Movie Review: The Queen of Spades

The Queen of Spades (1949)
directed by Thorold Dickinson, starring Anton Walbrook, Yvonne Mitchell, Edith Evans

(Note: This is my entry in The British Invaders Blogathon, hosted by A Shroud of Thoughts.) 

Night after night, Captain Herman Suvorin (Anton Walbrook) goes with his fellow officers to a club, where the laughing sons of nobility stare at the gypsy dancers and play the card game faro until the sun rises. Suvorin, a strange, solitary man, never spends any time with the dancers and never spends any money, but there's a furtive hunger in his eyes as he watched the cards. Andrei (Ronald Howard), the only one in the company nice enough to try to be Suvorin's friend, is puzzled by his behavior, but Suvorin, a poor man who despises his wealthier comrades, is determined not to play faro until he's certain he'll win.

One night, Suvorin discovers a book that promises him the key to unbelievable wealth. The book tells the story of the Countess Ranevskaya, a beautiful, desperate woman who sold her soul to the Devil in order to win the secret of the three winning cards. With the secret of the cards, she won enough money at faro to keep herself from ruin. Suvorin is excited beyong measure at the story, especially when he discovers that Ranevskaya is still alive now an old and irascible crone (Edith Evans) who's never once breathed a word of the secret cards to anyone. Suvorin becomes obsessed with learning the three cards at any price. Even if it means seducing the countess's innocent young ward Lizaveta (Yvonne Mitchell). Even if it means loss of life or sanity. Even if he throws his own soul onto the fire...

 
For a film that Martin Scorsese himself referred to as a "masterpiece," The Queen of Spades has been strangely overlooked for decades. Even now, while it's attained a certain small cult status with those who've seen it, in the U.S., it still only pops up on a dual DVD with Dead of Night (not that Dead of Night isn't a good film in its own right) and it doesn't usually pop up when people are chatting about all the great films of Britain's postwar period. Maybe it just has too much competition; The Queen of Spades was nominated for a BAFTA in 1949, the same year as another little film you might recollect, oh, The Third Man that was it. Maybe it's because Thorold Dickinson, the film's director was born under an unlucky star since despite his own good reputation, his movies (the 1940 British Gaslight, Secret People, Hill 24 Doesn't Answer) haven't always been the easiest to get a hold of. Or maybe it's because The Queen of Spades is easy to mistake for just another cozy British ghost story. 

In fact, the film is tremendously arresting in its visuals, its set design is amazingly elegant for its shoestring budget, and its performances are all topnotch. It's creepy, it's thrilling, and it horrifies in all the right place. Finding The Queen of Spades kicking around on Youtube or in out-of-date DVD releases is like realizing that the eccentric little old lady neighbor you've been ignoring for years was really Miss Havisham all along.

Adapted from a Pushkin short story, The Queen of Spades tells the story of Herman Suvorin, a man who becomes convinces that the riches and esteem he craves will be his if he can learn the secret of how to win at cards. It's a simple enough tale that teases you as to whether our hero is literally selling his soul or just going completely off his head. But for me, The Queen of Spades takes that simple story and makes it beautiful. Despite the fact that director Thorold Dickinson was given the assignment only five days before it started, despite the fact that they had the budget of a mayfly supper, and despite the fact that it showcases little actual horror, The Queen of Spades is a visual feast, creating a cold, haunted vision of Imperial Russia that could rival The Scarlet Empress.

Much of the credit has to go to Dickinson, who's endlessly inventive in his distorted camera angles, twisted mirror shots, and imagery. In one moment that made me literally catch my breath, he goes from a shot of Herman Suvorin scratching out a love letter while a spider spins a web in his dusty room to a shot of Lizaveta swooning away on her bed, her fingers suggestively reaching under the pillow to caress his letter as the transposed image of the spider keeps spinning over her face. 

