Tyrone Power Blogathon: Son of Fury

This entry is happily part of the Power-Mad blogathon to celebrate the 100^th anniversary of the birth of one of Hollywood's most enduring stars, Tyrone Power. Other entries can be found here: http://eves-reel-life.blogspot.com/2014/03/celebrating-tyrone-powers-100th-birthday.html.

For me, SON OF FURY (1942) is a prime representation of Golden Age Hollywood. Impossibly beautiful leading men and ladies, luminous cinematography, a haunting music score, studio craftsmanship able to convincingly recreate 19^th century London, an English country manor house and a South Seas island paradise on the Fox back lot, and a seemingly never-ending cavalcade of unforgettable character actors.

SON OF FURY is a perfect vehicle for star Tyrone Power. Twentieth Century Fox studio head Darryl F. Zanuck was always on the look out for suitable stories for his top male box office attraction, and while Power may have blanched at some of these roles, Zanuck knew his audience and what to give them – and he did, in some of the best adventure films ever made.

Tyrone Power had that rare talent to wear period clothing and making it look completely natural. He inhabited those costumes like 007 wearing a tuxedo. And his beautiful speaking voice with clear diction made him an ideal fit for these roles.

Based on the 1941 best-selling novel “Benjamin Blake” by Edison Marshall, SON OF FURY tells the story of young Benjamin Blake (Roddy McDowall), the illegitimate son of an English landowner who is brought up by his grandfather (Harry Davenport). His estate has been stolen from him by his uncle Sir Arthur Blake (George Sanders).

Blake works at the estate as a stable boy where he grows up to become Tyrone Power, falling in love with his cousin Isabel (Frances Farmer) and tormented on a regular basis by his cruel uncle. Finding Ben and Isabel together, Arthur whips Ben unmercifully. (Power seemed to get beat up or tortured by quite a bit in his adventure films, such as here and in THE BLACK SWAN the same year).

With the help of kindly tavern keeper (Elsa Lanchester), Ben flees England and stows away on a ship headed to the South Seas. Upon discovery he is beaten up some more by the captain, but allowed to work his way for his passage. He befriends Caleb Green (John Carradine) who tells him of an island whose sea beds are loaded with pearls.

Ben and Caleb jump ship at the island, where they find a fortune in pearls. Ben falls in love with one of the girls on the island who he names Eve (Gene Tierney). After an idyllic time spent on the island, Ben returns to England, where he enlists the aid of London's sliest lawyer Bartholomew Pratt (Dudley Digges) to reclaim his birthright and extract revenge on his uncle, not only in court but in a well-staged bout of fisticuffs.

While Marshall set his novel in the 1770s and early 1780s, Zanuck was having none of that. A July 1, 1941 memo from script coordinator Dorothy Hechtlinger wrote: “Mr. Zanuck is against using any kind of wigs in the motion picture. For this reason, we will change the period of the story proper to 1810, the period of LLOYD'S OF LONDON (Power's first starring role in 1936), which is a very good period. The prologue would take place around 1795.”

Not only was the novel's setting changed, but so was the title. Though “Benjamin Blake” had been a best seller, Zanuck wanted a punchier title. Zanuck liked one of the suggested titles, SON OF FURY, enough to keep it. Other titles considered were HE WHO CAME BACK and SON OF THE STORM. But “The Story of Benjamin Blake” was retained as a subtitle on the film's promotional materials and on the film's title card, to help rein in the book's many readers.

Though Power was always set for the lead, some of the initial casting ideas for the other roles are very interesting. Laird Cregar was penciled in for Sir Arthur and Ida Lupino as Isabel. Though Lupino was under contract to Warners at the time, she still owed Fox a picture in a contract dating back to her role in THE ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES (1939). Instead, Fox cast her opposite Jean Gabin MOONTIDE (1942). Maureen O'Hara was then slated until she was felled by appendicitis which required surgery and recuperation. Next up was Fox contract player Cobina Wright Jr., until a serious throat infection caused her to drop out. In desperation, Fox borrowed from Paramount the troubled but very talented Frances Farmer, in what proved to be her penultimate film appearance.

