Caught (1949)

Directed by Max Opuls; produced by Wolfgang Reinhart

Department store model Leonora Eames (Barbara Bel Geddes) dreams of marrying a good and decent man, preferably a millionaire. She enrolls in a charm school, and attends society parties, but her meeting with the immensely rich tycoon Smith Ohlrig (Robert Ryan) is by chance. They wed, but their reasons for marrying are quite different, and soon Leonora is trapped in a nightmarish relationship with no way out.

This is an odd and rather unfortunate film in that the three principal actors - along with capable supporting players - give good performances in a very ordinary story with a bland script and an uninvolving plot: it was like big Hollywood names had been blackmailed into appearing in a hack-writer’s dream.

The screenplay creates the sort of tale that has been seen many times. This in itself is not bad, as long as something extraordinary is done with it. That is not the case here. The story moves along predictably, except for the resolution, which is contrived and comes out of nowhere, rather like a deus ex machina without the god. The script has nothing really to offer in the way of decent dialogue or incidents, nor is it convincing: Leonora states and implies several times that she married Smith for love, but we see no evidence of it, perhaps because the best period of her marriage is skipped so that we can see its destruction a year later.

The characters present another problem. Leonora drifts along hoping for both love and riches. Smith’s taunts about her greed don’t seem entirely misplaced. She is not unlikeable, just not very appealing. Smith is another matter: his personality is so repellent he makes Charles Foster Kane seem like George Bailey from It’s a Wonderful Life. Whenever he feels he is losing an argument, he has a panic attack (called a heart attack in the movie). He is obsessed with women wanting to marry him for his wealth; he in fact marries solely because his psychiatrist believes Smith hates people so much that he never will marry. And the idea that someone like Smith would go to a psychiatrist at all is farfetched.

The most interesting character is James Mason’s, playing the requisite better alternative for Leonora. The character’s name - Larry Quinada - is probably the least James Mason-like name James Mason has ever taken on, and, with his “mid-Atlantic” accent, this paediatrician practising in New York’s semi-slums seems rather exotic. Nonetheless, Mason makes him interesting; far more than either of the other two principals.

Supporting actors include the prolific Frank Ferguson, playing Quinada’s easy-going and likeable partner, and Natalie Schafer, as the charm-school headmistress, while Barbara Bllingsley and child-actor (later writer and producer) Jimmy Hawkins appear unbilled.

While bits and pieces of Caught are interesting and even enjoyable, most are exceedingly average, if that. The viewer may be left with no significant memories other than that of highly capable actors in a highly mediocre movie.

Black Narcissus (1947)

Directed and produced by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger

A group of nuns are given the chance to open a school and hospital in a remote corner of the Indian Himalayas. Led by resolute Sister Clodagh (Deborah Kerr), the women will have to battle the elements, local prejudices and their own personalities in order to succeed.

Having watched and reviewed The Small Back Room three weeks ago, I decided to view another of Powell and Pressburger’s movies, one that I had not before seen, and the cast of which included the stars of The Small Back Room (David Farrar and Kathleen Byron) , which was filmed two years after Black Narcissus. Based on the novel by Rumer Godden, this movie is a dark psychological drama. Like many that centre on religious people, it has almost nothing to do with religion: the order of nuns is chosen to provide characters for their cloistered life in an isolated setting. As such, it is adequate but contrived.

The direction and production are excellent, as might be expected from Powell and Pressburger (‘The Archers’). The difficulties the sisters encounter in their new location are piled on with ever greater weight and urgency, and one can sense a climax coming. This creates tension which can be felt.

Visually, the movie is a success. The brilliance of the colour photography makes the setting exotic, and the views obtained, especially with the superbly executed matte paintings – often as good or even superior to computer generated scenes now – make Mapu, the fictional district in which the story is set, truly a place out of the ordinary. The costumes must be mentioned: the nuns’ habits are voluminous and accentuate both the impracticality of the women’s labours in this remote corner of the globe, and the severe climate: the wind always blows at Mapu, and the robes and headdresses the sisters wear are always moving in the breeze. Even as heavily garbed as they are, the nuns feel the cold of the place, and that is well-conveyed.

