Sundown (1941)

Sundown gave Gene Tierney one of her early starring rôles and it’s an interesting mix of wartime intrigue and adventure which would have worked quite well but for a fatal flaw.

The film is set in Manieka, a minor outpost in Kenya. Although Britain is at war the British officials there are pretty casual. Things are usually quiet and peaceful and no-one worries very much about security. That all changes when Major Coombes (George Sanders) arrives to take over command. Coombes is shocked by the laxness of discipline. An Italian prisoner-of-war is allowed to wander about all over the place. Sentries are rarely posted. Coombes is determined to smarten things up. In Nairobi  the war is taken much more seriously and Coombes has been sent to investigate some very disturbing news that the Shenzi, who are described as outlaw natives, are being armed.

The Italian prisoner-of-war then outlines his crazy theory of how Africa is the key to world domination and Coombes thinks it’s a very persuasive theory.

What really unsettles things is the arrival of Zia (Gene Tierney). Zia is half-Arab and half-French, stunningly gorgeous, and is an immensely wealthy trader.

Trouble starts to build and everyone starts to get nervous, especially when the natives start confidently predicting that one of the Europeans has an appointment with death. There are in fact evil conspiracies afoot. These are dark days for the British Empire! But that means opportunities for heroic deeds.

There is tension between the District Officer, Crawford (Bruce Cabot), who is the civil commander and Coombes as military commander. Crawford is, quite honestly, a pompous bore and an extremely irritating character. Coombes is pompous as well but George Sanders can make such a character reasonably entertaining. Bruce Cabot, sadly, does not have that ability.

Hollywood in those days was obsessed by the idea of beautiful mixed-race women. The idea of a woman trapped between two worlds is of course inherently rather interesting. Zia is even more interesting. She is half-Arab but also considers herself to be African.

Gene Tierney in 1941 really was incredibly lovely. This is hardly a demanding rôle but she handles it reasonably well.

Of course being a Hollywood movie made before America’s entry into the war this film is outrageous pro-British propaganda. From the first mention of illicit guns you just know that one of the characters is going to turn out to be an Evil Nazi. In this case his identity is painfully obvious right from the start.

The whole setup of this film lends itself to preaching. And Hollywood never could resist the temptation to get preachy. This movie takes the opportunity to preach to us on both political and social issues. And it does so mercilessly.

On the plus side there are a couple of surprisingly imaginative and visually interesting action sequences. In fact the movie as a whole is fairly impressive visually. Charles Lang’s black-and-white cinematography is extremely good.

Apart from the times that the plot comers to a stop for a sermon it has to be said that director Henry Hathaway handles things pretty well.

Gene Tierney doesn’t really appear until the movie is well under way but we have already seen her briefly in an introductory scene when she arrives in an aircraft. At this stage we have absolutely no idea who she is or what part she is going to play in the events of the movie and this is quite an effective technique - it establishes her rather nicely as a mysterious figure. Unfortunately once she reappears in the film the mystery is not really maintained. She turns out to be disappointingly straightforward.

Tierney was at this time probably the most beautiful star in Hollywood. In this film she’s cast as an exotic beauty and she’s put in costumes that make her look like a princess from the Arabian Nights. The obvious thing would have been to pair her with a handsome charismatic leading man. Instead she’s paired with a non-star with zero personality.

Sundown has fallen into the public domain. The copy I watched came from a St Clair Vision bargain bin boxed set. Surprisingly the transfer was reasonably good.

Sundown had the makings of a decent adventure romance movie but it’s swamped by some of the most embarrassingly ham-fisted cinematic propaganda you’ll ever encounter, and by  the endless sermonising. It’s a great pity because Sundown is visually exceptionally interesting and Hathaway’s direction of the action scenes is lively. And Gene Tierney looks great.

A movie that had promise but while it has its moments it’s difficult to recommend this one unless you’re a Gene Tierney completist.

The Egyptian (1954)

A 1950s Hollywood epic set in ancient Egypt and starring Victor Mature, Gene Tierney and Jean Simmons - now that has to be fun. And The Egyptian does not disappoint.