For the role of Eve, Ben's South Seas love interest, Zanuck suggested “If we don't use a real native girl, Gene Tierney.” We now know Tierney from such roles as LAURA (1944) and LEAVE HER TO HEAVEN (1946), but at this point in her career being cast as a South Seas maiden likely didn't seem so odd. She had been already cast as an Arab in SUNDOWN (1941), and Asians in THE SHANGHAI GESTURE (1941) and CHINA GIRL (1942). She makes a most fetching Eve, especially when so lovingly photographed by ace cinematographer Arthur Miller on those moonbeam-drenched beaches. If Tierney in a sarong was enough to bring in the men, the ladies got Tyrone Power spending most of his South Seas scenes in his bathing trunks. Something for everyone.

It's easy today to be critical about Gene Tierney cast as an island maiden, but context is everything. As socially conscious as he could be (and Zanuck was the most socially conscious of all the studio heads), there was no way Zanuck the businessman wasn't going to showcase his newest exotic-looking contract player and potential star opposite the studio's biggest leading man in what was sure to be one of the year's smash hits.

Because he was a former screenwriter Zanuck had an unusually acute sense of story structure. He was critical of screenwriter Philip Dunne's initial drafts, telling him in a memo:

“You have Blake running away from social injustice so he can come back some day and cure the horrible conditions. We don't want to tell that kind of a story. We don't want this to be a social document. It must be a personal story – the story of a bastard who has the moral right to an estate using his wits against another man who has the legal right. It must be told with gusto – swashbuckling. It is a Monte Cristo setup and should be treated as such.”

Novelist Marshall seemed somewhat ambivalent about the final film and its many changes from the book, saying at the time of the film's release, “I wrote a book to be read; Fox has made a picture to be seen, and I think they complement each other nicely.” (I don't know what he thought of the adaptation of his 1951 book “The Viking” which was made into “The Vikings” (1958) with Kirk Douglas and Tony Curtis. Hardly anything of Marshall's book is found in the movie.)

The film is loaded to the brim with great character actors. It's one of John Carradine's most appealing characterizations – it's such a pleasure to see him play a good guy for a change. Dudley Digges steals every scene he's in as the wily lawyer, and Elsa Lanchester delivers one of her loveliest and most understated performances here. No eccentricities, just a decent woman trying to do the right thing.

George Sanders delivers his usual venom-dripped performance. One senses Sir Arthur enjoys every aspect of stealing his nephew's inheritance, and even when it looks like all is finished he's still trying to finagle matters to his advantage. Any movie is better with George Sanders in it. His wife is played by Kay Johnson, wife of director John Cromwell and mother to actor James Cromwell.

Cromwell does a splendid job here. I've always thought he was a most unheralded director, based on his beyond marvelous THE PRISONER OF ZENDA (1937) and that small jewel of a movie THE ENCHANTED COTTAGE (1945). While not as good as those two masterpieces, SON OF FURY impresses with its sweep and lack of padding. There's a lot of story told in 98 minutes.

The film is also helped immeasurably by Alfred Newman's musical score. The film's major love theme – and its a beauty – had lyrics added to it by Mack Gordon and titled “Blue Tahitian Moon.” It achieved a modicum of success via recordings by Kenny Baker and Frances Langford, but without the smash success of Newman's haunting “The Moon of Manakoora” from John Ford's South Seas epic THE HURRICANE (1937). (While most famously used in the Ford film, that melody was originally composed for MR. ROBINSON CRUSOE (1932) starring Douglas Fairbanks.)

SON OF FURY was successful enough to warrant a remake, TREASURE OF THE GOLDEN CONDOR (1953), with Cornel Wilde, George Macready, Anne Bancroft and Constance Smith in, respectively, the Tyrone Power, George Sanders, Frances Framer and Gene Tierney roles. Filmed in Technicolor and moved to Guatemala, it's not a bad little film (the Sol Kaplan score is first-rate, one of his finest), but can't compare with SON OF FURY. The Power film remains as watchable today as it did when it was first made.

