Mubi Monday: The Bigamist (1953)

With the blunt title hitting at some kind of shocking melodrama, The Bigamist isn't a film that you go into with expectations of subtlety and twists. Director Ida Lupino still manages to do a bit more with the material than others might have done, working diplomatically with the screenplay by Collier Young to make something arguably better than it has any right to be.

Edmond O'Brien is Harry Graham, loving husband to Eve Graham (Joan Fontaine). The two are looking to adopt a child, which puts them under the scrutinising gaze of Mr. Jordan (Edmund Gwenn), and it's not long until that man discovers that Mr. Graham has a secret, another wife (Phyllis Martin, played by Lupino). In fact, he has a whole second life, something that he surely knew would be discovered when he began the adoption process.

Interestingly, especially considering the time this was made, The Bigamist takes time to show the various little moments that lead to the main character making some very foolish decisions, but it does so without constantly judging, and tutting at, all of those moments. It also lets a fairly silly plot unfold in a way that feels grounded and realistic, thanks to Young's script, and, again, I'd say that's a very pleasant surprise for the time it was made. The hardest part to swallow is the "framing device" which allows the morally-unshakeable Mr. Jordan to learn the full details of the story.

O'Brien is a decent enough lead, he's not a special man, he's just managed to get himself in a very unique situation. Fontaine and Lupino are both excellent, showing two different personalities with enough similar appeal to the lead, and it's impossible not to feel sympathy for both as you see things heading towards a third act that needs a revelatory moment on the way to some kind of punishment. Gwenn is fine, he does what he needs to do, which is mainly listen with interest as O'Brien unburdens himself of a secret that has been weighing on his mind for some time.

It's interesting to think of how this would be perceived if directed by a man, and how the material would have been executed. Lupino, an excellent director, and a woman with one of the most interesting careers to incorporate the glowing past of Hollywood (in terms of the path she took at a time when women had even less opportunities than they do today), allows everyone to be viewed with compassion. There's a man who battles his feelings until he thinks he can make everything work, and there are two women who both love that man, and are both unaware that their very presence would be a cause of pain to one another.

You know exactly what you're getting into with The Bigamist, and yet it also delivers the central message, the expected cautionary tale, with a surprising amount of care and understanding.

7/10

https://ko-fi.com/kevinmatthews

Filmstruck Friday: White Heat (1949)

When this movie fan was a much younger, much smaller, and much more casual movie fan there were a few people who held my attention for reasons I didn't always understand at the time. I loved the main skits of Abbott & Costello, I think I had quite a crush on Doris Day, and I would watch James Cagney in anything. I also, apparently, ran to the TV when Peter Sissons was reading the news but that's neither here nor there.

I haven't watched a James Cagney movie in many years. In fact, I cannot think of any of his movies that I have revisited as an adult. Perhaps it was due to the sadness that wracked my soul every time the young me watched Angels With Dirty Faces, crying so hard at the finale that my mother would literally throw a towel at me to help me wipe my soaked face.

So I revisited White Heat with some trepidation. All I remembered about it was that it starred Cagney and had the famous ending with him exclaiming that he'd made it to the top of the world. But there's so much more to enjoy here.

Cagney is Cody Jarrett, a ruthless criminal with a master plan. He and his men rob a mail train and then bide their time. He then heads home and tells everyone to just stay calm before he heads to Illinois to confess to a different, lesser, crime that will get him a couple of years in prison. And if he is sentenced for that crime, which he is, then he assumes that the cops can't pin the train robbery on him. But the cops want Jarrett bad, so much so that they plant an undercover officer in his cell.

As well as his band of men, Jarrett also has a woman he loves (Virginia Mayo) and a mother he is very attached to (played by Margaret Wycherly). He also has occasional fits, usually best soothed by his mother. The guy has issues, proving time and time again that he's as unstable as he is conniving. And Cagney plays him perfectly throughout. He's often got a twinkle in his eye and smile, but just as often that twinkle signifies danger for those around him. White Heat is a film that is part gangster film and part tense thriller about an undercover officer trying to keep himself safe while on his mission, and it works so well because of the manic nature of Cagney juxtaposed alongside the calm demeanour of Edmond O'Brien, who plays the good guy. Mayo and Wycherly also give very good performances, damaging to Jarrett in different ways and making such strong impressions that they feel ever-present despite only being onscreen for maybe a quarter of the runtime.