In another sequence where a younger and more beautiful version of the Countess makes her bargain with the Devil, Dickinson blurs the edges of the scene, as if we're watching something not quite of this world. To hint at the doom that will befall her, all he has to do is show a shot of some mysterious figure's gnarled hands slowly working out the details on a tiny doll, a little miniature of the Countess. And when the Countess does make her fateful visit to the place that, in the film's cryptic words, "left a mark on her soul," Dickinson leads up to it by showing us the Countess walking through a shadowy tunnel, coming to a door that enters into pitch blackness. We hear her scream and we hear the scream of her horses but nothing more. And when the light comes back,  the tiny doll is being trapped under a glass bowl by those same unknown hands. When the movie cuts to the real Countess, she's pleading to a painting of the Virgin Mary for mercy but in a merciless answer to her prayers, the faces of Virgin and Infant slowly turn to black. It's as great as anything you'll find in a Val Lewton film.

The legendary stage actress Edith Evans, here playing the old, crabbed Countess Ranevskaya, is the film's most impressive visual effect. Just watching her hunch across the screen, with her huge powdered wig teetering on her head and her eyes darting around suspiciously is like watching some grotesque oddity from Alice in Wonderland come to life. The Queen of Spades was actually Evans' screen debut, but she's so assured onscreen that you'd think she'd been doing films for years. In her line delivery, Evans is a perfectly banal, constantly complaining old woman, but you can't help but notice something haunted and despairing in her eyes. She strikes the perfect balance, keeping you guessing as to whether Evans is an ordinary woman who's become the unfortunate target of Suvorin's delusions or a soulless crone who knows far more than she's telling.

Dark-eyed, regal Yvonne Mitchell, also making her screen debut after years on the stage, is surprisingly very good as the naive, romantic Lizaveta, the Countess's companion. She's lovely and good-hearted, but her life with the Countess has kept her sheltered from the outside world. Despite Suvorin's brusque manners, poor situation, and unattractive appearance, his ardent love letters (diligently copied out of books) are enough to set her head spinning. It would be easy to write off Lizaveta as just another ingenue, a helpless pawn in Suvorin's schemes. But Mitchell has too much dignity in her manner to let you dismiss her entirely. Instead, you get the sense of a woman who could very well grow into strength and intelligence, given the chance to experience the world. By forcing her ward into seclusion and servitude, the Countess has ironically turned her into the same reckless, unhappy woman she herself once was, seeking relief in a faithless lover.

Ronald Howard, son of Leslie Howard, gets the film's most thankless role as the pure-hearted Andrei, Suvorin's aristocratic foil. As the only character not to originate from the original Pushkin story, his main purpose is to provide Lizaveta with a happy ending. Still, Howard shows more than a few sparks of his father's talent, giving Andrei a genuine warmth and sensitive watchfulness that makes you root for him to bring Suvorin down. Judging by his work here, Howard should have had more of a career.

Like his other great obsessive role, Lermontov in The Red Shoes, Anton Walbrook is again the cold, vaguely inhuman creature whose eyes light up and whose hands tremble, not for a fellow human being, but for something intangible. In this case, it's privilege, not art. He looks at the beautiful, adoring Yvonne Mitchell as if he can stare right through her to the life of wealth that awaits him. Considering that the only other character he spends any time with is an attractive young man, who seems rather fond of him for no apparent reason, it's tempting to try to work in a gay subtext here. However, Walbrook doesn't play it that way; he's just as bored making small talk with Andrei as he is writing love sonnets to a woman. 

That chilly detachment certainly fits for the character, but it did leave me feeling a little removed from Suvorin for a good part of the film's runtime. Unlike Lermontov, who can at least boast that he's bringing beauty into the world, Suvorin's concerns are all wrapped up in himself and so his downfall doesn't feel particularly tragic or shocking. I'm not one to complain about characters being likable or not, but I couldn't help wishing for a little more insight into Suvorin.

Still, that minor complaint aside, Walbrook's performance is knock-out spectacular once Suvorin goes from pinched misanthropy to complete insanity. Intensity was Walbrook's great gift as an actor and he brings it full-force to this role, commanding your attention simply because his needs are so raw. He wants the secret of the cards and he wants it so much that everything else in the world has turned to ashes for him. His one scene with Edith Evans is a stand-out, but I'm also enthralled by the moment when he finally feels he's won. Walbrook mutters to himself, hardly daring to believe it. He closes his eyes in relief. And then he stands up as if to stretch but instead, Walbrook put his hands to his chest, clawing at his own skin in some kind of bestial triumph and then makes this undefinable noise. It's like a bird of prey cawing, I quite literally can't think of another actor ever doing anything like it. And then to cap it all off, Walbrook lifts his hands up, lets out a few hysterical sobs, and ends with a glass-rattling scream that would unnerve even the most jaded horror fan. You don't know whether to be more terrified of him or for him. There's plenty of actors who can make a meal of a mad scene, but Walbrook truly makes this unique and memorable.  