I know Power wished for more challenging roles from Zanuck, but he did exceptional work in the swashbuckling/adventure film genres. I've always felt he gave an Academy Award nomination-worthy performance in THE MARK OF ZORRO (1940) – it's probably my second favorite performance after his very atypical role in the classic NIGHTMARE ALLEY (1947). But Power, like Errol Flynn and to a lesser extent Stewart Granger, had the unheralded talent to look at home in other eras. It's much harder than it looks (ever see Brad Pitt in TROY(2004)? I think he's a terrific actor, but he was so out of place there).

It's a tragedy that Power died so young. It would have been nice to see him make it to the nostalgic boom of the 1970s, become a respected character actor, and look at his past films and say, “Boy, those were some pretty entertaining films after all. Not bad. Not bad at all.”

Happy 100^th Birthday to one of the great ones, an actor whose performances have given and continue to give enormous pleasure over the decades.

(Background information on SON OF FURY came courtesy booklet notes from the SON OF FURY soundtrack CD, a Screen Archives Entertainment Production.)

Love Is News; That Wonderful Urge

Movie remakes are nothing new, of course, but it’s rare to have a major actor remake one of his earlier successful films. But that’s what happened to Tyrone Power when he starred in “Love Is News” (1937) and it’s remake ”That Wonderful Urge” (1948). Both are pleasant, though hardly earth shattering, entertainment.

“Love Is News” is the better of the two, and takes place in that happy 1930s movie land of rich heiresses, fast talking reporters and even faster talking editors. Contemporary viewers might scoff at its plot, detailing a race among reporters to scoop front page headlines about the romantic adventures of an heiress, but in today’s era where so much ink and cyberspace is devoted to such vapid entities and talentless twits as the Kardashians and Paris Hilton, it doesn’t seen so far-fetched.

The difference here, though, is Antoinette “Tony” Gateson (Loretta Young), one of the richest women in the country, and its most eligible bachelorette, foregoes any publicity about her life and prefers to keep as low a profile as possible. Ace reporter Steve Leyton (Tyrone Power) disguises himself as an airline employee and gains her confidence, and she spills some details about her life while the two enjoy a smoke together.

The ruse is discovered and Tony decides to turn the tables. She tells all the other competing papers that Steve is her fiancée. She gives scoops to the other papers throughout, much to the consternatation of Steve’s editor Martin Canavan (Don Ameche), who hires and fires Steve over the course of the movie.

Of course the couple will eventually come to the conclusion that despite all the bickering, they really do love each other. Both incredibly attractive, Power and Young were a good team, appearing in five films together. It’s too bad that their best film together, the canal building epic “Suez” (1938) has yet to appear on DVD, and I can’t recall it ever showing on the Fox Movie Channel.

George Sanders has a small role as a fortune hunting count in this, his second American movie. His introduction is a delight, first seen in a series of flip images where he’s showing off his profile and then patting his hair down. It’s very amusing.

The careers of Powers and Sanders were interspersed in ways the two men could never have imagined. Sanders came to the attention of the American movie going public in his first American movie “Lloyds of London” (1936). (Is this the only movie ever made about an insurance company?) This was also the film that skyrocketed Power to stardom after a few minor roles.

They would again tangle in two of the best adventure films of the 1940s, “The Black Swan: (1942) and “Son of Fury” (1942). Power and Sanders were filming a dueling sequence for “Solomon and Sheba” (1959) when Power was felled by a fatal heart attack at age 44. Thus, Sanders was with Power at the very beginning of his career and at the very end. Offscreen, Sanders was very much like the haughty characters he played so well and could be dismissive of the roles and pictures he was assigned, but he liked Power and was truly devastated by his premature death.

