The Unsuspected (1947)

Directed by Michael Curtiz; produced by Michael Curtiz and Charles Hoffman

The secretary (Barbara Wooddell) of a radio-series host (Claude Rains) is murdered, the crime being contrived to look like suicide. A dead heiress’s husband (Michael North) of three days turns up, asking some odd and intrusive questions. The heiress herself (Joan Caulfield) returns with possible amnesia. And this is just the start of the mystery…

The set-up of The Unsuspected is excellent; it is similar to something Agatha Christie may have written if she wanted to be fun, as well as intelligent. That the movie cannot sustain the quality and doesn’t succeed in the execution are not, in fact, reasons to miss it. While the story is poorly devised in its later stages, the movie is stylish: a clumsy man stumbling over rocky ground while dressed like Cary Grant and talking like Noel Coward.

The acting, led by veteran Rains, is above average. Rains himself is suave and enjoyable, as he usually is. Constance Bennett is very appealing as his radio series’ sharp and quick-witted producer. The other cast members handle themselves well.

The characters they are given are three-dimensional. The script, as opposed to the story, is more than satisfactory, creating people who are convincingly funny, villainous, cruel, decent, hopeful. There is a genuine atmosphere of mystery as to what North is up to, and whether Rains is moral or amoral (“I rather like playing God,” he says to a criminal he has something on).

The story, however, is better suited to a low-grade programmer starring actors no one knows. The very motive for the first murder is a bit of a mystery in itself; it is touched upon, but the elucidation is not persuasive. The police-work by the leading official detective (Richard Donovan) is erratic, clever one moment, obtuse the next. And the means by which the killer provides him- or herself with an alibi should have been exploded by any number of the people with whom he or she was with the night of the homicide. And how the police know to follow a would-be killer near the movie’s end to prevent another death is not explained.

But what carries The Unsuspected, aside from the above average performances, is, as implied above, its style. The cinematography, while not expert, combines with the direction, to give the film a pleasing setting. There are clever moments, such as an unsavoury ruffian (Jack Lambert) gazing out the window of his room at the ‘Peekskill Hotel’ to see the hotel’s neon sign light up the town’s last four letters. Rains’s isolated mansion is a fitting environment for the action (Bennett makes some remark about its rural and uncivilised location – just before we see a hundred party guests drive away in their large cars), with its big rooms, sound-proofed study and constant rain-storms.

Though the story fails, and the mystery is certainly not what the writers seemed to have thought it to be, The Unsuspected is similar to a holiday dinner at which beans and bread are served for the only course, but in lavish, well-decorated and caringly-prepared surroundings.

The Window (1949)

Directed by Ted Tetzlaff; produced by Frederic Ullman Jr

Nine year old Tommy Woodry (Bobby Driscoll) brightens a dreary existence in his lower class New York tenement by making up stories. One day his family is moving to a ranch in Texas; the next, he witnesses a gangland massacre. His parents (Arthur Kennedy, Barbara Hale) are used to his tall tales but exasperated and worried by them, at the same time. The limit is reached when the boy tells his mother and father that he saw a murder in their own building. What nobody but the killers realise is that this time, Tommy is telling the truth.

An excellent little crime drama set in a real world of the working poor and crumbling slums, The Window is inspired by the Aesop fable about the boy who cried wolf. In fact, it is based on the Cornell Woolrich novelette titled The Boy Cried Murder. There is nothing really fantastic or unbelievable here; even the killing is an ordinary one, committed, it seems, for nothing more than the contents of a man’s wallet. As in many good movies, though, The Window’s creators take the ordinary and make much of it.

And that ‘much’ depends greatly on Bobby Driscoll, one of the best child actors Hollywood produced. He is completely credible in everything he does on-screen. His expressions, his tones of voice, his attitudes, are what would be expected of a nine year old boy, at least of his era. His curiosity about his neighbours, his restless energy, his unstated claustrophobia in his narrow surroundings, are all convincing. The film would have been ruined had he not been capable of conveying them.