The Egyptian of the title is a doctor named Sinuhe (played by Edmund Purdom). We see him at the beginning of the film as an old man in exile and his story is told in flashback. He was once young and idealistic, burning with a desire to bring the benefits of modern medicine (and in the 14th century BC Egyptian medicine was most definitely at the cutting edge) to the poor. His father is a doctor as well, but he’s not his real father. As a baby Sinuhe was found floating in the Nile in a small reed basket, this being a common method of disposing of unwanted babies.

Sinuhe has an unlikely friend, a rambunctious but good-natured brawler named Horemheb (Victor Mature). Horemheb’s fondest ambition is to serve in Pharaoh’s Guard but since he is merely the son of a humble cheese-maker this ambition seems unlikely to be fulfilled.

Then fate steps in. Sinuhe and Horemheb are hunting lions in their chariot when they come across what appears to be a crazed holy man. They save this unfortunate from becoming dinner for a hungry lion.

It turns out the man really is a crazed holy man, but he also happens to be the pharaoh, the notorious Akhenaten. In saving him they laid hands on him, which is a capital offence. Luckily Akhenaten takes a dim view of hallowed traditions and he not only allows them to live, he rewards them. Horemheb will indeed serve in Pharaoh’s Guard, while Sinuhe will become part-time official physician to Pharaoh’s family.

Fate however is about to step in again, in the form of a woman. Nefer is beautiful and glamorous and Sinuhe is captivated by her. He will do anything for her. Sinuhe’s judgment is very poor when it comes to women. He has a nice girl, Merit (Jean Simmons), who is crazy about him but he is obsessed by Nefer. Nefer is a courtesan but she is also a very dangerous woman who enjoys seducing and corrupting innocent young men.

And Sinuhe is well and truly corrupted. His parents will pay the price for his fatal obsession and Sinuhe himself will be reduced to despair and forced to flee Egypt.

Sinuhe travels the known world and his fame as a physician grows. He is on a quest for redemption and slowly he is rebuilding his life and his self-respect. But fate is not yet finished wit him. It will lead him back to Egypt, and his life will once more be entwined with the lives of Horemheb, Merit and Akhenaten. Akhenaten’s religious innovations and his mystical belief in the virtues of turning the other cheek will lead Egypt to the brink of ruin and Sinuhe will be faced with a terrible dilemma.

It’s all outrageously melodramatic and very camp, just as you’d expect from a 1954 Hollywood costume epic, but this movie has some surprising features. The moral dilemmas are real and they’re complex. Sinuhe is basically a good man but with serious moral weaknesses. Akhenaten is almost saintly but he is also a catastrophically bad ruler. Horemheb proves to be very ambitious indeed but his ambitions lead him on a path that will prove to be Egypt’s salvation. And Akhenaten’s sister Baketamon (Gene Tierney) is also motivated both by personal ambition and a desire to save her country from destruction.

The most morally challenged characters end up doing the most good while the most virtuous characters do an immense amount of mischief. Ruling a kingdom and conducting international relations require common sense and hard-headedness more than they require goodness. This kind of moral ambiguity is very unexpected in this type of movie.

Equally surprising is the very open and non-judgmental treatment of the issue of the illegitimate son of Sinuhe and Merit.

The acting tends towards the melodramatic, but that goes with the territory. Edmund Purdom is rather on the dull side. Victor Mature is enormous fun. Gene Tierney isn’t given enough to do but she does have a few great scenes and her performance is on balance the best of any of the cast members. Michael Wilding is annoyingly other-worldly and mystically woolly-headed but it’s a performance that suits the character. Jean Simmons is solid as always and even Peter Ustinov (as Sinuhe’s dishonest but faithful servant) is less irritating than usual.

Needless to say it’s visually impressive although the use of process shots and matte paintings is very obvious. Personally I don’t mind that - I think the obvious artificiality works in the movie’s favour, making it a kind of fable.

And the very idea of making a movie about the infamous heretic pharaoh is incredibly cool. Akhenaten’s religious reforms did not survive him but they’re extremely interesting. He was in effect trying to replace the established religion of the country with a new monotheistic faith. Had he succeeded he’d be known as one of the great religious leaders of history.

