Again, Three More from Hitch

I've been hitting the AFI Silver, catching more of their Hitchcock retrospective. Here's what I've seen lately...

Some of Salvador Dali's design for SPELLBOUND's dream sequence.

SPELLBOUND (1945) has psychiatrist Ingrid Bergman becoming infatuated with the incoming chief of the posh institution where she work. Dr. Edwardes (Gregory Peck) is handsome and suave, but also has some eccentricities, and it's not long before she figures out that he's not really Dr. Edwardes...but he has no real idea of who he is. The puzzle of his real identity leads them to the discovery of a murder...

It's a good thriller, and loaded up with a lot of psychoanalytic content. Everything depends on psychology in Ben Hecht's script. It's also technically interesting; there's a weird, memorable score by Miklos Rozsa, and many experimental visuals, including the final confrontation where we see from the murderer's viewpoint the hand holding the gun, and the final explosion into color.

I don't think he needs help changing a tire...

Of course, the BIG deal is the dream sequence designed by Salvador Dali, where many clues to the murder are coded in bizarre imagery. It's arresting and unforgettable, worth the price of admission alone.

Next was THE PARADINE CASE (1947), a film not often seen, and there's reason why. It's a mess. Sexy Alida Valli is arrested for the off-screen murder of her blind war-hero husband. She hires top British barrister Gregory Peck (yes, that's right, Gregory Peck as a Brit, barely attempting an accent), who is married to perky Ann Todd but finds himself falling for Valli. And then he develops a defense for trying to pin the murder on the husband's devoted valet, played by a young Louis Jourdan...

OK, it's obvious the leads are miscast, except for Todd, who does quite a good job as the faithful yet confused wife. Joan Tetzel is also quite good as Todd's best friend, the daughter of one of Peck's associates. There's also good supporting turns by Charles Coburn as Tetzel's father, Charles Laughton as a wisecracking judge, and Ethel Barrymore as his beleaguered, ignored wife. Hitch had wanted Greta Garbo for the Valli role, Laurence Olivier or Ronald Coleman for the Peck role, and Robert Newton for the Jourdan role, but producer David O. Selznick interfered with production left and right, rewriting the script and recutting the movie and insisting on his "discoveries" being featured.

Sadly, the finished product has all sorts of story problems and ends up being fairly dull. I dozed a few times in the theater, a rarity for me.

Most recently was 1946's NOTORIOUS, featuring the memorable pairing of Ingrid Bergman and Cary Grant. Bergman is the daughter of a convicted Nazi criminal, and there's very discreet hints that she's known as a promiscuous, hard-drinking party girl. (Almost too discreet!) Federal agent Grant coaxes her into being a spy for Uncle Sam, taking her to Rio de Janeiro where she's to meet and romance another Nazi, Claude Rains. In order to get secrets from him, she ends up marrying him, causing trouble with her budding romance with Grant, but later stumbles on a big secret...

NOTORIOUS is a slick, well-made film, moving quickly and with good performances by the cast. Bergman is especially radiant as tramp making good, then finding herself in over her head. It's also interesting for an early glimpse of a destructive mother/son dynamic (seen in various spots in Hitch's work), as Rains' Nazi isn't half as evil and venomous as his manipulative mother (Leopoldine Konstantin), who very much seems to be the real brains of the outfit. The ending is a bit vague, but we're given enough clues to know what's going to happen, and there's enough finality that much else isn't needed. Still, Bergman and Grant are a great team (they reunited 12 years later for the sophisticated Stanley Donen comedy INDISCREET, which I suddenly want to see again), Rains and the rest of the supporting cast are good, and it's well-paced, and a suspense essential.

More on the way...

Judge Dee: THE CHINESE LAKE MURDERS

It's 666 CE (or AD, depending on your viewpoint), and Judge Dee has been assigned to a new post, as magistrate of Han-Yuan, a city in the mountains on the shore of a lake, without walls but close to the Capitol. Dee is unsure of being in a city without walls, but so far things seem quiet enough.

Until the city's leading citizens honor him with a banquet on a flower boat (a sort of floating restaurant/brothel), and the beautiful dancer Almond Blossom grasps a chance to whisper to Dee that she must speak to him later, and that a dangerous conspiracy was being plotted in that town. But before she can give Dee any information, she is drowned in the lake...

