The Red House (1947)

Directed by Delmar Daves; produced by Sol Lesser

Pete Morgan (Edward G Robinson) runs his farm with the help of his sister, Ellen (Judith Anderson) and their adopted daughter, Meg (Allene Roberts). But he is aging, and Meg persuades him to hire Nath Storm (Lon McCallister), a young local man. Warned by Pete to stay out of the nearby woods, and away from its mysterious Red House, Nath’s curiosity is aroused, as is Meg’s; the girl feels connected to the abandoned building somehow. Yet the more questions the young pair ask and try to answer, the stronger becomes Pete’s desire to keep the answers hidden.

The Red House is an eerie and unusual film, possibly a film noir, but more of a psychological thriller. As is usual with successful movies, it depends not just on one element, but on acting, directing and writing.

In terms of acting, Robinson is a big part of the movie, though he doesn’t carry it; he isn’t even really its centre. This actor, who could play villainous and sympathetic, comedic and dramatic, nonetheless provides much of the action, if dialogue and emotion that move a story may be termed that. He manages well to convey a man haunted by a past that may or may not undo his appearance of decency.

Lon McCallister is probably an unfamiliar name to many now, despite his second billing here. He forsook acting in his forties, and The Red House is likely his most significant rôle. He does very well in it, though his character doesn’t really give him much to work with. Allene Roberts started acting with The Red House; the reason for the brevity of her career – even shorter than McCallister’s – is clear; she is adequate as a performer, but no more.

The screenplay is good; co-written by the director, it effectively creates a sense of tension, especially when concerned with Robinson’s character. There is, perhaps, too little to the secret at the heart of the movie’s mystery; the viewer may guess at least the gist of it some time before it is revealed. That doesn’t mar the story. Indeed, the finale is both exciting and fitting.

Delmar Daves is another name that might be largely unknown these days, though with much less reason than McCallister’s. As a writer, he penned Love Affair, Destination Tokyo, Dark Passage, and A Summer Place, among others. As a director, he helmed some of those films, and more. One of the factors to making The Red House work is the contrast that Delves makes between the pleasant countryside, with its open fields, well-kept farms and swimming ponds, and the claustrophobic woods, the overgrown cabin and menacing shadows. As well, the direction – and the script – shows the loving, almost chummy relationship between Nath and his mother – he keeps trying to get her to marry her long-time admirer – next to the unhealthy obsession centred about the title house. The aspects of light and dark are more than just visual.

Neither a ghost story nor a tale of crime, The Red House manages to combine these features – at least figuratively – in a movie that will, even if it doesn’t keep you guessing until the end, will keep you entertained.

Pursued (1947)

Directed by Raoul Walsh; produced by Milton Sperling

Jeb Rand (Robert Mitchum) was saved as a boy after the mysterious massacre of his family, and adopted by the woman (Judith Anderson) who rescued him. Growing up with the Callums, tension and fear are always hanging over him, from the resentment of his adopted brother, Adam (John Rodney), to the nightmares that haunt his subconscious. Constantly meeting a malevolent stranger (Dean Jagger), Jeb struggles to find peace while unraveling the enigma of his past.

An impressive array of talent goes into Pursued, in front of the camera and behind, and it shows. Mitchum plays the conflicted Jeb Rand very well, someone who tries to live in the present but finds the dangers there linked to the past. He’s mostly a peaceable man, but isn’t afraid to stand up for himself.

Teresa Wright (who receives top billing) has an misleadingly ordinary rôle as Thorley Callum, the girl with whom Rand grows up but loves; at one point, her behaviour alters – with good reason – and Wright gives the character an eerie menace. Anderson has a sympathetic part, the kind with which she isn’t usually associated, while Jagger plays his villain as half man-of-action and half devil-on-the-shoulder, direct and insidious, as he sees the need. The ubiquitous Ian Wolfe appears in a slightly larger rôle than usual, playing a fair-minded county coroner.

The direction by Walsh is very good. By this time, he was as veteran a director as could be: his first job in the director’s chair being in 1913! He had also been an actor, an uncredited part being that of John Wilkes Booth in The Birth of a Nation. His work covered all genres, from comedies to romances, though he is best known for action (eg. High Sierra, They Died With Their Boots On, the superb White Heat). Pursued has more than a touch of film noir to it (interestingly, so does another Mitchum western, Blood on the Moon, reviewed in this blog on June 18th, 2023). Walsh adds a surreal element to Pursued, as well, reflected in Rand’s dreams and even in his relationship with Thorley; this is stressed in some effective lighting.

The screenplay is by Niven Busch, another heavyweight (husband of Wright at the time Pursued was made), editor of Time magazine and contributor to The New Yorker, he wrote for the movies and penned novels. His most famous screenplay was for The Postman Always Rings Twice. He wrote Moss Rose, also reviewed in this blog (October 22nd, 2023.) His work here is very good, and Pursued’s noirish and nightmarish aspects are as much due to his words as to Walsh’s direction. (Busch had a small acting part, oddly, in The Incredible Lightness of Being (1988), three years before his death.)

Editing is achieved by Christian Nyby, another leader in his field (Red River, The Big Sleep), who also directed (The Thing from Another World, which he edited, too), though most of that work was on television. In charge of Pursued’s photography is James Wong Howe, who started as a slate boy for DeMille, and worked on movies from The Thin Man to Hud. Here, he uses the American southwest to excellent effect; as often as that country has been used for movies’ backgrounds, Howe shows some new landscapes, impressive and perfectly in keeping with the mood of the film.

