Movies On My Mind

A superb thriller, one of the first movies of Alfred Hitchcock I’ve ever seen. I saw it for the first time in a movie theater, which played the old movies only and the suspense was hanging in the air, the audience seemed to have stopped breathing at times. The movie starts with the arrival of the new head of the Green Manors psychiatric clinic, a famous doctor Edwards (Gregory Peck). The doctor is coming to take over from a retiring head of the clinic for 20 years, Dr. Murchison (Leo G. Carroll). The famous Dr. Edwards seems much too young to most psychiatrists in the clinic, but the young female doctor Constance Petersen(Ingrid Bergman) does not find anything wrong with that, she feels an instant sympathy for Dr. Edwards, she is actually drawn to him. However, almost immediately Dr. Edwards starts to exhibit a very strange behavior. He seems to be agitated by the lines made by a fork on the white linen cover during dinner, he faints during a surgery on one of the patients and he is not recognized by his own housekeeper. On the night of the surgery Constance is reading the book by Dr. Edwards and realizes that the signature on the book and the note she got from “Dr. Edwards” earlier that day don’t match. When “Dr. Edwards” wakes up she confronts him with this knowledge and he admits to her that he is not Dr. Edwards, but he does not know who he really is and he has a feeling he might have done something terrible to Dr. Edwards in order to take his place. The only thing he knows about himself is that his initials must be J.B., because they were engraved on a cigarette case he had on him. Constance does not believe that he could have done anything wrong. She thinks he is suffering from the guilt complex. She tries to persuade him to sit on a session with her to get to the bottom of this, but he leaves early in the morning, afraid of dragging her with him into the unknown and possibly into the association with the murderer. The housekeeper has already contacted the police and they raid the clinic, but J.B. is already gone. He does leave a note of the hotel he’ll be staying at in New York and Constance, convinced he can’t get well without her help, is joining him there. During an intense session, which caused J.B. to lose conscience again, they get the glimpse of whom he can be – possibly a medical student, who had some accident with his arm, it was clearly burnt. Constance decides to take him to her teacher in psychiatry, Dr. Alex Brulov, wonderfully played by Mikhail Chekhov. She introduces J.B. as her husband, but the good doctor figures out that he is dealing with the amnesia patient and immediately goes on guard against possible complications. The complications do arise as J.B. has one of his episodes after he sees the dark lines on the white wall of the bathroom at night, which causes him to take a razor and go downstairs. One of the most frightening and at the same time riveting scenes in the movie is when Dr. Brulov gives J.B. a glass of milk, while chatting to him incessantly in the background, and all this time you can see him through the slowly draining glass, and then there is nothing, black screen. Br-r-gh, scary… I think my heart was somewhere in my throat by that time. Next morning Constance is looking for J.B. and sees a slumped form of Dr. Brulov in the chair. Nobody like Hitchcock to play with the spectators’ nerves! Of course, the good doctor is ok, and he is confronting Constance about her “husband”. The police was already in his house the day before and he advises Constance to give J.B. up to the police. She is begging him to give her a day to try a snap J.B. out of his amnesia. Meanwhile, J.B. wakes up and tells them about the dream he had that night. The dream is richly illustrated by Salvador Dali and tells about J.B. sitting in a club with the bearded man, while another faceless figure approaches them and starts reproaching the bearded man in stealing his job. Later, when J.B. and the bearded man are somewhere in another place in the open, the faceless figure seemingly kills the bearded man and throws something away. Both psychiatrists perceive this dream as a quarrel that happened between Dr. Edwards and another person, which J.B. apparently was the witness of. As a result of this session they are able to uncover the name of the place where J.B. has last seen Dr. Edwards, a ski resort where he and Constance go together and where he discovers that he, indeed, is not a murderer, but someone else is. However, the evidence is against him, he is tried and convicted. Exhausted and distressed Constance is returning to the Green Manors and in a conversation with Dr. Murchison, who remained as a head of the clinic after Dr. Edwards’ disappearance, she realizes who the real murderer is.

Fantastic suspense of the movie is keeping you on the edge of your seat all the time. I’ve watched it more than 15 times already and the thrill is still there. It is very much enhanced by the superb cast of the movie, Gregory Peck is incredibly handsome and vulnerable in the role of Dr. Edwards. Ingrid Bergman still very young and beautiful is very intense and riveting as Constance. Poor Leo G. Carroll had quite a share of bad guys roles in Hitchcock’s movies and this is one of them, but he is absolutely great as a cunning Dr. Murchison.

Also, one of the greatest attractions of the movie was that he was actually heavily relying on Zigmund Freud’s theory of dreams bringing the message from the subconscious to the surface and it was extremely interesting to watch the deciphering of J.B.’s dream based on Freud. All in all, this movie will definitely remain in the cinema history as one of the most wonderful examples of the genre.