The screenplay, by Mel Dinelli (who had earlier written The Spiral Staircase), is very good. One of its laudable aspects is the characters created. Tommy is not a pathological liar; he makes up stories but doesn’t tell his parents falsehoods beyond these. He is respectful and tries to do the right thing – which is what gets him into deeper trouble in the film. He is also intelligent, and any gaffes he makes in trying to solve his dilemma are themselves believable. If the boy had been a smart alecky brat, or in the least unlikeable, the film would have become tedious fast.

Similarly, Tommy’s parents neither ignore nor over-indulge him. They are frustrated by his stories, though there may be a hint that they understand that his life is too confined for his imagination. They don’t try to stifle it as much as make him understand his responsibility in using it. They are loving people who are under much outside pressure: the father works nights (never conducive to a relaxed state) and the mother is concerned over a sick sister.

If there is a weakness to the writing, it is that there are a few contrivances, especially toward the end. But these are redeemed by the excellent direction. Tetzlaff was initially a cinematographer, and it shows here. Light and shadows, camera angles and viewpoints are important. Small, dingy rooms; dark, empty streets; sounds off-screen, combine to create a tense atmosphere. And the climax is truly involving; Tommy’s final leap is a nail-biter, too.

Films in which a character’s claim to witness a crime are disregarded can often be far-fetched, or frustrating even when credible. This is not the case with The Window. The viewer will be taken along easily in Tommy’s dangerous adventure and, like the boy, wonder how it will turn out.

Tootsie (1982)

Directed by Sydney Pollack; produced by Sydney Pollack and Dick Richards

Michael Dorsey (Dustin Hoffman) is a talented New York actor so difficult that his agent (Sydney Pollack) confesses that no one in the country will hire him. Outraged by this news – and frantic for work – Dorsey decides to apply for a job not as himself but as somebody else. He’ll show everyone: he applies to a soap opera as a woman named Dorothy Michaels, a disguise which not only gains him employment, but popularity and respect – and a dizzying array of complications.

There are many comedies which amuse me, but few that make me laugh aloud. Tootsie is one of them. Going on forty years of age, this film is in no way out-dated, and perhaps cannot be. Like most superb films, it is largely the result of the triumvirate of excellent acting, directing and writing.

The casting of Hoffman in the lead role was a stroke of genius. It had to have gone to a ‘serious’ actor who was known for dramatic performances. If it had been filled by a comic actor, the effect would have been quite different, an unsuccessful ‘in-joke’. A proponent, at least in his early years, of ‘method acting’, Hoffman’s character’s dedication to his craft might be seen as a little self-deprecation. (During the filming of Marathon Man, Laurence Olivier, seeing Hoffman’s anguish in developing his role, advised him with a smile, “Just act, dear boy, just act.”) But the intensity Hoffman gives most of his parts makes the whole premise of Tootsie realistic, and not just a gag.

Bill Murray represents the sort of actor who might have ruined the film if he had been the lead. But as Dorsey’s roommate, his restrained reactions to his friend’s predicament actually come off as the voice of reason, and he is as close to a straight-man as the movie needs. Jessica Lange is very appealing as the female lead; she conveys an unhappiness with her character’s situation that is convincing, someone who is trapped in a cycle of bad decisions. Teri Garr, Charles Durning, Dabney Coleman (playing the type of role that landed him a couple of successful tv series) and director Pollack are all very good. Christine Ebersole and Estelle Getty have bit parts, and look very fast for Tobin Bell as a waiter at a party.

The writing could not be bettered. The comedy is not derived from a man wearing a dress. While the incongruity of a male who is clearly not female trying to pass as one may be humorous, it is fleeting, good for a single-scene chuckle. Hoffman is credible as a woman, and the very fact of his impersonation is not treated as the joke. It is the situations that arise from it that provoke the laughs.

Yet the story has its serious side, tempered by the comedy. Dorsey learns about himself, sees his flaws, sees the problems with how men treat women and, what’s more, does something about them. No major character is two-dimensional in Tootsie: even Coleman, an acerbic Lothario, has his faults mitigated – or at least explained – in one scene.

