme fatale Brigid O'Shaunessey was originally set to be played by Warner contract player Geraldine Fitzgerald. However, Fitzgerald went east to take a job on the stage and Mary Astor was delighted to take the juicy part of deceptive O'Shaunessey. Along with her Oscar winning role later the same year in The Great Lie, her part in The Maltese Falcon would be her most famous (on screen anyway, as she had a very colorful offscreen life).

Everyone else in the cast is simply superb. Greenstreet, over sixty and roughly 300 lbs., made an unforgettable film debut as the baleful and bloated Kasper Gutman, code name "The Fat Man". In Falcon, he skillfully perfected the portly prototype of villain that he would portray throughout his film career. Cook truly looks like he's about to lose it, as gunsel Wilmer, with crazed look in his eyes and cold blooded murder in his heart. He and fellow Falcon co-star Lee Patrick (who plays Bogart's trusted secretary Effie) appeared in a 1970's spoof of the film called The Black Bird. Actor Walter Huston, father of the film's director, made an unbilled (and unpaid) cameo, as a victim of the statues lethal value.

The Maltese Falcon has been copied, spoofed and parodied, but the style and success of the Huston film cannot be duplicated. The parts of his masterpiece fit too perfectly together. Bogart became as synonymous with Sam Spade as he would with Casablanca's Rick a year later, and the professional and personal bond forged between he and director Huston would remain strong until Bogart's death in 1957.

Fury (1936): Fritz Lang Comes to America

Although made at Metro Goldwyn Mayer in 1936, Fury is a very unlikely production for the highly prestigious studio, famous for its glitz, glamour and witty repartee. It is the kind of project they made over at Warner Brothers, dark and brooding social dramas with an emotional punch and a message to hit home. In turn, Fury's director, Fritz Lang, was very unlike any of MGM's in-house directors at the time (no Clarence Brown or W. S. Van Dyke here). It was Lang's American movie debut, and in it the German film maker injected a stark, pull-no-punches complexity rarely seen by Depression audiences in the United States.

The film stars Spencer Tracy as Joe Wilson, a regular "Joe", hard working, happy go lucky, upstanding citizen, who's head over heels for his girl, Katherine (Sylvia Sidney). In the opening reels, Katherine is leaving to take a better paying job in another city, so that she and Joe can save money faster to be able to marry. Joe pools all his cash and with his two brothers opens a service station. After several months, he has enough shekels saved up to collect and marry his betrothed and live the American dream happily ever after. However, en route to fetch Katherine, our happy hero is stopped by the law in Podunk, USA, and being a stranger in them there parts, is suspected as an infamous local kidnapper who has been on the loose. As word spreads of a suspect in custody for the crime, momentum builds throughout the community, by way of gossip and bias against a "foreigner", that leads to the unfair conclusion in the town's collective mind of Joe's guilt.

Like a snowball down a mountain, the outraged townsfolk swells into an angry mob that stops rolling at the front door of the jail where Joe is being held. They demand the turnover of the prisoner for lynching. When the hick sheriff refuses, the excited throng burns down the jail and Joe in it. So they think. After the fact, the real kidnapper is discovered and the realization hits the community that an innocent man was burned to death. As the populace whispers excuses among themselves to ease their guilt, Joe reappears to his brothers and explains how he escaped the inferno. He also explains that he wants to remain "dead" and through them bring the mob participants to trial for murder according to the law. Now bitter and enraged, he seeks ultimate vengeance and justice for his suffering

.

Fury is a taut, gripping drama. It's a fascinating study of society under mob rule and also how political ploying can affect society under such conditions. This would be Sylvia Sidney's only film at MGM. At the peak of her career, she gives an extremely moving performance as Katherine. Her face exudes the angst and emotional stress as she does so well in other roles with similar characteristics, such as Trina in Dead End in 1937. Bruce Cabot is fine as the nasty, belligerent instigator of the pack as is Edward Ellis (the actual "thin man" in the series of films by that name) as the gruff small town sheriff. As usual, Walter Abel gives great support as the district attorney. Fury is, however, Spencer Tracy's film. Having just signed on with Metro the previous year, performances like the one he gives in this movie kept him there for 20 years. Through the course of the film, we see Tracy's dramatic metamorphosis from a kind, jovial lover of life, to a callous, embittered shell filled only with overwhelming hatred and vengeance. His emotional, as well as physical transition mark an ominous foreshadowing of his Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde made five years later.

Never a spoiler this blog, suffice it to say MGM and director Lang had differences about the films ending. Despite that, Lang created a more than memorable film and began an impressive career in the U.S. Arguably one of Tracy's best early films, Fury is solid through and through.