And then we're thrown into another full-blooded mystery/adventure with Dee and his retinue. Again, it's three cases, all connected in some way. "The Case of the Drowned Courtesan" is central; who killed Almond Blossom? Who could have overheard her whispering to Dee? And exactly what is the dangerous conspiracy? In "The Case of the Vanished Bride," a young bride is found dead the morning after her wedding, apparently from hemorrhage after having her hymen broken (rare, but as far as I can tell, not unheard of). Both are children of prominent citizens, and the kerfuffle is made worse when her coffin is opened at the Buddhist temple and is found to contain an unidentified man! And the groom? He vanished as well. Where are they? Finally, "The Case of the Spendthrift Councilor" centers on a former Imperial Councilor living in retirement in the city. He's quite old, seemingly becoming senile, but is also engaging in strange business deals where he's selling off lots of property at a loss. What's going on?

Also, there's something you find in a few of van Gulik's other works, a framing story involving the supernatural. In this case, an official who's involved in a fiendish conspiracy, and plagued with uncontrollable incestuous desires for his own daughter, goes to Han-Yuan and meets a beautiful courtesan who seems to be the answer to his problems...until she tells him a story that forms the story's narrative. Then she becomes a drowned corpse, and her spirit forces him to write everything down before his life ends. It's chilling. (And all of that is in the first chapter, so it's not much of a spoiler.)

Dee's retinue becomes complete in this novel; about halfway through, during an inspection tour of outlying villages, he and his assistants meet an itinerant swindler, Tao Gan, and save him from a pack of angry villagers. Out of gratitude, Tao reforms and pledges his loyalty to Dee, and plays an important role in resolving the mystery.

There's fights, plots, counterplots, passion, secret doors, hidden tunnels, crooked monks, and hints of fearsome supernatural creatures living in the lake. It all ends well, of course, although Dee barely escapes with his job and/or life.

This has always one of my favorite Dee novels; the setting is well-drawn and atmospheric, from the lake to the "Willow Quarter" where the brothels are, to the tribunal and the huge mansions where the wealthy live. And the menace that hangs over all of them.

Required reading, of course.

Lillian de la Torre's Sam: Johnson Stories, Part Four

Let us return for one last time to England of the 1700s. The Exploits of Dr. Sam: Johnson, Detector is the fourth and last volume of stories dedicated to the adventures of the famous lexicographer, and while it's not up to the literary standards of the first volume, it's still got a lot of fun material and is a crackling good read.

So, case by case...

"The Kidnapp'd Earl" has Johnson brought in to aid young James Ansley, the heir to an earldom who was kidnapped and sold into indentured servitude so that a wicked uncle could claim the title. There's a wild trial, and finally proof of the heir's legitimacy via a wax figure of his grandfather. Not a very thrilling story, but the story it's based on, that of James Annesley, is stranger even than the story. James was really kidnapp'd by a wicked uncle, but never got to reclaim his title, as both he and his children died young leaving Uncle Richard the heir to the title. The case is also in Smollet's Peregrine Pickle and Scott's Guy Mannering, and is said to have partially inspired Robert Louis Stevenson's Kidnapped.

In "The Westcombe Witch," set in September of 1768, are in the south of England and end up encountering the rake Sir Francis Flashwood and his delicious daughter Fanny. Francis is said to have Black Masses in his strange estate, and Boswell, in search of a thrill, goes to join them one night and ends up in a bizarre situation. Johnson figures out that there's something else going on, though. Obviously, this is a fictionalized portrait of Sir Francis Dashwood and his Hell-Fire Club, but so heavily so that names had to be changed.

Looking less Satanic then like a jovial frat boy.

May of 1776 is the setting of "The Banquo Trap," where Boswell and Johnson are attending a performance of "Macbeth" starring their old friend David Garrick, who's gearing up for retirement and redoing his great roles one last time. However, in the middle of the performance, the actor playing Banquo's ghost turns up at the table gasping and dying. Johnson and Boswell dash backstage and delve into the stagecraft and interpersonal politics to find out who was responsible, and why. This story re-creates the theater milieu of the day, as well as a real performance of the play (unmarred by murder).