In addition to Sanders, “Love Is News” boasts a sterling supporting cast, including such favorites as Slim Summerville, Dudley Digges, Walter Catlett, Jane Darwell, Stepin Fetchit (less irritating than usual) and Elisha Cook, Jr.

Those players have it all over the film’s remake, “That Wonderful Urge”, with Power again in the reporter’s role and Gene Tierney taking over the Loretta Young role. Tierney and Power were also a popular team in the 1940s, co-starring in “Son of Fury” and Power’s first assignment following his WWII service, the blockbuster “The Razor’s Edge.” (1946).

Oh, there are some welcome familiar faces on hand here, including Reginald Gardiner, Gene Lockhart and Porter Hall. But they’re playing their roles relatively straight, without the charming eccentricities of the earlier cast. The editor’s role here is played down much more than in the earlier version, and that’s because Lloyd Gough is no Don Ameche.

There is one very funny new scene in the 1948 version, where Power crashes a society party thrown by his “wife”, where he eats peanuts and regales the guests with stories of his 80-year-old West Virigina-born mother, and her encounters with the government when they try to take away her still.

It’s all pleasant enough, but as I said earlier, not particularly memorable. Power would have better luck that year with another comedy, the charming leprechaun comedy “The Luck of the Irish.”

The Falcon and the Co-eds

The Falcon was arguably the suavest and smoothest of all movie sleuths. Think James Bond minus the enormous pressure of saving the world.

The Falcon is a kindred spirit to The Saint, and I’d be hard pressed to tell the difference between the two. Independently wealthy and holding no job, these dashing playboys help beautiful women who find themselves in peril, and solve murders that the befuddled police are unable to. All this while attired in their tuxedoes or well-cut suits, smoking, drinking the finest champagnes and being welcome faces at casinos and gambling halls throughout the world.

The Saint was the creation of British author of Leslie Charteris, who, if memory serves, sued Falcon creator Michael Arlen for plagiarism.

But the similarities between the two don’t end there. RKO Studios bought The Saint to the screen in eight entertaining B films from 1938-1943, one with Louis Hayward, two with Hugh Sinclair and five with George Sanders.

When Sanders left the Saint series, RKO put him into The Falcon series as Gay Lawrence. In fact the first Falcon film was titled “The Gay Falcon” (1941), and that’s the character’s name, not his orientation.

Even RKO could see Sanders’ enormous talents wasted in these B mysteries, so in “The Falcon’s Brother” (1942), Gay Lawrence dies fighting enemy agents. Sanders’ real-life brother Tom Conway played Gay’s brother Tom in that outing, and took up his brother’s crime fighting mantle in ten very entertaining mystery movies, each averaging about 70 minutes.

I’ve always liked Tom Conway. He’s very smooth. Very urbane. He also sounds just like George Sanders, and if you close your eyes it’s sometimes hard to tell the difference between the two. What marvelous speaking voices they had. Conway was known around Hollywood as “the nice George Sanders”, as Sanders in real life wasn’t too different from the scoundrels he played so well in the movies.

The Falcon is cut from the same cloth as other screen sleuths of the era, such as Charlie Chan, Sherlock Holmes, Philo Vance, Boston Blackie and yes, The Saint, who solve the crimes while the police look helplessly on. Tom Lawrence’s foil is Inspector Timothy Donovan (Cliff Clark) and The Falcon has a great deal of affection for Timothy. After all, can The Falcon help it that beautiful women turn to him first instead of the police?

One of the best in the series is “The Falcon and the Co-eds” (1943), a nifty mystery boasting an above average story of murder and scandal at Bluecliff Academy, an upscale girls college. Such a setting allowed RKO to trot out their roster of starlets, and with a variety show in the offing, opportunities for them to perform in musical numbers. It also allows lots of looks of bemusement from The Falcon as the girls ooh and ahh over him. Of course, The Falcon is too much the gentleman sleuth to lead the young girls astray, but he is taken by one of the teachers, played by the alluring Jean Brooks (star of Lewton’s “The Seventh Victim” (1943)).