Review: Shadow of a Doubt

Santa Rosa, California had a population of roughly 13,000 people in 1942, a fraction of its current citizen count. But when Alfred Hitchcock began production of his classic 1943 thriller, Shadow of a Doubt, the small San Francisco Bay area community conveyed just the right atmosphere of Everytown, USA that he was looking for. As Hitchcock's camera pans across the downtown Santa Rosa street scape, we see a friendly cherub-like policeman, whistle between his lips, directing easy flowing traffic. We witness a bustling but laid back burg, while liltingly pleasant music plays in the background. In later scenes, a J.C. Penney department store and an ivy covered library are further evidence that the viewer could be in any average hamlet in the land. The famed director used this placid setting to illustrate that evil can penetrate anywhere, even the peaceful, civilized confines of small town America.

The evil found in Hitchcock's Santa Rosa shows up in the form of Joseph Cotten, playing one of the best roles of his career, "Uncle" Charlie Oakley, the deranged "Merry Widow Murderer," who on the lamb from the law, escapes to the homespun security of his sister's family in the pleasant California town. Waiting for him with open arms is his teen aged niece and namesake played by Teresa Wright who is top billed. Niece Charley relishes the visit from her charming and urbane uncle, hoping his presence will shake up her family's drab, humdrum existence. He doesn't disappoint. The detectives who have been chasing him across the country, find their suspect on the west coast. One of them (Macdonald Carey) befriends and confides in young Charley, the sins of her uncle. Devastated and confused, she comes to realize that what the detective has told her is true. When another man who is also strongly suspected to be the murderer is killed while being pursued on the east coast, the case is closed and Uncle Charlie is cleared, but his niece now knows that he is indeed the guilty party and she begins to experience a series of "accidents."

Joseph Cotten's Uncle Charlie is both charismatic and menacing. A particularly effective moment has him at the dinner table describing his vision of rich widows as "fat, lazy women" who squander all that their late husbands had worked for all their lives. As he thinks aloud his disturbing diatribe, the camera goes in for a slow, steady close up of his profiled face. By the time he is interrupted by a rebuttal from his niece, the camera is dead on his eyes and he turns his head to give a chilling stare directly into the lens.

Wright does her share of fine acting as well, with this role following on the heels of her successes in The Little Foxes (1941) and Mrs. Miniver (1942). She goes from adoring and doting teenager to troubled and anxious young woman without missing a beat. Like her characters uncle, she too can be menacing, when the occasion arises. Perfect example: When she and Uncle Charlie get the news from her detective boyfriend that the Merry Widow suspect in the east was killed while trying to escape, Cotten, ready to celebrate his freedom, strides up the staircase like a schoolboy on holiday. Suddenly, he stops dead in his tracks, just shy of the top of the stairs and slowly turns around to see his niece standing sullenly and accusingly in the doorway below, her shadow stretched out before her, as she gives him a cold stare of disgust.

As the senior Charlie's sister and female Charley's mother is Patricia Collinge, a stage actress who co-starred with Wright in The Little Foxes. As Emma Newton in this film, she shows the right amount of naivete and a fluttery quality as mama of her brood and even comes off as a somewhat surrogate mother to her visiting younger brother. Well into middle age, it seems odd that she and Henry Travers, as her murder mystery buff, bank clerk husband would be cast as the parents of such young children (besides Charley, their clan consists of Ann and Roger, both under 12). Hume Cronyn in his film debut, does quite a fine job as Travers cohort in crime novel critique, each devising plan after plan for the perfect fictional murder.

To help him capture the quality of small town values required for his setting, Hitchcock retained none other than playwrite Thorton Wilder to collaborate on the screenplay for Shadow of a Doubt. Wilder's play "Our Town" was the epitome of everyday life. The film was Oscar nominated for Best Writing and Best Original Story. Hitchcock claimed that Doubt was one of his personal favorites of his films, though he told Francois Truffaut in a famous interview, that it was not his very favorite. Regardless, it is a genuine Hitchcock gem that is often overlooked when traditional Hitchcock is discussed and revered, a true treasure that should be remembered and viewed often.

Review: The Uninvited

One of the finest examples of a ghost story in Hollywood during it's Golden Age is the stylish and haunting The Uninvited from Paramount in 1944. More spooky than scary, more mystery than horror, The Uninvited has an actual supernatural element not seen in most films of it's day. There's no "ah, that explains how that happened" twist at the ending but instead, an open honest look into the paranormal with no excuses.