The Egyptian is a strange mix of melodrama and profundity and while it’s an uneasy mix it makes for one of the more intriguing Hollywood movies of the 50s. And it’s wonderfully entertaining. It’s unusual enough to qualify as a must-see movie in its own eccentric way.

Bounty’s Region 4 DVD lacks extras but it’s a lovely transfer and it’s in the proper Cinemascope aspect ratio.

Leave Her to Heaven (1945)

Leave Her to Heaven is a movie that impresses me more now than it did the first time I saw it. As is the case with many great movies it helps if you already know how the plot turns out, so you can concentrate more on how the story is told rather than on the story itself.

Interestingly enough it was apparently a movie that got mixed reviews at the time of its release in 1945, which strengthens my belief that it’s a movie you need to see, then go away and think about, and then see again.

Richard Harland (Cornel Wilde) is a novelist who travels to New Mexico to stay with the Berent family. When he gets there he finds that the stunning young woman he met on the train is the daughter of the household, Ellen Berent (Gene Tierney). He’s understandably fascinated by her beauty, and by a slight oddness in her manner. She’s engaged to Russell Quinton (Vincent Price), an ambitious lawyer running for district attorney. That doesn’t stop her from flirting with Richard Harland. Pretty soon she has discarded the engagement ring and is proposing marriage to Richard.

Her sudden decision that Richard is the man she wants and her absolute determination to get him is the first sign that perhaps Ellen is just a little unstable. There are a couple of other very subtle warning signs. Ellen’s father had died not long before and it appears that her love for her father was rather obsessive. And there are even more subtle hints that Ellen is inclined to jealousy.

Nonetheless Ellen and Richard settle into Richard’s remote fishing lodge in Maine where Richard will work on his next book and all seems to be going well. Ellen is clearly head over heels in love with her husband. They’ve been joined by Richard’s much younger brother Danny, a teenager who is suffering from some disability that makes it impossible for him to walk unaided. Danny is pretty annoying, but Ellen seems to be more than just annoyed by him. She resents his presence there. She wants Richard to herself.

Later on she will react in a similar way to the presence of her adoptive sister Ruth. She is unable to bear the thought of anyone coming between her and Richard, or of having to share him in any way with anyone else. As the movie progresses her jealousy becomes more extreme and she expresses it in increasingly destructive and catastrophic ways, leading from one disaster to another.

The overwhelming first impression of this movie is its gorgeousness. This is not just a movie made in Technicolor, it’s a movie that makes the fullest possible use of the potential of Technicolor. The lushness adds to the atmosphere of over-ripeness, of emotional excessiveness, of extremeness. Everything is excessively bright and visible, which is the way Ellen sees the world - she sees too much, everything has too much significance, she suffers from emotional and sensory overload.

John M. Stahl’s direction is fairly restrained, which is the right approach. There’s no need for fancy camerawork when the plot is so melodramatic and the emotions are so over-the-top. But whenever he needs to grab our attention he does so with superb skill. The scene on the lake (I can’t say more for fear of spoilers) may be the most chilling scene in any movies of the 40s. There’s also a brief moment where Ellen is about to wave to Richard then changes her mind because there’s no point. In a few seconds it sums up her entire tragedy, her inability to escape from her own interior world.

To me that’s the essence of the film. Ellen is incapable of interacting with the world or with other people in a meaningful way. She is incapable of friendship. But she is capable of love and since she knows no other way to make contact with others she loves much too intensely. She is completely unable to comprehend other people’s actions and motivations and continually misinterprets both. She then becomes more isolated and more paranoid. And having no friends there is no-one to tell her that she’s starting to behave in a very dangerous manner.

She’s certainly a monster, but she’s a human monster and there are reasons for her madness. Gene Tierney’s performance is extraordinary. She makes Ellen believable and comprehensible and even sympathetic. It’s a bit like Peter Lorre’s performance in M, making a character who can’t possibly be sympathetic engage our sympathies anyway, even while the character appalls us at the same time.

It’s an outrageous movie but it’s done with sufficient conviction and sufficient skill and somehow it all works.

The Ghost and Mrs Muir (1947)

I have dim memories of seeing the much later TV series of the same name, but until tonight I’d never actually seen the original 1947 movie version of The Ghost and Mrs Muir.