The photography in “The Falcon and the Co-eds” is really beautiful in the best RKO noir-like tradition. One of the students is thought to have psychic abilities and she’s accompanied by spooky music. Another student is prone to fainting spells, understandable when bodies are popping up everywhere on school grounds.

Bluecliff Academy is set near a cliff, and you just know that cliff, as well as an access point called The Devil’s Ladder, will play a part in the climax. I rarely correctly guess who the murderer is in mystery movies, but I guessed right this time.

A fun aspect of many of The Falcon movies is after the mystery is solved and The Falcon is looking forward to a little relaxation, a beautiful young woman appears at the end to beg for his help. She sets up the situation in a sentence or two and they’re off. It’s like a mini-coming attractions for the next movie.

TCM ran a whole day of Falcon movies last month and I taped about six of them. They’re a very enjoyable way to spend 70 minutes and the Falcon’s later adventures will take him Out West, in Hollywood, Mexico and San Francisco. Good stuff.

Ivanhoe (1952)

When adapting Sir Walter Scott’s famous novel, “Ivanhoe” (1952), what did M-G-M do first, consult the novel or “The Adventures of Robin Hood” (1938) starring Errol Flynn? Likely both, though I think there’s little doubt the strong influence the Flynn film has on “Ivanhoe.”

Not only had Robin Hood been a huge audience favorite since its release in 1938, but it was a perennial favorite as a re-issue. Warner Brothers were surprised at the high grosses a double feature of Robin Hood and Flynn’s other great swashbuckler, “The Sea Hawk” (1940) earned in a 1948 re-issue. Robin Hood was sent forth to theaters once again in the early 1950s before being sold to television. So the success of Flynn’s Robin Hood was no doubt in the minds of the “Ivanhoe” creators.

In an odd coincidence, both movies earned Best Picture nominations, an honor rarely afforded to traditional swashbucklers.

And “Ivanhoe” should be justly regarded as one of the screen’s great swashbucklers, even if it doesn’t reach the heights of the Flynn film. True, it doesn’t have the high spirits and zest of the 1938 film, and “Ivanhoe” journeyman director Richard Thorpe doesn’t have the visual flair of Michael Curtiz.

But there is much to enjoy, thanks to a literate script, a grand Miklos Rozsa score, terrific swordplay, beautiful vistas of the English countryside and arguably the best castle siege ever put on film.

It’s no secret that “Robin Hood” screenwriters Norman Reilly Raine and Seton I. Miller used the novel “Ivanhoe” as a basis for their script. If memory serves, Norman and Saxon rivalry during the reign of Richard the Lionheart was mainly an invention of Scott, and later added to existing Robin Hood legends. In fact Robin Hood and his Merry Men have fairly substantial supporting roles in “Ivanhoe.”

Both movies deal with brave Saxon oppressors against Norman injustice during the time King Richard the Lionheart is away at the Crusades. Sir Wilfred of Ivanhoe (Robert Taylor) tries to raise a ransom for Richard after the king is taken hostage by Leopold of Austria on his way home from the Crusades. While trying to save Richard, Ivanhoe upsets the plans of Richard’s brother Prince John and company, who have been ruling in Richard’s place.

Prince John (a magnificently sneering Guy Rolfe) and his Norman allies are in no hurry to have Richard home as they are plucking the kingdom dry left and right. Guy Rolfe is one of my favorite character actors, and he’s especially good here. His Prince John carries an expression throughout of a man who just stepped in something unpleasant.

Besides the main plot, what other Robin Hood influences are there? Well, the Saxon Princess Rowena is played by Joan Fontaine, Olivia deHavilland’s sister. She is certainly lovely in the part, but Fontaine was not under contract to M-G-M at the time. Why her? Was she chosen for the DeHavilland connection, and hence a subconscious Robin Hood link, or because of her availability?

Like the Flynn film, “Ivanhoe” is ideally cast with a roster of superb character actors, including George Sanders, Robert Douglas, Felix Aylmer, Finlay Currie, Guy Rolfe, Francis De Wolff. And what voices! I wish we had actors today with such distinctive voices. One just closes the eyes and revels in their dictation.