In a lesser film, the director would have just let Walbrook's performance carry the whole thing, but Thorold Dickinson creates a movie that's just mad enough to keep pace with its feverish hero, using mirrors, shadows, sounds, and eyes to tell the old story of what happens when we want too much. More people should know it and more people should talk of it. And more people should be talking about Thorold Dickinson, a man who played his best even when fate dealt him an unlucky hand. The ghosts of the other great movies he could have made haunts The Queen of Spades just as much as the story's ghosts do.

Favorite Quote:

"Take life as you find it."
"I'd rather take it by the throat and force it to give me what I want."

Favorite Scene:

For me, the most thrilling scene in The Queen of Spades comes when Suvorin hides in the Countess's room in order to beg the secret of the cards from her. Dickinson carefully draws out the suspense. He shows us every slow step of the Countess being made ready for bed, her body suddenly shrunken without the weight of her wig and jewels. She mumbles to herself the same prayer we heard the younger Countess make, "Holy virgin, have mercy on me." In the darkness, Evans' eyes look like two black holes. Suddenly she sees a black apparition next to a painting of the Virgin. She rears up and the shadow steps forward to reveal himself as Suvorin. He comes forward, pleading, presenting himself as a supplicant. The Countess looks away from him, mute. Suvorin falls to his knees, asking her to help him in the name of God and any human feeling, but she moves away. Suvorin's pleas turn to demands and then finally to threats. And still the Countess refuses to answer. By this point, the audience is almost as maddened as Suvorin, wanting desperately for this woman to share what she knows. But what if he's a madman tormenting an innocent old woman? The film doesn't tip its hand either way and it ups the tension immensely, as you keep trying to figure out who's most in danger here.

It's hard to overstate just how brilliantly matched Walbrook and Evans are in this scene. Walbrook brings all his vocal gifts to Suvorin's shifting, increasingly savage speech and Evans uses the power of her face alone to show both great dread and a strange, mute contempt. I won't give away how the scene ends or the little shock coda afterwards, but it left me very grateful for directors who know how to let actors bring the horror all on their own. Sometimes you don't need CGI demons coming up through the floorboards or overacting Satans (actually scratch that--you practically never need that). Sometimes all you need is the terror in two people's eyes as they slowly realize they're staring into the face of their own damnation.

Final Six Words:

Sends shivers of delight and horror

Fashion in Film Blogathon: A Letter to Three Wives

Fashion Spotlight on A Letter to Three Wives

Have I lured you all in with that gorgeous Jeanne Crain photo? Well, the Fashion in Film Blogathon has arrived, courtesy of the lovely and stylish Angela over at The Hollywood Revue. In honor of the day, I'm going to try something a little different from my usual list-making and movie-reviewing habits. I'm going to do a scene-by-scene fashion analysis of one of my favorite movies, Joseph L. Mankiewicz's A Letter to Three Wives.

I love this movie for many reasons. Its witty script, the talented cast, the biting social commentary, I could go on. But I also love the way it uses costume. Even though the film is about three beautiful, upper-class women, the costuming isn't used just as a glamor assault (although that would be fun), but as a way to subtly comment on class and character differences. Each of our three main protagonists has her own look and her own place on the social ladder.

For those who are unfamiliar with the plot of A Letter to Three Wives, I'll do my best to give the context for each scene. While I normally avoid recapping films, I think in this case, a little plot summary is required. Now, on to your irregularly scheduled fashion spotlight.

Let's start with two of our protagonists: Rita Phipps (Ann Sothern) and Deborah Bishop (Jeanne Crain). Rita, on the left, is married to a schoolteacher and brings in some much-needed money for the family with her radio writing. She is the mother of twins. Deborah, on the right, is a farmer's daughter who met her wealthy husband while they were both in the Navy during World War II. They're on their way to a charity event (taking underprivileged children on a riverboat ride and picnic). Rita and Deborah both belong to the country club set and their clothes reflect that. They're not overdressed but they still care enough to wear jewelry and white gloves, along with their sharply tailored jackets. Could you guess that these two were on their way to a picnic?

