I know, it's a strictly a B movie. Made on a shoe-string, no doubt. No critic calls it a masterpiece. So why give it a 9 of 10? I'm not even sure. My yardstick for films is more of a feeling or a sensation. Does it stick with me? Am I still recalling it when I go to bed? Is it still in my head when I wake up? This one passes the test. But why?
It certainly cannot be due to the plot. It's clever in the sense of cute. The denouement comes out of nowhere. Nothing prepares us for it, and it is not terribly believable. That leaves the acting, the direction, or the cinematography, or a combination of the above. In this case I think it is the combination, particularly the direction by Joseph Lewis. He concocts a film noir that is not noir, at least not on the surface. It is more of a fantasy or a dream, or maybe I should say a nightmare masquerading as a pleasant dream. We don't wake up screaming. We wake up in a sweat of unease. Everything in the dream is light and matter-of-fact, except the dead bodies scattered about. Even they are not scary. They don't belong. They are disturbing.
I have read the acting called "bland." Yes, in a way it is bland. I'm sure that is how Joseph Lewis wanted it. The characters slide past our vision without menace, amiable figures, no evil in sight. Even the jilted boyfriend who vows revenge is hardly upsetting. Steven Geray's middle-aged detective is comfortingly genial. We are told he is an overworked policeman in need of mental and physical rest. Compare his unruffled demeanor to that of Robert Ryan's overstressed cop sent for a week in the country in "On Dangerous Ground." Micheline Cheirel gives a marvelous performance, coy but sweetly disarming. She obviously sees the visitor only as a ticket out of rural boredom. But she is entirely sympathetic. Compare her to Bette Davis' hard, scheming character in "Beyond the Forest." All the characters that inhabit the film, even Helen Freeman's unhappy widow, walk past us serenely. It is not a noir world. Everything passes as in a dream. Even when the bodies start to pile up they do so in dreamlike serenity. Dark things happen but all is light, an edge of surreality. We don't even view the corpses. The first is indicated merely as an object under a sheet. The second we see only as a recumbent figure whose face is hidden. The third appears simply as a limp arm raised into view behind a whistling teapot and a dripping faucet. Compare that to Orson Welles' lurid vision, the upside-down leering corpse of Akim Tamiroff that fills the screen in "A Touch of Evil." I hate to say it, Orson, but it's more disturbing this way, a nightmare inside a pleasant dream that refuses to be a nightmare. There's no sense of menace. Death walks among us amid flowers and streams, nonchalantly, as if it's telling us that it belongs there and we had better know it. It brings to mind Rene Magritte's famous painting "L'Univers de la Lumiere," a dark street, ordinary houses in an ordinary night, but under a clear blue sky. Once we see it that way the ending ceases to be contrived. It becomes surreal, spooky, and shocking. The murderer (I won't give it away) is himself a walking nightmare, walking in a field of flowers. But he didn't know it. Are we he?
It certainly cannot be due to the plot. It's clever in the sense of cute. The denouement comes out of nowhere. Nothing prepares us for it, and it is not terribly believable. That leaves the acting, the direction, or the cinematography, or a combination of the above. In this case I think it is the combination, particularly the direction by Joseph Lewis. He concocts a film noir that is not noir, at least not on the surface. It is more of a fantasy or a dream, or maybe I should say a nightmare masquerading as a pleasant dream. We don't wake up screaming. We wake up in a sweat of unease. Everything in the dream is light and matter-of-fact, except the dead bodies scattered about. Even they are not scary. They don't belong. They are disturbing.
I have read the acting called "bland." Yes, in a way it is bland. I'm sure that is how Joseph Lewis wanted it. The characters slide past our vision without menace, amiable figures, no evil in sight. Even the jilted boyfriend who vows revenge is hardly upsetting. Steven Geray's middle-aged detective is comfortingly genial. We are told he is an overworked policeman in need of mental and physical rest. Compare his unruffled demeanor to that of Robert Ryan's overstressed cop sent for a week in the country in "On Dangerous Ground." Micheline Cheirel gives a marvelous performance, coy but sweetly disarming. She obviously sees the visitor only as a ticket out of rural boredom. But she is entirely sympathetic. Compare her to Bette Davis' hard, scheming character in "Beyond the Forest." All the characters that inhabit the film, even Helen Freeman's unhappy widow, walk past us serenely. It is not a noir world. Everything passes as in a dream. Even when the bodies start to pile up they do so in dreamlike serenity. Dark things happen but all is light, an edge of surreality. We don't even view the corpses. The first is indicated merely as an object under a sheet. The second we see only as a recumbent figure whose face is hidden. The third appears simply as a limp arm raised into view behind a whistling teapot and a dripping faucet. Compare that to Orson Welles' lurid vision, the upside-down leering corpse of Akim Tamiroff that fills the screen in "A Touch of Evil." I hate to say it, Orson, but it's more disturbing this way, a nightmare inside a pleasant dream that refuses to be a nightmare. There's no sense of menace. Death walks among us amid flowers and streams, nonchalantly, as if it's telling us that it belongs there and we had better know it. It brings to mind Rene Magritte's famous painting "L'Univers de la Lumiere," a dark street, ordinary houses in an ordinary night, but under a clear blue sky. Once we see it that way the ending ceases to be contrived. It becomes surreal, spooky, and shocking. The murderer (I won't give it away) is himself a walking nightmare, walking in a field of flowers. But he didn't know it. Are we he?