Low brow comedy relief is provided by the squire Wamba (Emlyn Williams), whose appearance, haircut and manner bring one to mind of Much the Miller (Herbert Mundin) in the Flynn film. Wamba’s puppy dog loyalty to Ivanhoe is very similar to the role Much had for Robin Hood.

Robin Hood (Harold Warrender) and his Merry Men (one of whom is Sebastian Cabot) join with Ivanhoe to keep England safe until Richard returns, and that includes taking part in the film’s action highlight, the storming of Torquilstone Castle. For almost 15 minutes of furious action we get thousands of arrows shooting through the air, wooden ladders flung against castle walls, sword fighting through fire- and smoke-filled corridors and one particularly amazing stunt where we see, from overhead, a stuntman fall from the castle’s ramparts and into the moat below.

Warrender was an unfamiliar face and name to me, so I looked him up on IMDB. I was saddened to see he died just the following year at age 50. I wonder what happened to him?

A radiant Elizabeth Taylor is on hand as Rebecca, daughter of Isaac of York (Felix Aylmer), a Jew whose role as treasurer of his tribe is key to raising Richard’s ransom.

Ivanhoe is lucky to have the attentions of such fetching beauties as Rebecca and Rowena, but Rebecca’s beauty has caught the eye of Ivanhoe’s main foe, the Norman knight de Boise Guilbert (George Sanders). This is the weakest part of the film.

As much as I love watching (and listening) to George Sanders, his lovesick knight here is not well written. There’s very little interaction between de Boise Guilbert and Rebecca, so we’re somewhat surprised when towards the end he says he will sacrifice his title and lands if she will love him. Where scenes cut establishing their relationship? I wish there had been at least one good scene between Sanders and Taylor to set this up.

When we think of Sanders, we think of the superior, aloof, and yes, caddish zest he brought to his roles. Sanders is always great fun to watch. But here he tries for sensitive, but comes off dull, a sin in the Sanders canon.

Back to another Robin Hood connection. Rebecca is put on trial with witchcraft and stands in a shimmering white gown facing her accusers, very similar to the gown Maid Marian (Olivia deHavilland) wore in facing her tribunal in the Flynn film. It could be an obvious choice of the costume designers, dressing their heroine in pure white, symbolic of her standing against the corruption flooding the kingdom. The dresses aren’t identical, but they sure do look a lot alike.

Both films also end with Richard returning to England and promising to rule justly and to mend the Norman and Saxon rivalry.

It’s somewhat churlish to go all this way without mentioning Robert Taylor (no relation to Elizabeth). He’s fine in the role, and has the chivalrous (if humorless) behavior down pat, but he’s not the best fencer in the world. Some of his sword fighting scenes are clunky, and make one appreciate the seemingly effortless flair the likes of Flynn and Tyrone Power brought to their fight scenes. Taylor was still a big favorite with audiences, especially the ladies, and no doubt his name brought a lot of people into the theater.

Like Korngold’s score for “The Adventures of Robin Hood”, “Ivanhoe” boasts a majestic score, courtesy of Miklos Rozsa. Rozsa became something of a music historian when researching Roman music as a basis for his score for “Quo Vadis” (1951) and greatly enjoyed the process. He embarked on a similar role in preparing his “Ivanhoe” score, visiting museums in Europe to study 12th century music. I can do no better than to quote the great composer himself:

“I wanted again to create a score that would sound stylistically authentic. I found a somewhat similar situation in musical matters between twelfth century England and first century Rome. As Roman music was largely influenced by the Greeks, so came the Saxons under the influence of the Normans, who were much more cultured. The sources of Saxon music are extremely few, but there is a large amount of music of that century of the French troubadours, who brought their music with the invading Normans to England.”