Also set in 1776, December this time, "The Spirit of the '76" is an entertaining what-if tale with Johnson being called in to aid with the kidnapping of a child...only it turns out that the child is the grandson of Benjamin Franklin, who was blown off-course on his way to France and is taking advantage of the situation to get hold of some gold and see an old friend. The meeting of the two is precious; although they shared many beliefs, such as the abolition of slavery, Johnson held the American colonists in contempt (once publishing a tract called "Taxation No Tyranny") and felt the Revolution was pointless. It all ends happily, with a guest appearance by Sir Francis Flashwood and a grudging acceptance that the Brits will have their hands full with "the spirit of the '76."

Love this grandiose portrait of Franklin...

"The Virtuosi Venus" is set in May of 1778, and concerns Johnson and Boswell attending a meeting of a society of art appreciators (including Sir Francis Flashwood again), only to discover that their mascot, a figurine of Venus discovered at Pompeii, has been stolen and replaced with a clever fake. Who took it? Whence came the fake? Where's the real one? Why did they do it? It's all uncovered by Johnson in an enjoyable plot. The Virtuosi are a fictional riff on the real-life Society of Dilettanti, and the Venus was not part of their treasures, but was inspired by a painting of the real Dashwood...

By Hogarth, this portrait of Dashwood parodies pious Renaissance paintings; the "Bible" is really an erotic novel and the image in the "halo" is of Dashwood's friend Lord Sandwich. The little Venus in the portrait inspired the story.

The last two stories are a sort of Omega and Alpha. "The Aerostatick Globe," set shortly before Johnson's death in 1784, which is an adventure about the competition to be the first person to fly a balloon in England. It quotes real dialogue about the possibility of airmail and military applications of flight (those folks back then were pretty sharp), and attempts to sabotage the efforts of Vincenzo Lunardi, a celebrated aeronaut of the time. It's all good fun but also fairly wistful, as the shadow of Johnson's declining health and coming death hang over it...but he did live to see the skies of Britain conquered.

The very last, "Coronation Story," takes place at the coronation of George III, on Sept. 22 of 1761, and has Boswell looking on in the company of a burly man whom he doesn't know but feels a certain kinship with. Another man sitting nearby excites some interest in the pair, and they realize it's the Young Pretender himself, come to observe, and can't help himself but disrupt the ceremony (which includes lots of real details like a stubborn horse and a huge diamond dropping out of the crown, which was said to be an omen of a great loss to the Empire). So the little group goes on the run to help the Pretender escape to France and stay a step ahead of the guards. In order that the secret be kept, they "part as strangers." Boswell and Johnson didn't meet for real until 1763.

This story is a cute bit of speculation, but has problems. We're expected to swallow that the two friends spend their lives pretending this little meeting never happened, and it also violates the continuity of the previous stories, because in "Prince Charlie's Ruby" from the first book, they are utterly thrilled to meet the Young Pretender...and there's no reason for the three of them to pretend it never happened.

Oh well, it's the last one of the series. The back of the paperback vaguely promises a fifth volume, but it never came to be. De la Torre was supposedly working on new things when she died in 1993, but as far as I know nobody's stepped up to complete them. Unfortunately, these four books are all that can be found these days of her oeuvre; her other works, like Elizabeth is Missing (an analysis of the Elizabeth Canning case), are hard to find. Grab 'em if you find 'em!

THE FAMOUS FLOWER OF SERVING MEN by Deborah Grabien

Grabien ups the game a bit with her second supernatural mystery starring folksinger/restorationist Ringan Lane and his girlfriend Penelope Wintercraft-Hawkes.

Penelope is the head of a theatrical company, the Tamburlaine Players, that specializes in Elizabethan and Jacobean plays. She has an unexpected legacy one day: an aunt she barely knew has died, and has left her an abandoned theater and enough cash to renovate it. She's thrilled about the possibility of having a permanent home for her company, but of course, the theater turns out to be haunted, and she and Ringan have to marshal all their resources to end the haunting.