Enter our third wife, Lora Mae Hollingway (Linda Darnell). She's the young wife of wealthy businessman Porter Hollingsway, the richest man in town. Lora Mae is even more dramatically dressed than her friends, befitting her status. That jacket is more blindingly white than sunshine glinting off the polar ice caps. Personally, I would worry about some kid putting their sticky hands all over it, but I'm not the wealthiest woman in town.

The plot thickens. Their absent fourth friend Addie Ross has left them a note, telling them she's run off with one of their husbands. But she doesn't tell them which husband. This shot has nothing to do with costume but I have to say, I love Addie's handwriting.

This is a superb example of what I'd call "costume choreography." When the wives huddle together, we suddenly see how perfectly their outfits complement each other. Notice how Ann Sothern, with her dark jacket, white blouse, and blond hair is an almost perfect photo-negative of Linda Darnell's white jacket, dark scarf, and brunette hair. Jeanne Crain would be odd woman out, except that her polka-dotted scarf ties her visually to the other two, as well as contrasting with Sothern's striped collar. It makes complete sense for the wives to be visually linked because at this moment, they're all thinking the same thing. "Is it my husband?"

We flashback to Deborah as a new bride, on the night of her first country club dance. Deborah is practically tearing her hair out with anxiety because she has no experience with this kind of crowd. Her husband Brad tries in vain to console her. Here she is in her robe. Note the floral pattern and girlish ruffle. This robe probably comes from back home on the farm; she hasn't had time to get any new things.

After knocking back way too many martinis, Deborah comes downstairs in the only party dress she owns. And I have to say, this is the dress that made me pick A Letter to Three Wives for my blogathon entry. This thing is a genuine miracle of costuming, a valentine to bad taste. The bunchy sleeves, the big flounce at the bottom, those giant fake flowers that look like a space alien attack...it's so great. As much fun as it is to see Hollywood designers dress a woman beautifully, it can be equally fun to see them dress her horribly. This dress is a smacking visual reminder of the huge gaping difference between Deborah's simple farming background and the glittering social set she's married into.

The first meeting of Deborah and Rita. While Deborah collapses in despair, let's take a look at Rita. I'm not wild about this dress: it's sort of giving me a "Little-Miss-Muffet-Sat-On-Her-Tuffet" vibe. But it does provide a strong contrast to Deborah's floral disaster; unlike Deborah, Rita is an experienced wife and mother. Her dress is black, in a sober, conservative style that the country club set would find age-appropriate. By 1940s standards, Rita is moving into the "matronly" category.

Rita and Deborah bond as they attempt to improve Deborah's dress. Incidentally, the husbands are waiting outside, completely oblivious to the costuming turmoil.

 We arrive at the country club dance to meet Lora Mae and her husband Porter (Paul Douglas). The gruff and tough Porter looks on as his wife dances with another man. "If she was dancing with a tramp, she'd look like a tramp, got no class of her own. I like class." This is our first hint that Lora Mae and her husband aren't exactly the silver spoon type. We get another, much subtler, hint with Lora Mae's dress. Unlike Rita, Lora Mae has gone for a much more striking and sexy look, with bared shoulders and glittering collar and cuffs. While it keeps well within the bounds of taste, there's something about all the sparkle and skin. Rita seems to be hiding. Lora Mae is displaying herself.

Brad (Jeffrey Lynn) drags his wife Deborah onto the dance floor, failing to realize that she's completely drunk. As she tries to plead with him, Brad goes for a spin, only to rip the remaining flower off Deborah's dress. The flower lands on someone's plate, there's a hole in the dress, and Brad can't understand what just happened.

As Deborah's flashback ends, she reflects on how the mysterious Addie Ross would never have blundered in such a way. Unlike Deborah, Addie comes from Brad's social class.

We leave Deborah and enter Rita's backstory. Rita is planning a big dinner party to impress her employer, the formidable Mrs. Manleigh. Unlike the other two couples, Rita and her husband George (Kirk Douglas) belong to the upper class only by birth, not by money. They have to scrimp and save to support a family on his teaching income and her radio writing money. But Rita is ambitious and eager to succeed in her career. Here she is getting ready with her maid Sadie (Thelma Ritter). Got to love that Lucy Ricardo-esque hairdo that Ann Sothern's sporting.