Under the film’s opening narration Rozsa introduces a theme from a ballad actually written by Richard the Lionheart. The tender love theme for Ivanhoe and Rowena is adapted from an old popular song from the north of France. Rozsa said, “It’s a lovely melody, breathing the innocently amorous atmosphere of the Middle Ages, and I gave it modal harmonizations.”

While I rail about the running time of many movies, I wish “Ivanhoe” was fleshed out a little more. At 106 minutes “Ivanhoe” could have used some additional scenes, especially establishing more groundwork in the Rebecca and de Boise Guilbert storyline.

But “Ivanhoe” still stands as magnificent entertainment, one sure to please young and old alike. The DVD release is a splendid transfer, beautifully showcasing the Technicolor photography.

The Lodger (1944)

“The Lodger” (1944) is reckoned by many to be the best Jack the Ripper movie ever made, and with good reason. Expertly cast, and beautifully directed by John Brahm, this 20th Century Fox production drips with atmosphere, menace and a wow of a sexual subtext which somehow managed to escape the censor’s eye.

As I’ve said before in previous postings, I’ve always enjoyed Fox’s evocations of fog-drenched Victorian England, and “The Lodger” is no exception.

The film is based on a very successful novel by Marie Belloc Lowndes. In England, Alfred Hitchcock directed a silent version in 1927 with stage star Ivor Novello. It was the film that started Hitchcock on his road to critical and commercial success. Novello remade it in 1932 as a sound version, and Fox re-made it yet again in 1952 as “The Man in the Attic” with Jack Palance in the title role.

As good as the Hitchcock version is, however, it’s the 1944 version that continues to resonate with viewers.

The scene is London in 1888, and the city is paralyzed by the Jack the Ripper murders. The victims are all actresses or have ties to the theater. (Actresses make a handy substitute for prostitutes, the real victims of the Ripper, and a profession that would not have made it past the censors).

One night a mysterious stranger, Mr. Slade (the brilliant Laird Cregar) comes to a house seeking lodging. The house is owned by the Bontons, a kindly older couple (Cedric Hardwicke and Sara Allgood) who agree to rent him an upstairs bedroom. He tells them he is a doctor, and also requests to use the attic as a place for experiments. He tells them he works odd hours, and will use the back staircase as he will be coming going at all hours of the night.

Soft spoken and gentle, Mr. Slade seems an ideal tenant, save for a few peccadilloes, such as turning to the walls paintings of old time actresses. He doesn’t think much of actresses which could be a problem since the Bontons’ niece Kitty (Merle Oberon) is a celebrated musical comedy star and is living with them.

And in the film’s most disturbing scene, Slade shows Mrs. Bonton a picture of his brother, who he obviously harbors disturbing feelings for. This scene is beautifully played by Cregar, and while it might have gotten past the censors, I’m sure 1944 audiences knew that Slade’s feeling toward his sibling were more than normal brotherly love. An actress caused his brother’s ruin, which explains Slade’s deep loathing of the acting profession.

But is Slade the Ripper? He does come and go at all hours of the night, and is seen with a mysterious black bag, and comes home one night with a blood-stained coat. A Scotland Yard Inspector (George Sanders) harbors suspicions about Slade, but isn’t sure. Certainly a fingerprint clue seems to rule Slade out.

The climax is very exciting, and one of the most memorable of 1940s horror cinema. More I will not say.

This is one beautiful looking film. Anyone that thinks black and white is boring should look at five minutes of “The Lodger.” Atmosphere drips from every scene, with each shadow and alleyway a potential Ripper murder scene. One scene of the Ripper approaching a cowering victim has the camera take the point of view of the Ripper, the camera shifting from side to side as he gets closer to her, the victim quaking with fear. Similar scenes were found throughout countless 1980s slasher movies, but “The Lodger” was first (albeit, less graphically).

“The Lodger” was a smash hit with 1944 audiences, not least for the cast, strong script and atmosphere. So successful was it that Fox ordered a follow up film the following year with another Victorian horror melodrama, the superb “Hangover Square”, re-uniting Cregar, Sanders, director Brahm and screenwriter Barre Lyndon. It was another big hit but there were to be no more reunions.