The first difference I noticed was that Gene Tierney was much younger and much more glamorous than Hope Lange. Which is no shame for Hope Lange, since very few women have ever possessed the degree of glamour that Gene Tierney possessed. And Gene Tierney was a decade younger than Hope Lange when she made the movie.

The movie wasn’t quite what I expected. I suppose I expected more of a lighthearted romantic comedy. It certainly has plenty of that, but it has a bit more besides.

Mrs Lucy Muir (Gene Tierney) is an attractive young widow who gets fed up with living with her obnoxious sister-in-law and her equally obnoxious mother-in-law and decides to rent a little house of her own, along with her young daughter and her faithful housekeeper. Since these are the very early years of the 20th century this is a slightly bold movie, but Mrs Muir is a fairly bold woman in her own quiet way.

She soon discovers why Gull Cottage was so cheap. It’s haunted by the ghost of its previous owner, a sea-captain of slightly dubious moral reputation, a Captain Gregg. The ghost is initially hostile, but when he discovers that Lucy Muir is a very strong-willed young woman who has no intention of being frightened out of her new house he decides he rather likes her. And despite (or possibly because of) his colourful past and his rough-and-ready manners, she decides she rather likes him as well.

Predictably, their friendship develops into something that is perhaps a little more than friendship, but there is a very big obstacle standing in the way of true love, since one of the partners is in fact dead.

What’s most surprising is that the movie deals sensitively and intelligently with this rather difficult problem. This is a love story, but while Hollywood love stories are usually complicated this one is very complicated indeed. It becomes even more complicated when Captain Gregg finds he has a rival (George Sanders), who has the considerable advantage of being alive.

Even more surprising for a 1947 movie is the fact that the movie has some definite risque moments. Captain Gregg and Mrs Muir decide that not only are they prepared to share a house, they’re also prepared to share a bedroom. Captain Gregg assures Mrs Muir that this won’t be a problem, since he’s a bodiless spirit, but while he’s bodiless he does have the power of sight, on her first night in the house it is obvious that he has watched her undressing for bed, and has watched with considerable admiration. Perhaps the most surprising thing in a 1947 movie is that Lucy Muir doesn’t appear to mind!

The difficult with a plot like this one, given that the movie is essentially a romance, is how on earth do you give it the required happy ending? The actual ending seems, with the advantage of hindsight, to be the only possible ending. And it works extremely well.

The casting of his movie was rather bold. Rex Harrison was not an obvious choice to play a salty sea-captain but he does very well. And Gene Tierney usually played troubled women, so it’s refreshing to see her playing a woman who is free of weird hand-ups, and it’s pleasing that she manages to make Mrs Muir not only very likeable but also not the slightest bit bland. It’s a completely delightful performance.

And it’s a completely delightful movie. Directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, with a great score by Bernard Herrmann, this is a classy and highly entertaining example of the best of 1940s Hollywood movie-making.

Laura (1944)

While there is some doubt as to whether Laura really belongs in the film noir category, there can be very little debate as to its qualities as a film. It is quite simply one of the best American movies of the 40s. After Rouben Mamoulian’s imitial efforts failed to satisfy Daryl F. Zanuck producer Otto Preminger was asked to take over as director. It was an inspired move. Most of Preminger’s movies that have been labelled as film noir are more explorations of tangled and dangerous relationships than pure film noir.

Since this is a murder mystery one can’t say too much about the plot. Laura Hunt, a woman whose success in the world of advertising has brought her glamour and wealth, has been murdered. There are plenty of plausible suspects. There’s Waldo Lydecker (Clifton Webb), the acid-tongued columnist who was responsible for Laura’s rise from obscurity to fame. There’s Shelby Carpenter (Vincent Price), a rather feckless and untrustworthy but undeniably charming gigolo, to whom Laura was engaged. And there’s Ann Treadwell. Shelby had been her boy toy, until Laura came along. Detective Mark McPherson’s task is difficult enough, but becomes even more difficult when he takes one look at Laura’s portrait in her apartment and falls hopelessly in love with her.