When we get to the party, Rita's pretensions become painfully obvious. In her desire to impress the Manleighs, she appears in this glittering white dress, trying to act as if this is normal dinner wear for her. It's beautiful and flattering, but there's something a little off about it too. Rita's the mother of twins, she's a career woman, she's smart and sophisticated and yet this dress is so demure, so innocent. It's a fake.

Get a load of Sadie's formal outfit here. Rita is trying so hard to act as if her income was three times what it is.

A brief shot of Mrs. Manleigh (Florence Bates). Not much to point out here as Mrs. Manleigh is dressed respectably for a middle-aged woman, but you can see at a glance that she probably didn't take much time at all to get dressed for this party. It's a huge deal for Rita but it means very little to her. In the next scene, Mrs. Manleigh will end up breaking George's classical record, a birthday gift from Addie Ross.

And we can see that Lora Mae is just amused by the goings-on. This shot doesn't give the full effect of Lora Mae's dress which is simple enough except for the floor-length overskirt that ties in the middle. It's an unusual enough style that I tried to find out if Lora Mae is showing off some 1940s trend, but my research yielded nothing. Still, look how she's comfortably sprawled, while Rita, in her dainty white dress, has to sit with perfect china-doll posture.

Rita's party ends in disaster when George, fed up with Mrs. Manleigh's constant rudeness the whole night long, tells her exactly what he thinks about schlocky radio writing. George and Rita have a fight. As George storms off, Rita thinks bitterly about Addie Ross. Addie who remembered George's birthday when Rita didn't. Addie wouldn't have been caught in this mess.

Rita's flashback ends and we're back in the present. Rita confronts Lora Mae about their problem, but Lora Mae insists that it doesn't matter whether or not her husband ran off with Addie Ross. She's got Porter's money and that's all that matters. Apparently Lora Mae is the only woman who thought to bring along pants and boots to this picnic. Oddly appropriate for a scene in which she's talking about how she doesn't need a man.

Sadie: "If I was you, I'd show more o' what I got. Maybe wear somethin' with beads."

Lora Mae: "What I got don't need beads." 

Now, we come to the third segment of our program: Lora Mae and her gold digging past. She didn't just come from the wrong side of the tracks, she came from a house right next to the tracks (in a running gag, the house shakes like mad with every passing train).  Poor but gorgeous Lora Mae has snagged a date with her boss, the wealthy Porter Hollingsway. While her family frets over the indecency of it, in strolls Lora Mae, cool as a cucumber, in this elegant little black dress. The neckline's low without showing a hint of inappropriate cleavage and it hugs her figure without clinging. Unlike the stereotypical gold digger, Lora Mae subverts expectations by showing us (and Porter) that she's got "class."

Lora Mae has grabbed Porter's attention, but she's angling for more than that. After finding a portrait of Addie Ross adorning Porter's piano, she tells him what she wants. "I want to be in a silver frame on a piano. My own piano in my own home." Note Lora Mae's look here, just a simple blouse and a skirt. Again, she's not going for anything flashy, but she's doing her best to look attractive and respectable. It's all to show Porter that she's no cheap girl on the side.

Having made her point, Lora Mae puts on a plain coat and striped scarf that undermine the sophisticated, "woman-of-the-world" attitude she was going for earlier. It's a quick reminder that Lora Mae, for all her attempts to dress well, is still poor. She's probably had that scarf since high school.

Porter is infatuated with Lora Mae but refuses to marry her. We cut to New Years at Lora Mae's house. Her sister, Babe (Barbara Lawrence), is borrowing Lora Mae's best dress for a date. And here, the costumers made a grave error. No way was that fussy little dress, with those puffed sleeves and cheap, crinkly material, Lora Mae's best dress. When she was fourteen, maybe.

Lora Mae has stayed home to mope. And she's put on her moping clothes, a big-buttoned cardigan, a white blouse, and a scarf to tie back her hair. I love this costuming detail, really I do. Classic movies often chose to ignore the fact that beautiful women didn't always lounge at home in perfectly pressed skirts and pearl necklaces. So it's jarring and rather wonderful to see Linda Darnell appear in something so ordinary. Stripped of her armor, so to speak. So of course, this is the moment when Porter barges in to tell Lora Mae that he can't bear to let her go. "Okay you win, I'll marry you."