Pollack’s direction is dead-on. When dealing with major scenes, he gives the actors their head, seeming only to set parameters. The small, incidental scenes add both to the story and the comedy: in about three seconds, we see Dorsey, dressed as Dorothy, bellow at a cab – stopping one in his light female voice doesn’t work – then swig his arm angrily, in a decidedly feminine way. That brief moment shows how closely Dorsey and Dorothy are related. Characters are introduced in ways that permit the audience to know their most significant characteristic right away. Dorsey’s difficult nature is demonstrated in a hilarious sequence in which he rants about playing a tomato in a tv commercial and a performance as an “endive salad that knocked the critics on their ass.”

Tootsie is one of the best cinematic examples of making a comedy work by treating it seriously. This isn’t a farce, and situations and actions – and reactions – are realistic. There is little hyperbole, except perhaps in the devotion Dorsey exhibits to his role as Dorothy; and in that case, it is clear that that is his wont. Besides, most of us know of at least one such obsessive. Its believability is another of the movie’s assets.

Using only the best ingredients, and eschewing anything cheap and unimaginative, Tootsie remains one of film’s enduring – and endearing - comedies.

Born to Kill (1947)

Directed by Robert Wise; produced by Herman Schlom

Helen Brent (Claire Trevor), newly divorced and travelling back to San Francisco from Reno, meets Sam Wilde (Lawrence Tierney), a low-talking, supremely confident man - who has just murdered two people. After an implied tryst, Helen tries to brush Wilde off, but he pursues her, despite her betrothal to another man (Phillip Terry). Wilde’s motives aren’t just carnal, however: they are also mercenary, and when he marries Helen’s rich sister, Georgia (Audrey Long), lives are sure to be ruined - and maybe ended.

A dark, unforgiving movie, Born to Kill characterises the psychological aspects of film noir and, in so doing, becomes one of the ‘noirest’ of the genre. There is a great deal of talent displayed in Born to Kill, but even for that, it is not really a pleasant movie to watch.

Trevor’s performance is the stand-out, though, as the unfeeling murderer, Tierney has what might be considered the choice role. Helen Brent is not really someone on whose side the audience would be. She is rather cool, and definitely selfish. Her affair takes little account of her fiancé, and when she discovers two corpses, clearly the result of homicide, her reaction is to flee town. Her character becomes somewhat sympathetic as the movie progresses, and her motives, never noble and entirely egocentric, become nonetheless honest. There are moments when Trevor reveals her character’s personality with a glance or an expression that show her talent.

I had a problem with Tierney, which doesn’t really stem from his performance. His character consists largely of one note, a glum, menacing attitude that is really one big chip on broad shoulders. The script is good but leaves the viewer wondering what some women see in Wilde. Certainly, the glowering, dangerous aspect would appeal to many. But the mental and emotional sides, as opposed to merely the physical, are absent. As an affair, Wilde is credible; as a husband, he is a cipher. He also has a friend (Elisha Cook Jr, in a very good performance), yet gives no indication that the two of them do anything more than mope in silence together.

The portrayal of this single-minded killer is very effective, even so. Wilde is driven almost exclusively by the desire to get what he wants. He even ignores the hazard of being tracked by police and caught, concentrating instead on his anger over anyone ‘cutting in on him’. Tierney is well-cast for the role, though, considering his off-screen actions, one wonders how much of a stretch the violent, paranoid Sam Wilde was for the actor.

With primary characters as off-putting as Helen and Wilde, it is perhaps not surprising that the minor characters present more interest. Esther Howard does fine work as a heavily-drinking friend of the first murder victim: initially rather repulsive, she reveals hidden depths of loyalty. Walter Slezak, on the other hand, plays a very good detective with rather loose ethics. Martha Hyer, Ellen Corby and Jason Robards Senior have uncredited roles.

Born to Kill is a grim plunge into the psyche of two people, one whose ambition and ruthlessness is unencumbered by the slightest concern for others, and the other whose amorality is barely under control at the best of times. That given, one cannot expect fun watching this movie, perhaps not even entertainment. But Born to Kill will certainly give the viewer something to think about.