Director Raoul Walsh has an extensive filmography (from Westerns to war films to much more, including a superb gangster film that paired Cagney with Humphrey Bogart, The Roaring Twenties) but this is, from what I have seen of his work, one of his very best. He doesn't shy away from the nastiness, using the charisma of Cagney to make the whole thing more palatable and entertaining than it otherwise could have been.

He's helped by a solid script from Ivan Goff and Ben Roberts, based on a story by Virginia Kellogg. Some may think that the material is handled clumsily, and there are certainly moments that let Cagney overact a bit, but it actually does a fantastic job of exploring the psyche of a scary individual while also ramping up the tension for a very satisfying third act.

A film very much deserving of the fine reputation it has, my enjoyment of White Heat means that I hope to not leave it so long until my next Cagney film viewing. I might even have to fall in love with Doris Day movies again. Maybe the younger, smaller, me actually had some taste. I'll stop short of waiting by my TV until Peter Sissons comes on to read the news though. Mainly because I assume he has retired by now.

9/10

You can shop around for a better price, but the blu is here.
Americans have this less shiny edition available.

The Hitch-Hiker (1953)

Directed by Ida Lupino, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Collier Young, The Hitch-Hiker is a thriller, based on a true story, that will please fans of noir, and also fans of The Hitcher, of course.

William Talman is the dangerous man who gets himself into the cars of unsuspecting folks before eventually killing them. When he gets into the car of two men (played by Edmond O'Brien and Frank Lovejoy) he thinks he has caught a lucky break. The men have told their wives that they are off hunting in some isolated region, when they were actually headed down Mexico way for a little bit of drinking and dancing. The hitch-hiker figures that they have a lot of time until the men are thought to be missing, time that should keep them alive.

Sleek, taut and always entertaining, The Hitch-Hiker fairly rattles along for its 70-minute runtime. Widely considered to be the first American mainstream film noir to be directed by a woman, this probably shook up audiences a fair bit in the early '50s, especially anyone familiar with the true story (of a man named Billy Cook) that it was based on. Daniel Mainwaring wrote the story that turned into the script, but received no credit.

The three main actors all do a fine job, convincingly on edge and covered in a sheen of perspiration for most of the movie, with Talman especially good as the villain of the piece. There are other people appearing onscreen, but this is a three-hander, for the most part, and nothing ever takes viewers away from that tense situation for too long.

Lupino directs well, with her best work probably being the pace of the movie. Too long just in the company of the three men and it would be quite draining, too many interruptions from other scenes and the tension would evaporate. This gets things just right.

If you've seen any other "dangerous hitch-hiker" scenario onscreen then you owe it to yourself to see this one.

8/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Hitch-Hiker-DVD/dp/B0009I8OK6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1385462697&sr=8-1&keywords=THE+HITCH-HIKER

The Killers (1946)

Burt Lancaster made his screen debut in this fantastic film noir, and it's easy to see why he went on over the next couple of decades to become such a major star. Even in his first movie role he has a presence and charisma that's hard to beat. It helps that he's surrounded by a great cast, but there's no doubt that his performance in the lead role is a big plus for the film.

Lancaster plays Ole 'Swede' Andreson, a man who is, at the very beginning of the movie, killed by the killers of the title. Just who killed him, and why? That's what insurance investigator Jim Riordan (Edmond O'Brien) wants to find out when he is given the task of finding the man's beneficiary and paying her a lump sum. As he uncovers the story leading up to the killing he starts along a path that may just lead him back to a major, unsolved crime from a number of years ago.

Based on a short story by Ernest Hemingway, The Killers was adapted for the screen by Anthony Veiller and directed by Robert Siodmak. From beginning to end, it's a great mix of grim moments and surprisingly deft humour that makes the runtime just fly by.

Ava Gardner is the other main draw, and she's fantastic as the potentially dangerous Kitty Collins. Lancaster and O'Brien are both great, and Albert Dekker, Sam Levene, Vince Barnett and Jack Lambert portray a number of very memorable supporting characters, with Lambert particularly memorable as the gruff 'Dum-Dum' Clarke.

Finding out the events that led up to the opening killing is a very interesting and entertaining journey. The twists and turns may not be entirely unpredictable, especially nowadays, but the whole thing is tightly put together and never feels implausible or illogical.

Lancaster may seem to be a bit too much of a schmuck at times, but the world of film noir is full of schmucks, proving time and time again that there's a sucker born every minute. But, then again, who wouldn't risk being a sucker to stay in the good favour of the gorgeous Ava Gardner?

8/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Film-Noir-Collection-Kirk-Douglas/dp/B000UWXM1C/ref=sr_1_1?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1383510857&sr=1-1&keywords=film+noir+box+set