To me Laura is a movie about love. More specifically, it’s about unhealthy and doomed love, and the delusions and self-delusions that accompany it. There are many love relationships in this film, and all are unhealthy and all are based on delusions. Laura is so far out of Mark’s league that it’s absurd for him even to think about it. Laura is not the sort of woman who is going to marry a cop. Waldo Lydecker’s love for Laura is equally hopeless. As he himself points out, Laura likes her men to be muscular and handsome. And while Laura remains fond of Waldo, she no longer needs him. She is wealthy, successful and self-reliant. Ann’s love for Shelby is similarly hopeless. He’s not going to settle for a woman with money once he realises he can have a woman with youth and beauty as well as money. Laura’s love for Shelby is based on the delusion that he’s something more than a mere gigolo, but in fact that really is all that Shelby amounts to.

There are other self-delusions at work in Laura. Waldo Lydecker is clearly gay, so at first sight his desire to marry Laura seems rather improbable. This was the problem I had with this movie the first time I saw it, but now it seems more comprehensible. Waldo believes that Laura is his own creation, so it’s really a form of narcissistic love. And in the world of the 1940s it would certainly be advantageous for someone like Waldo to acquire a wife, to reduce his vulnerability to gossip about his sexuality. He is also clearly very sensitive about his physical inadequacies, so a young and beautiful wife would be exceptionally gratifying to his ego. And Laura is intelligent and cultured, so she would make a congenial companion. My assumption is that Waldo has other deluded himself into believing that Laura would accept a sexless marriage, or he’s convinced himself that he can overcome his natural inclinations to a sufficient degree to satisfy her sexually.

Laura is one of those movies that demonstrates that it was possible to make an intelligent grownup whilst still remaining technically within the confines of the Production Code. It has to be admitted that Laura does stretch the Code somewhat, but it is an Otto Preminger film and baiting the Production Code Administration was one of Otto’s favourite pastimes. It’s the mark of a great murder mystery (and one that transcends the limitations of the genre) that having seen the film before and knowing about the plot twists doesn’t diminish one’s enjoyment in the least, and that was my experience with Laura. If anything I liked it more the second time around. Dana Andrews gives one of his best performances as the detective, and although Gene Tierney apparently wasn’t happy with her own performance I think she was judging herself too harshly. I think she’s perfect, but then I’m an unashamed Gene Tierney fan. A truly great movie.

Whirlpool (1949)

Otto Preminger’s 1949 film Whirlpool is one of those movies that stretch the definition of film noir, although that hasn’t stopped Fox promoting it as such.

Successful psychoanalyst Dr William Sutton and his wife Ann have it all. They have all the material trappings of success, they have status, they have respectability. They’re poster children for the American Dream. Preminger shows us, at first, just the tiniest cloud to their happiness. It’s impossible to imagine it could seriously threaten them. They’re so perfect and so beautiful. They have such a beautiful home.

But Ann has secrets, secrets from her childhood, and they put her in the power of David Corvo, a quack hypnotist, and she finds herself accused of murder.

Whirlpool is a product of 1940s Hollywood’s infatuation with psychiatry and hypnosis and other mysteries of the mind. It requires the audience to believe things about hypnosis that no modern audience is likely to be able to do, but then contemporary movies like Spellbound stretched credibility to the limit as well.

Jose Ferrer does well to make an implausible character, Korvo, seem reasonably plausible. It’s a delightfully oily performance. Richard Conte is solid as Dr Sutton, who eventually has to face up to the fact that he wasn’t as ideal a husband as he thought.

Gene Tierney is Mrs Sutton. She’s often accused of being an indifferent actress but she often had to play characters, in movies like Leave Her to Heaven and Whirlpool, who demonstrated what modern psychiatry likes to call Flat Affect. She seems slightly disconnected and distant but that’s how the character she is playing is supposed to be like and her performance is actually quite effective (leaving aside the fact hat a modern audience isn’t going to swallow the film’s psychiatric explanations for her behaviour. For me her performance is perfect for the type of film and the type of role.

The movie is a fascinating example of the psychiatric thriller that was so popular at the time, and Preminger gives us an interesting and entertaining movie.

This one is also available on DVD from Fox’s Film Noir series, although personally I don’t think there’s anything even remotely film noir about it. It doesn’t matter - it’s a great movie anyway.