Our flashback ends and we cut back to the present. The wives have all gone home, frantic to see if they've lost their husbands. Rita rushes home and finds her husband waiting.  Turns out he's been helping his students rehearse for the school play. Thrilled, Rita calls up Mrs. Manleigh to tell her that while she likes her work, she's not going to be bossed around anymore. No costume changes although Rita's jacket and George's robe match up well together. They're now in sync.

Deborah comes home and discovers that Brad has stayed away overnight. She is now convinced that her husband has run off with Addie. Note that the color of Deborah's jacket almost exactly matches the wall. She's disappearing into her big, expensive, and empty house.

Lora Mae, trying to act unconcerned, comes home and tells her mother that Porter probably won't come back, only to have her grumpy husband stroll through the door. The two snipe at each other. 

Lora Mae has switched her outfit and now appears in a dramatic two-tone dress, with a sash at the waist and those Mildred Pierce shoulder pads. I could make an elaborate metaphor here about the contrasting colors and how it represents Lora Mae's divided nature, but you know, I just think the 40s really liked two-tone dresses.

It's the night of the country club dance. Rita and George go to Deborah's house where the icily controlled Deborah informs them that Brad isn't coming. And just look at Deborah! She's gone from looking like a hayride hallucination to an elegant society woman in this black evening gown. The glittering metallic detail adds to the frosty impression that Deborah is giving off. She's also trailing what looks like a very expensive fur. In a way, this costume is a moment of triumph for Deborah, proving that she can play the society game. But there's a sting in it. As we found out in an earlier scene, Brad picked this dress for her...because it was one that Addie wore once.

Rita on the other hand, has gone in an opposite direction. She looks almost too casual in a white buttoned-up blouse and long skirt. However, while it makes me a little sad that Ann Sothern won't be glammed up for the finale, it does make sense for the character. Now that Rita has given up the fawning, socially pretentious attitude she put on for Mrs. Manleigh, she's not going to pretend to be any wealthier than she is.

We get to the dance and meet Porter and Lora Mae. Porter looks over at his wife dancing with another man and grumbles. Deborah tells him off. "Have you any idea how much Lora Mae's in love with you? So much, she's afraid to tell you. Afraid you'd laugh at her." Tired of pretending everything's alright, Deborah stands up and tells them all, in a perfectly calm voice, that her husband has just ran off with Addie Ross.

As Lora Mae and Porter look on in disbelief, let's look at Lora Mae's dress. It's very similar to her earlier party dress except that she's gone for a statelier look with a rolled collar and cuffs, looser sleeves, and no metallic detail on the dress. Her one extravagance is that long, dangling necklace. Fittingly, it stops right at her heart. Porter is convinced that Lora Mae is in love with his money. Does her heart belong to the jewelry or to him?

Porter reveals the truth. Brad didn't run away with Addie Ross. Porter did...until he changed his mind. He turns to his wife. "They all heard me say I ran away with another woman. You've got everything you need, you can take me for everything you'll ever want."

But Lora Mae won't have it. "If you said anything, I just didn't hear it." Porter looks over at her, realizing for the first time how they really feel about each other. Lora Mae's bare shoulders, instead of playing up her sexuality, now seem to make her more vulnerable to Porter's searching gaze.

Our comedy ends. Deborah goes home to wait for Brad and our other two couples begin to dance. Addie Ross is gone and suddenly the future seems a whole lot brighter.

The prolific Charles Le Maire was the wardrobe director for A Letter to Three Wives, while the underrated Kay Nelson (Oscar-nominated for Mother is a Freshman) designed the costumes. While her designs here aren't the kind of bravura work that wins awards, they are an excellent example of classic Hollywood costuming that works at every level to enhance the story. Each of our three protagonists has her own style, her own concerns, and her own budget to work with. And by the end of the film, Rita, Deborah, and Lora Mae have all gone through a journey that is perfectly visible through their costume changes. A great bit of costuming from a great and fun film.

Have a happy Fashion in Film Blogathon, everybody! 

The lovely Jeanne Crain image is credited to a link from Dr. Macro.