Stage Fright

Directed by Alfred Hitchcock

Marlene Dietrich, Jane Wyman, Michael Wilding, Alistair Sim

A couple in the car is running from the police, the man (Jonathan) starts to explain about the reason: his lover Charlotte, a famous cabaret singer, came to him, told him she’s killed her husband, and she’s begged him to go back to her apartment for another dress instead of a bloodied one she’s wearing. He went there and was spotted by the maid. The police was pursuing him and he decided to turn to his fellow student Eve, who helped him to get away from the city to her father’s cabin. Eve was in love with him and enlisted her father to help Jonathan to avoid the prison (love the father, superb work of Alistair Sim!). Little by little it appears as though the singer lady is framing Jonathan. In her attempt to clear him of the wrongdoing Eve sneaks into Charlotte’s domicile as a temporary replacement of her maid in order to find the information which would implicate Charlotte in the murder. That role will put her in quite a few awkward situations, some of them rather comic. In the course of her amateur sleuthing Eve meets a real police Detective Smith (Michael Wilding) and gradually falls in love with him. Meanwhile Jonathan is getting more desperate and the police is closing in. The end, I have to admit, had quite a twist to it and made a strong impression on me, a real thrill.

I did not like Jane Wyman at first, but as the movie progressed I realized more and more that she was perfect for this role of the girl with the strong emotions and convictions, yet sensitive enough to recognize her faults in judgment when the time comes. Alistair Sim plays her father with a flair and a lot of comic talent, very endearing character. Marlene Dietrich was herself – a diva, and quite convincing in that role.

Dial M for Murder

A wonderfully crafted tale of greed leading to murder.

A former tennis star Tony Wendice (Ray Milland) has realized that his career in tennis is coming to an end and his rich wife Margo (Grace Kelly ) met someone else and might leave him, thus ending his comfortable existence. Her lover, a detective stories writer, has gone back to the US, however, and Tony got a reprieve. For a year he mulls the plans to get rid of her, until finally the writer comes back and Tony has to act fast. He already picked a man to do the murder for him, a former university alumni with the questionable moral standing, whom Tony blackmails into committing the murder on the night he’s supposed to take Margo’s lover to his club. However, things are not going according to the plan. The intended murderer enters the apartment and leaves the key outside as agreed with Tony earlier, but Margo begins to struggle when she is accosted by the murderer (which Tony probably never even thought of when putting the plan together!). In the struggle she accidentally finds the scissors she’s forgotten on the desk and strikes back at the murderer. The murderer is killed, Margo calls Tony in a shock and he advises her to wait for him before she calls the police. Arriving to the apartment he re-arranges a few things in a way that begin to look suspicious to the police detectives called on the scene, especially when coupled with the delay in calling them in the first place. The innocent Margo is being framed as a ruthless murderess, who had arranged for the deceased to show in her apartment, so she could kill him, possibly to prevent a blackmail. She is convicted of the murder of the first degree and sentenced to death. However, her lover is trying all possible venues to save her and in his research arrives at certain inconsistencies in Tony’s story. It would not be good to give out the ending of a wonderful thriller, though in Hitchcock’s movies the crime never pays. Suffice it to say that things are getting really very interesting by the end!

I have liked Ray Milland’s performance as a suave and treacherous Tony, but I thought Grace Kelly’s character Margo was too much understated and demure (which was not Grace Kelly’s fault, by the way J ). I guess I was a bit disappointed, because I’ve seen Grace Kelly portraying much more flamboyant women and I think it’s what she did best. Still, these are the minor flaws that can’t spoil the great suspense and thrill of this classical movie.

I Confess

Directed by Alfred Hitchcock

Starring Montgomery Clift, Ann Baxter

Location - Canada

A stirring music(Dimitry Tiomkin), a body on the floor. Suspence is growing even from the slight tremble of the curtain behind the departed murderer. A man in the priest cassock leaves the crime scene and walks on the dark street. The local priest, Father Logan, (Montgomery Clift) sees the man entering the church and goes there to check. The man is Keller, a German laborer in the church , and he is confessing to killing a Mr Villet, a lawyer who he wanted to rob to start a new life elsewhere. Villet wanted to call the police and Keller killed him. Keller realizes that he can conceal the murder and the priest will have to keep the confession secret, so nobody will know. Keller decides to pretend the murder never happened and starts playing games with the police. Meanwhile Father Logan’s reaction to the murder is beginning to seem strange. He is seen at Villet’s house with a mysterious woman in obvious agitation and Father Logan seems to know her very well, in fact he steers her away from the house.

A couple of schoolgirls step forward to say they saw a priest leaving the scene of crime. Things are shaping up as though Father Logan is the murderer, and he can’t divulge who the murderer really is. Keller meanwhile is weaving a tale that should implicate Father Logan completely, leaving the bloody cassock in his room and hinting at the strange behavior of the accused the night of the murder. Only Keller’s wife knows the truth, but she is not talking. Even the confession of the mysterious woman, his former fiancee, who was blackmailed by Villet, makes things only worse. There seems to be no recourse. At some point Father Logan seems to contemplate leaving the church, but does not go that far. There will be no happy ending, though the real murderer gets justice in the end.

I’ve liked Montgomery Clift in Father Logan’s role. He plays a person with a lot of hidden emotions, which show through his face, not through the words. I did like Ann Baxter a lot too, especially in the scene of her confession. I absolutely loved the retrospective scenes before the war - both actors are so very young and attractive in them.

I’ve seen many Hitchcock’s movies with more suspense and mystery, but this story still had enough of suspense and thrill to keep me rooted to the screen. Throw on top an excellent cast and the usual Hitchcock’s teasers throughout the film and you have a very entertaining movie in the combination!