The acting is very good, with several players having parts in other Powell and Pressburger movies. These include Kerr, Farrar, Byron, and Esmond Knight. Jean Simmons has a small but significant rôle as a young Indian girl.

Despite Byron’s stand-out performance as Sister Ruth, the character illustrates the main flaw of Black Narcissus. Ruth has emotional problems, to say the least. I found it hard to believe that she would have been accepted into a religious order in the first place, never mind allowed to remain. Such organisations are not refuges or rescue-groups, taking in all the flawed people no one else wants. The fictional order portrayed here is a working order, not a meditative one, and Ruth gives no indication that she has ever followed commands or done anything that she didn’t want to do without immense complaint. And the decision to send her to an isolated location with people she neither likes nor respects is incredible.

One character’s unlikelihood seems a small thing to hurt a movie, but Sister Ruth figures prominently in the plot, and contributes to the interactions of other characters, as well. In fact, Sister Clodagh’s selection as head of the group at Mapu is almost as improbable, given her inexperience and, again, the loneliness of the location, leaving her to her own resources and without support. The characters, however well portrayed, come across as contrivances to further, or even to make, the plot.

Even so, for its visual brilliance (both in looks and concept), direction and acting, Black Narcissus should be viewed. It is essential for the film student, and interesting, if not quite entertaining, to watch.

Act of Violence (1948)

Directed by Fred Zinnemann; produced by William H Wright

Frank Enley (Van Heflin) has a fine life in a small southern California town, where he lives with his wife, Edith (Janet Leigh) and baby son. But he’s disturbed by the arrival of Joe Parkson (Robert Ryan), a man from his past with an intense grievance, and an equally intense desire for vengeance. What Enley will do to erase his past, and what Parkson will do to settle it, depends on what each man has become because of that past.

A suspenseful film noir, Act of Violence takes a good story, puts it together with excellent direction and acting, to make a highly commendable movie. The story is not complex, but it deals with complex issues, especially what can cause good men to do bad things: deprivation, desperation, obsession are the catalysts for actions that, under normal circumstances, no one would undertake. Enley’s increasing frantic attempts to escape what might happen may seem far-fetched in the last third of the movie. But people have done strange things to avoid consequences, and the dark world in which he finds himself is as much symbolic of his frame of mind as a real expression of criminality.

The characters are realistic. The motives of Enley and Parkson are obvious; those of Pat (Mary Astor) are less clear. Probably a prostitute, she appoints herself at one point Enley’s protector, of sorts. The reasons for her assistance seem at first no more than boredom, or perhaps the possibility of a little money. But her status as a mere hanger-on changes as she comes to see Enley as someone she might genuinely help.

Both Heflin and Ryan are first-rate. Ryan’s tall, harder impression lends itself to the brooding menace he needs to exude, yet both actors have portrayed good and bad characters. This ability to be both hero and villain fits perfectly with the story-line. It is easily understood that at one time, both Enley and Parkson were ordinary, easy-going men, much more good than evil; it is as easily understood how both could arrive at the point we meet them.

Leigh does well as the young wife almost overwhelmed by events, but determined to help her husband. Phyllis Thaxter provides a tougher, though corresponding version of Leigh’s character, as Parkson’s girlfriend. She’s a little older than Edith, has seen more of life and, further, has had to deal with Parkson’s obsession.

While Act of Violence was filmed only seven years after The Maltese Falcon, Astor looks to have aged double that number of years, though I would not be surprised if that was due to make-up and lighting (the latter especially is effective); she was, after all, only 43 in 1949. As with the other actors and their performances, Astor’s look, the look of someone whom life had treated unkindly, is perfect for the part.

The direction is spot-on, though otherwise would have been surprising from Zinnemann, who went on to direct High Noon, From Here to Eternity, Oklahoma!, A Man For All Seasons, The Day of the Jackal. It is particularly felt during Enley’s late night flight through a nearly deserted Los Angeles, highlighting both the sinister environment, and the man’s solitude in it. Though he is running to escape his past, he is, at that moment, alone, and therefore running from himself. The symbolism is indicative of Zinnemann’s European origins.

A taut film of both psychology and action, featuring two often overlooked dramatic actors, Act of Violence is worth both watching and remembering.