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Holiday Affair

Notorious - Alfred Hitchcock (1946)

We're back at RKO to dig up THE BODY SNATCHER (1945) from Val Lewton and director Robert Wise!

Boris Karloff, Henry Daniell and Russell Wade star in this adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's classic short story. Oh hey Bela Lugosi is here too!

The Locket (1946)

20 December 1946 | 85 min. | B&W

Director: John Brahm

Writer: Sheridan Gibney

Cinematographer: Nicholas Musuraca

What stands out about The Locket, upon first reflection, is its plot structure. It’s often the main feature people discuss about the film. The Locket’s story is told through nested flashbacks that spiral back to a dramatic climax. It might sound complicated, but it’s actually a very lucid narrative. (BTW: If you’re someone who doesn’t watch too many older films, and you check this one out, I’d love to hear your thoughts on The Locket’s structure!)

On the day of his wedding, John Willis (Gene Raymond) gets an unexpected visit from a strange man, a psychologist called Blair (Brian Aherne). Blair tries to explain that Willis’ bride to be, Nancy (Laraine Day), is his ex-wife and a compulsive liar who has left a trail of broken men in her wake. Once Blair has sufficiently proven that he’s not some charlatan, Blair explains that after he married Nancy, he also received an unexpected visit from a strange man, a painter called Clyde (Robert Mitchum). Clyde had tried to get through to Blair that his new wife was Clyde’s ex-girlfriend, who was involved in a murder and theft and had already ruined at least three men’s lives.

This would be too niche of a crafting project, but I’d love to make a matryoshka doll set with Gene Raymond>Brian Aherne> Robert Mitchum>Laraine Day>a locket.

Each flashback segment is perfectly paced out and it’s so satisfying. Even though some people seem to laud the plot structure as if it’s an extricable part of The Locket, the style exquisitely reflects the dive into each narrating character’s psyche. (Nicholas Musuraca strikes again!)

The outer story (Willis’) is evenly lit with few shadows and many wide, conservatively constructed shots. The second story (Blair’s) starts in summertime with equally bright lighting and standard angles then, post-Clyde’s story, starts incorporating more shadows and shifty angles culminating in destabilized camera work in the midst of The Blitz. The third story (Clyde’s) is dark and wintry to begin with. But, Clyde’s story kicks off with mistrust as his first impression of Nancy is as a flippant rich girl with no real appreciation for art. Then, after Clyde learns of her trauma and becomes the only living witness placing her at a murder scene, his sequences are filled with shadow. The core story (Nancy’s) is maybe the most emotionally effective sequence of the film.

It returns us to the mostly shadowless standard angles of the start of the film, but it devolves as young Nancy is faced with her childhood trauma, which superficially might seem minor but tapped into deeper emotions of class difference. (And let’s not overlook that her mother is played by a Viennese actress with a noticeable accent.) Then, when The Locket finally returns to Willis and Nancy’s wedding day, repetition of events is paired with repetition of shots and sound cues until the film devolves stylistically again.

This is all captured in the musical score as well. The execution of Nancy’s final scene was actually jaw dropping for me. No surprise that the music was done by Roy Webb, who has a mind-bogglingly impressive resume.

I know that all probably made it seem like maybe I was lying when I said hat the plot was actually very easy to follow, but I promise it is. The structure is so cleanly presented with Nancy’s childhood trauma at the core of it all. But, each story layer outside of Nancy’s leaves room for questioning the nature of Nancy’s psychosis. Essentially, we don’t know how her mind is broken. Now, I leaned toward the ending being appropriate because of Day’s performance. Day’s Nancy is so aggressively normal that she comes off as abnormal. When she’s called out and might be caught off guard she doesn’t even flutter her lashes. At moments where no one is watching her, her facade doesn’t falter. So conscious could her facade be?

In my post on The Lodger (1944), I mentioned that, as a Twilight-Zone fan, I wanted to check out more of John Brahm’s film work. The Locket seemed more noir-ish than the The Lodger and it was still Noirvember so here we are! And, Brahm wasn’t even the only TZ crossover with The Locket! It was produced by Bert Granet, who was a producer on seasons 4 and 5 of Twilight Zone. And Brian Aherne stars in an episode of The Twilight Zone that also does a deep dive into the past and the nature of memory: “The Trouble with Templeton.” Now, if only Granet had brought a bit more of this movie into the season 4 hour-long TZ eps.

I’d wholeheartedly recommend The Locket, but there is one thing I’d keep in mind: the poor quality of Warner Brothers’ DVD release. The sound quality was so bad it was as if we were listening to the movie through a closed door. There were no captions available on the DVD to compensate either. (So, not very accessible.) Your best bet might be waiting for the next time TCM runs it.

Previous Noirvember 2018 Posts:

New Episode of NOIR TALK Special Guest: Steven C. Smith

Emmy-nominated producer and author Steven C. Smith joins host-producer Haggai Elitzur for a tour of film noir musical scores and their composers. This is the first of a two-part episode. The discussed composers and movie scores including music clips follow:

Adolph Deutsch - The Maltese Falcon  Miklos Rozsa - Double Indemnity, Criss Cross, The Killers  George Bassman - The Postman Always Rings Twice  David Raksin - Laura , Force Of Evil Roy Webb - Murder My Sweet  Max Steiner - The Big Sleep 

Read Steven C. Smith's "Bernard Herrmann and the Music of Desire: An essay on the Composer’s Noir soundtracks" in  NOIR CITY #3: Back issue for sale at www.noircitymag.com/noir_city_3.html Your dollars go towards the Film Noir Foundation’s restoration efforts. 

All good things must end! We review BEDLAM (1946) from director Mark Robson and starring Boris Karloff and Anna Lee. It's our final horror film from Lewton and his team at RKO, does he go out with a bang?

Plus, what's the connection to William Hogarth's art? Why is it called Bedlam? Why is this the last Lewton horror film? Listen and find out!

The question of "is this supernatural?" has never been more textual in Val Lewton's horror movies than in 1944's CURSE OF THE CAT PEOPLE from directors Gunther von Fritsch and Robert Wise. But where on the genre spectrum of children's fantasy to horror does this film lie?

Starring Ann Carter, Simone Simon, Kent Smith and Jane Randolph, with horror classic Elizabeth Russell, RKO regular Sir Lancelot, and fallen star Julia Dean.

We encounter Val Lewton's fourth horror flick from RKO and first with new director Mark Robson: it's THE SEVENTH VICTIM (1943) starring Tom Conway, Jean Brooks, Kim Hunter, and Hugh Beaumont!

Devil worshippers, suicide, and lesbian undertones are all awaiting you in this week's episode...