Showing posts with label gothic. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gothic. Show all posts
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| The unnamed heroine (Fontaine) and Mrs. Danvers (Anderson) |
REBECCA (1940). Director: Alfred Hitchcock.
"[Rebecca's underwear] was made especially for her by the nuns at the Convent of St. Clair." -- a rhapsodic Mrs. Danvers
An unnamed young lady (Joan Fontaine) is in Monte Carlo as the companion to the horrible dowager Mrs. Van Hopper (Florence Bates) when she meets the handsome Maxim de Winter (Laurence Olivier), and the two are instantly attracted. The young lady agrees to become the second Mrs. de Winter -- Maxim's first wife, Rebecca, was drowned -- and they set off for his beautiful estate, Manderlay. There the nervous new wife sees evidence of the much more sophisticated Rebecca everywhere, and has to deal with a housekeeper, Mrs. Danvers (Judith Anderson), who loved Rebecca and sees the new Mrs. de Winter as a usurper. Eventually a number of secrets about Rebecca and her death are uncovered ... If there's any problem with this smoothly made and entertaining romance it's that the heroine is a bit too mousy -- after one especially cruel trick played on the unsuspecting victim by Mrs. Danvers, most women would have insisted the termagant be fired, for instance, but Fontaine lets it slide [although she does confront the housekeeper]. However, Fontaine is perfect and lovely in the role, although Olivier's performance, while good, is probably not one of his most outstanding. It could be argued that Judith Anderson overplays a bit too much, bristling "evil" at the very first confrontation, and one suspects Cloris Leachman based her portrayal of Frau Blucher in Young Frankenstein on Anderson in this. It has been suggested that Danvers was in love with Rebecca, but it's just as likely that, like a lot of old-school servants, she loved her mistress platonically and came to strongly, obsessively identify with her. In any case, Danvers' performance is basically good, which is also true of Florence Bates; George Sanders (as Rebecca's "cousin"); Gladys Cooper as a relative of Max's; Nigel Bruce as her husband; Reginald Denny as Max's associate, Frank; C. Aubrey Smith as a colonel; and Leo G. Carroll as Dr. Baker. The finale leaves you feeling somewhat sympathetic towards the unseen title character, and wondering if she was quite so "evil" and what she might have had to put up with as far as Maxim was concerned.
Verdict: Smooth, memorable picture from Hitchcock and producer David Selznick. ***1/2.
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| Barbara O'Neil, Joan Bennett and Michael Redgrave |
Celia (Joan Bennett) meets an attractive stranger, architect Mark Lamphere (Michael Redgrave), on a vacation, blows off her fiance, marries Mark, and goes home to his mansion where his friendly sister, Caroline (Anne Revere), strange son David (Mark Dennis) and even stranger secretary, Miss Robey (Barbara O'Neil), are waiting. Wouldn't you know that Mark is haunted by something, perhaps the death of his first wife, and has a rather odd hobby. In his house he has recreated rooms where infamous murders took place, and there is one room which is absolutely verboten for anybody to enter. Naturally Celia can't wait to see what's inside. As Mark puts it "under certain conditions a room can influence or even create the actions of the people within it." Well ... maybe. This oddball Gothic movie sounds good, but is tedious and full of pseudo-psychological hogwash, although the bit with the murder rooms is interesting, and the performances are reasonably good for this type of claptrap. Natalie Schafer [Female on the Beach] adds some zest, as she usually does, as a flamboyant friend of Celia's. Redgrave does the best he can with the material but seems uncomfortable throughout. Young Dennis makes an interesting David. The ending is unintentionally hilarious. Not one of Lang's more memorable movies. O'Neil was seen in better advantage in Stella Dallas and All This and Heaven, Too.
Verdict: Too tricky and silly by far. *1/2.
This is an interesting biography of stage, screen and television actress Grayson Hall, who was nominated for a supporting Oscar for The Night of the Iguana, but who will always be best-known for playing Dr. Julia Hoffman on the afternoon Gothic soap opera Dark Shadows. The book looks into her early days before she reinvented herself as "Grayson Hall," her two marriages, her complicated relationship with her father, and the many people she knew and worked with in New York City. Jamison looks at the film that Hall denied she ever made, wherein she played a madame, Satan in High Heels, as well as the low-budget End of the Road, not to mention the two theatrical features based on Dark Shadows. Her stage work was eclectic and controversial: La Ronde, Genet's The Balcony, and even a couple of musicals. She was doing previews of The Madwoman of Chaillot when she was diagnosed with lung cancer. I remember watching Dark Shadows and wondering in how many different ways Hall could intone the phrase "I don't know" which she seemed required to say many times in every episode. Never conventionally attractive -- one might even say she possessed sublime ugliness -- Hall nevertheless proves quite glamorous in some youthful shots in the photo section. Jamison does a good job exploring the life and work of Hall, and suggests that back in the day she was almost some kind of gay icon.
Verdict: For Dark Shadows fans and theater enthusiasts. ***.