The story, based on Dorothy Macardle's novel, is of London siblings (Ray Milland and Ruth Hussey), both unmarried, who buy a grand old home, Winward House, on the Cornish coast of England. The current owner, stiffly upper crust Donald Crisp, lets the place go for a song. Hmmm....Come to find out, things were not always so grand and elegant at Winward House and to the new owners chagrin, they find that it is haunted. The film does offer a few unrealistic glitches, like Milland going sailing on a whim in his tweeds, tie and best fedora or the fact that the siblings, out of the blue, decide to plunk their life savings into a decades old house the same day they discover it. But no matter, these missteps can be overlooked in lieu of the finer elements displayed throughout the film.

The Uninvited is somewhat reminiscent of Hitchcock's Rebecca (1940), not in storyline as much as in atmosphere and character. Like Rebecca, the setting is a large stately house on the coast of England. The house is filled with the memory of it's former mistress, Mary Meredith (heck, it's filled with her very spirit, as she's the one haunting it), and there's even a creepy, dark haired mystery woman, who is unyieldingly devoted to the memory of the dead woman, such as Mrs. Danvers was in Rebecca. More than one film analyst has noted the obvious lesbian theme related to this character, Miss Holloway. It is a role that Gale Sondergaard would have excelled in.

The movie is chilling without the use of modern special effects, though the one camera trick that is used, the spectre of Mary Meredith, is very effective. The atmosphere is instead achieved through expert black and white cinematography by Charles Lang, whose masterful use of light and shadow earned him an Oscar nomination. Also a top asset for the film was it's haunting, romantic score by Paramount's resident composer, Victor Young, which includes the lovely tune Stella by Starlight.

Besides Milland, at his devil may care best, and Hussey (too attractive and refined not to be married), the cast includes the afore mentioned Donald Crisp, stage actress Cornelia Otis Skinner, as the eerie Miss Holloway and beautiful, young Gail Russell, who is "introduced" in her role as the daughter of the dead Mary Meredith (in reality she had appeared in the low budget Henry Aldrich Gets Glamour the previous year). An interesting side note, the same year The Uninvited was released, Gail Russell played her co-star, Cornelia Otis Skinner, in Paramount's Our Hearts Were Young and Gay, which recounted Skinner's early years abroad.

And Then There Were None: Masterful Mystery

"One little Indian boy left all alone; he went and hanged himself and then there were none". So goes the final verse of an oft told nursery rhyme. It is also the impetus to the classic suspense chiller And Then There Were None, the oft filmed whodunit based on Agatha Christie's best selling mystery novel. This stylish, atmospheric movie premiered very aptly on Halloween 1945 and it was the first and arguably the best version of the many that were adapted to film ( all of which went under the alternative title Ten Little Indians).

Directed by Rene Clair, And Then There Were None features exactly eleven players and a cat. Ten of the eleven are the "little Indians", a motley crew who are taken by boat for a weekend house party on an isolated island off the coast of England. Their host, whom none of them have ever seen (their invitations came by way of a "mutual" friend) is Mr. U. N. Owen (unknown). Once there, the only evidence of U.N. Owen is his voice on a record, accusing each of unpunished murder at some point in their lives. They are then systematically bumped off, one by one. And who is the eleventh character you may ask? Why the boat driver who takes them to the island of course.

The film features an excellent ensemble cast with no big box office star at the helm, which works very successfully on two levels. First, since no major star was involved, the characters are able to be viewed independently and equally important to the storyline, to give a sense of balance, as opposed to two leads and a supporting cast. Second, if a top name celebrity was on board, the audience would have a much better idea of who would be left standing at the final curtain, diminishing the air of suspense and mystery. Included in the cast are Barry Fitzgerald as a judge who allowed an innocent man to be executed. Fitzgerald was in top form, having received a Best Supporting Actor Oscar the previous year for Going My Way. Walter Huston, always bringing distinction to his roles, played Dr. Armstrong, who, under the influence of alcohol, allowed a patient to die on the operating table. A romantic if suspicious chemistry develops between the two younger, more attractive characters played by Louis Hayward and June Duprez, who resembles a cross between Linda Darnell and Margo (Mrs. Eddie Albert of Lost Horizon fame). Rounding out the group is Judith Anderson, Roland Young, Mischa Auer, C. Aubrey Smith, Richard Haydn and Queenie Leonard.

Made with style and skill in the deft hands of French director Clair, And Then There Were None is full of black humor, though, mind you, it's no comedy. The who-in-the-heck-did-it ending differs from that of the novel, but not to act as spoiler, that difference goes undiscussed here.