It's definitely a BIG improvement on her last book, The Weaver and the Factory Maid. The ghost is a genuine problem, not a minor nuisance. It makes the theater unusable and is actually responsible for a death, although it's ambiguous if it's a deliberate murder or just accidental. The scenes in the old theater are fun and atmospheric; how can one resist an abandoned, haunted theater?

There's still some problems. The haunting is connected to a long-ago murder case that inspired a classic folk ballad (which is, of course, the idea behind the series), and of course, they happen upon a historian who just happens to be obsessed with that case and makes it her specialty. And we're asked to buy that said historian is Penelope's sister's best friend whom Penny has never met (the friend, that is). But at least there's some real detection going on here, and a real menace to resolve, and it's done rather memorably.

So, it's an improvement, but still with flaws. However, those flaws don't disqualify it from being worth checking out.

As a bonus, here's a version of the ballad that inspired the book:

Quick Take: Down in the Catacombs

A charming little place...

The Wall Street Journal ran an article recently on the culture that's sprung up in Paris' catacombs, with clubs and restaurants opening up underground, and also of explorers venturing into the lesser-known and unfrequented sections. I once read of how authorities once discovered the location of an illegal movie theater and club down in there (disappointingly, the movies they found were distressingly mundane), and another time I saw something on TV featuring some Blair Witch-esque footage found in a video camera abandoned down there, where the bearer was moving along through the tunnels in an increasing state of panic, then finally dropping the device and last seen fleeing out of sight. (Probably faked, but still, fairly nifty.)

Since this blog is partially founded in romantic and eerie visions of Paris (I'm sure that when I get back to the real City of Lights I shall be most disappointed), and we do like the idea of all the best and most proper cities having catacombs (alas, something of which Washington has a paucity, save for some replica catacombs under the Franciscan Monastery; one supposes all the decent catacombs have been taken over by the Department of Homeland Security), I'll post a link to the story here. Read and dream.

In brief: Mark Hodder's THE STRANGE AFFAIR OF SPRING HEELED JACK

Recently finished this, and was going to review it...but then I read my buddy Sasha's review of it, and he said everything I would have said, and better. So go over to his site and read his take on it, which is pretty much mine as well. And then go out and pick up your own copy.

At the Cinema: Hitch's SABOTEUR

This comes between two of his better-regarded films, SUSPICION and SHADOW OF A DOUBT, but SABOTEUR (1942) is worth checking out.

Defense-plant worker Robert Cummings has a run-in with a mysterious fellow employee named Fry (symbolism!), and shortly after that a bomb goes off setting fire to the factory. Cummings hands a fire extinguisher to his best pal...but it's been filled with gasoline, and the friend perishes in the blaze. Cummings is called in, but when nobody named Fry shows up on the employee list, and they start suspecting him of sabotage and murder, he has to go on the run to clear his name and find out who's really behind it all.

SABOTEUR is very clearly a rough draft of the romantic-comedy-chase-thriller that Hitch perfected with NORTH BY NORTHWEST, with the man falsely suspected, the icy blond girl, and the locations spanning most of the country, both ending with a dizzying climax on a major American landmark. (In NBNW it's Mount Rushmore; in SABOTEUR it's the Statue of Liberty.)

Look in the lower left-hand corner...yeah....

One interesting aspect is how Hitch shows different segments of American society reacting. The masterminds of the sabotage ring are wealthy American plutocrats, not sneering foreigners, who welcome a totalitarian government as a way of increasing their own wealth. Rank-and-file Americans automatically believe what they're told by authorities, make snap judgements based on appearances ("You look like a saboteur," sneers one character to Cummings), or are so complacent they refuse to believe the people they look up to are traitors. The only truly good people who believe in his innocence are society's outsiders, in the form of a gentle blind hermit and a troupe of circus freaks. It's tempting to see this as a jaundiced view of Americans, and also as a warning to us all that the real enemies of freedom aren't just foreigners, but the wealthy ruling class themselves, thinking only of their own wealth and power. It's almost Socialistic.

It's big and sprawling, and there's dangling plot threads, but when all's said and done it's good fun. And while NORTH BY NORTHWEST works on Cold War paranoia, SABOTEUR plays off wartime fears of spies and sabotage. See it and be thrilled.