Even if all the famous names in the cast and crew didn’t matter, Pursued remains an entertaining western, with good action, fine acting, an intriguing story-line and three dimensional characters.

Appointment in London (1953)

Directed by Philip Leacock; produced by Aubrey Baring and Maxwell Setton

In 1943, 188 Squadron is a typical heavy-bomber unit, though its commanding officer is not so ordinary: Tim Mason (Dirk Bogarde) has completed 87 missions over enemy territory, even though the survival rate for aircrew of Bomber Command is on average no more than two-fifths of a tour. His superiors are worried about his stress-level, which isn’t helped by trouble with his officers, high casualties and talk among the men of a jinx. But Mason is determined to complete three full tours (90 missions), no matter what.

Appointment in London, despite the innocuous title (which refers to officers’ scheduled reception at Buckingham Palace to receive awards from the King; the U.S. title of Raiders in the Sky manages to be even more bland), is one of the best movies about the usual - but often deadly - problems faced by bomber aircrew in the Second World War.

It is what might be termed quietly realistic. There are no speeches or histrionics - the closest to either comes when Mason loses his temper with a stupid subordinate - but the stress and worries, the rather over-the-top hilarity to compensate, all ring true.

This is undoubtedly due to John Wooldridge, the author of the story from which the screenplay (which he also co-wrote) was adapted. Wooldridge was a Regular RAF officer, flying bombers in the war. In case Mason’s goal of 90 missions seems fantastic, it should be noted that Wooldridge himself completed 97 (or 108, depending on the source.) A man of several talents, he also composed more than a dozen film scores, including that of Appointment in London.

Much of the action is earthbound drama, some having to do with the management of a combat unit during wartime, some with the men’s personal lives. It all has a bearing on the squadron’s war effort and, though certain, almost obligatory, diversions are included (eg. Mason’s romance with a war widow (Dinah Sheridan)), the dialogue all has the sound of realism, and what the officers and men say to each other may have come straight from Wooldridge’s memories.

This memory supplies features that I’ve not seen in other movies on the subject. For instance, during the climactic raid on Germany, the audience hears the master-bomber (an officer of the Pathfinder Force, serving as, in effect, the raid’s airborne director) yelling instructions to the hundreds of aeroplanes around him, all the while crews in those machines are conversing about their more narrow objectives. Such scenes contribute not just to the film’s realism, but to its tension, creating urgency, even if the characters are calm.

These attributes are a credit to the direction, as well as the writing. The acting is very good, especially by Bogarde, who, as a performer, always seemed to have a nervous breakdown simmering just beneath the surface. Other players, whether in large or small parts, have the easy casualness that British actors often bring to their roles.

Though no mere motion picture can convey the truth of war, Appointment in London demonstrates aspects of it that are interesting, entertaining and thoughtful.

Thunder on the Hill (1951)

Directed by Douglas Sirk; produced by Michel Kraike

Intense rains have caused flooding throughout Norfolk, and the people of one district are driven to seek refuge at the local convent, situated on higher ground. There, everything is admirably, if strictly, organised by Sister Mary Bonaventure (Claudette Colbert). Among the evacuees are Valerie Carns (Ann Blyth), and her police escort. She was on her way to Norwich to be hanged for the murder of her brother. As events unfold, however, Sister Mary begins to piece together Valerie’s story, and she becomes convinced that the condemned woman is innocent.

The improbable plot is backed up by a simple script. The storyline manages to bring together a number of characters who know of and, indeed, had interaction with either the murder victim, the alleged perpetrator or surrounding events. Thus the flood, and the resultant gathering of locals in one spot, provide the means by which the nun delves into the mystery. This setting, and how it is handled, is really no less implausible than some of Agatha Christie’s books, yet the imagination, intelligence and manipulation of situations by the writers of Thunder on the Hill are inferior to the novelist’s.

If the plot is unlikely, it is not aided by the leanness of the mystery. There are too few suspects (admittedly, introducing more would have strained credulity still further) and the way to the truth is pointed out, at least to the audience, too easily.

Even so, Thunder on the Hill is an adequately involving movie. Director Sirk is now best known for the lushly colourful melodramas he made in the 1950s. However these are regarded – and their status these days is actually higher among critics, especially for their technical achievements, than in contemporary reviews – Sirk worked in many genres. Nonetheless, the manner in which the actors perform in Thunder on the Hill has the hallmarks of melodrama. This, along with the impending fate of Valerie Carns, lends tension, albeit partially artificial, to the film.

Those performances are a bit over-wrought, but persuasive. Colbert’s character’s antecedents are not detailed enough, and don’t really give the impression that a cloistered life would have been that which Sister Mary would have chosen, following her intimated personal crisis. Regardless, Colbert portrays the character well: thanks to her, once she had taken the veil, Sister Mary is believeable. Blyth’s work borders on the histrionic at times, though this may be excusable, considering Valerie’s situation: expecting to be hanged on the morrow, she is given three more days to ponder her end, thanks to flood-waters. The other actors do decent work, though their characters seem stock, rather than genuine.

While Thunder on the Hill presents nothing outstanding, it is a watchable film, betraying its stage origins, perhaps, but with an exciting climax.