Cregar was one of the most striking actors of the 1940s and would have gone on to bigger and better things, but he had a tortured private life. Standing over six foot three and weighing more than 300 pounds, he went on a crash diet to lose over 100 pounds in hopes of becoming a leading man. He was also homosexual, and thought if he could be made attractive to women he would be cured of his gayness. The crash diet proved too much for his system, and he died of a heart attack at the age of 28 following shooting of “Hangover Square.”

What a career he could have had. As it is, in his short, brilliant career, Laird Cregar still stands as one of the great actors of the 1940s. Unfortunately, he probably understood his characters all too well.

Rating for “The Lodger”: Three and a half stars.

Hangover Square

“Hangover Square” (1945) is a fine, fine film, boasting one of the great film music set pieces of all time. More on that later.

The film is a splendid example of the Studio System at its apex, in this case 20th Century Fox. The film takes place in Victorian England and concerns George Harvey Bone (Laird Cregar) a promising symphonic composer who is working on his piano concerto. When he hears discordant noises or sudden, jarring sounds, he blacks out and goes on a murderous rampage. (Not giving anything away here, as the opening scene shows him killing a pawnbroker. The camera takes the place of Bone as he approaches his screaming, cowering victims, pre-figuring the slasher films of the 1980s).

An essentially decent (though obviously troubled) person, Bone turns himself into the police when he finds a bloody knife and awakens in the neighborhood where the pawnbroker killing took place. But the evidence is not against him, so he is free to go though a police doctor (George Sanders) harbors suspicions against Bone.

Unwinding one night, Bone goes to a music hall one night and becomes smitten with one of the singers there, Netta (Linda Darnell). After successfully writing a song for her, she sees Bone as her ticket to fame and fortune, while being cruelly dismissive of him in public.

Unfortunately for Bone, his condition worsens as the film goes on, leading to a truly memorable climax featuring the premiere of his piano concerto. More than that I will not say, though the film’s final image is indeed a haunting one, one worthy of Poe.

The film’s score, including the concerto, was penned by the great Bernard Herrmann. The last 10 minutes is a performance of the concerto and a marvelous sequence it is, with the camera swinging through the orchestra to and fro and becoming more frenzied as the concerto increases in intensity (as does Bones’ dementia). Director John Brahm pulls out all the stops in filming the sequence, and matched to the brilliance of the music is a sequence I never get tired of watching. Herrmann later dubbed the piece “Concerto Macabre for Piano and Orchestra” and it’s a real showpiece, one that has been recorded several times.

The rest of the score is mainly drawn from themes later played in the concerto, though there’s other first-rate music not included in the concerto (love those screeching piccolos when Bone’s insanity kicks in).

I’ve always marveled at 20th Century Fox’s evocations of Victorian England, and “Hangover Square” is no exception. The square itself is a marvel of production design; it’s a beautifully designed set.

Laird Cregar was one of the great talents in movies, and this was unfortunately his last film. A giant talent, both in size and talent, at one time he weighed more than 300 pounds and was determined to lose weight and become a leading man. He went on a crash diet and lost more than 100 pounds and was going to have surgery to further reduce his stomach when he died after suffering multiple heart attacks. He was 31 years old.

Linda Darnell is a revelation as Netta. Darnell earned her stock in Hollywood playing sweet virginal heroines in films like “The Mark of Zorro (1940) and “Blood and Sand” (1941) and very appealing she was too, but here her Netta is a shrewish, destructive woman who plays up to George but despises him behind his back. It’s a marvelous portrayal.

Cregar, George Sanders and director Brahm had enjoyed a huge success the year before with “The Lodger” considered by many the best of the Jack the Ripper movies. Both movies, along with “The Undying Monster” (1942), a werewolf picture directed by Brahm, were recently released in a new DVD set called Fox Horror Classics. It’s a marvelous set, and I’m looking forward to re-discovering the other two movies.

Rating for “Hangover Square”: Three and a half stars.