Where the Sidewalk Ends (1950)

Otto Preminger is rapidly becoming my favourite film noir director, and his 1950 production Where the Sidewalk Ends is yet another Preminger masterpiece.

Mark Dixon is a cop who is much too fast with his fists, and as the film opens he’s in trouble with his superiors once again. As the movie progresses we discover something about the demons that are driving this man. Following up a murder in a gambling joint Dixon resorts to violence once too often, and his world starts to fall apart (although in fact he is already well on the road to disaster before this). Now he has a body on his hands, and the father of the girl he’s just met (and is falling in love with) is the prime suspect. His boss (Karl Malden as a very keen and very upright chief of detectives) is keen to nail dear old dad for this crime, and Dixon has to find a way to divert suspicion elsewhere.

Dixon is also obsessed with his pursuit of gangland boss Tommy Scalise, which not only complicates things but is also a sign of his increasing loss of control over both events and his own feelings.

This may be a movie that actually works better today than it would have done in 1950. We’re possibly more aware of, and more sensitive to, the abuse of power by those in authority than a 1950 audience would have been. Although we feel some sympathy for Mark Dixon, we also can’t avoid being horrified by his behaviour and by his over-fondness for violence.

Dana Andrews does a superb job as Dixon, a man so confused by his own emotions that he no longer has any real insight into his situation or his own actions. Gene Tierney is innocence personified as the daughter whose father is unjustly accused of murder. They key scene in the movie is the moment when she finally realises that her father’s innocence is not going to automatically protect him, and that her faith in the system is sadly misplaced.

The cynicism of this movie, and its portrayal of a cop who is both dishonest and in fact little more than a thug, are typical of Preminger’s willingness to push the boundaries of the Production Code as far as he could.

Gene Tierney always gave fine performances for Preminger, and this movie is no exception.

Superlative acting by Dana Andrews coupled with some great writing by Ben Hecht and the sure touch of director Preminger adds up to a great example of classic film noir.

It’s available on DVD in Fox’s Film Noir series.

The Shanghai Gesture (1941)

Josef von Sternberg’s 1941 film noir The Shanghai Gesture is really more of a Josef von Sternberg movie than a film noir. It’s full of his visual style, and it’s full of his obsessions. It’s a wildly decadent movie.

It’s set in Shanghai, presumably at some point during the 1920s or 1930s. A rich young woman, Poppy (Gene Tierney) is lured into a world of corruption, self-destruction and sexual obsession when she discovers Mother Gin Sling’s casino, the biggest and richest in Shanghai. While this is going on Mother Gin Sling is manoeuvring to prevent Poppy’s fabulously wealthy industrialist father (Walter Huston) from driving her out of Shanghai.

The original play was set in a brothel, but apparently the Production Code people decided that showing gambling was OK (because gambling just destroys people’s lives) but it was vital to pretend that prostitution didn’t exist. In fact the change to the gambling theme worked in von Sternberg’s favour because it emphasised the corruption and the degradation. The casino itself is a von Sternberg visual tour-de-force, comparable to the palace in The Scarlet Empress. He gets a wonderful performance from Gene Tierney – she really specialised in playing women who were psychologically damaged or psychologically blank and she was rather good at such roles. An underrated actress.

Walter Huston is of course excellent. There are some delicious supporting players – Eric Blore and Mike Mazurki among them. The real star is Ona Munson as Mother Gin Sling. The Hollywood practice of having Europeans playing Asian roles works to von Sternberg’s advantage – it emphasises the stylised feel of the film.

And this is a very stylised film. There are no concessions to reality here. Munson does a fine job. The real surprise is Victor Mature as an alleged Persian doctor – he describes himself as a doctor of nothing. It’s an amazingly decadent and sexually ambiguous performance, and it’s an amusing and witty performance. Who knew Victor Mature could act?

The Shanghai Gesture is on Sternberg at his best – delightfully over-the-top and overwrought, very melodramatic, visually gorgeous, disturbing acting performances. A wonderful film. Don’t be put off by negative comments about the DVD quality of the Image Entertainment release – it isn’t great but it’s OK and the movie is so good you can’t afford not to see it. And it’s certainly better quality than Criterion’s DVD of The Scarlet Empress.