Postcards from Shadowland Halloween 2019

Quote of the Day! The Accused (1949)

Loretta Young plays Wilma Tuttle, a charming yet slightly repressed psychology professor, who after allowing one of her aggressively sleazy students Bill Perry (Douglas Dick) to drive her home, kills him in self-defense after he attempts to rape her. Wilma in a panic tries to cover up her sympathetic crime. Director William Dieterle creates a taut little psychological coil that unwinds as homicide detective Lt. Ted Dorgan (Wendell Corey) tries to solve the murder while tossing out the sharp-edged lines. The investigation causes great angst for Wilma with Young’s inner monologues regaling us of her guilty conscience, amidst her budding romance with Warren Ford (Robert Cummins). The film co-stars Sam Jaffe as Dr. Romley.

Wendell Corey as Lt. Ted Dorgan-“You know sometimes I wish there were two of me. We generally do work in pairs. The idea being that one could be mean, the other one nice.

In my next life I’m gonna be a minister. Never have to pick on anybody but the devil.”

This is your EverLovin’ Joey saying sometimes I wish there were two of me, so I could get more done!

The Great Villain Blogathon 2019 Dame Judith Anderson as Mrs. Danvers “Do you think the dead come back and watch the living?”

Thanks to Ruth of Silver Screenings. Kristine from Speakeasy and Karen of Shadows and Satin!

REBECCA (1940)

Men are simpler than you imagine my sweet child. But what goes on in the twisted, tortuous minds of women would baffle anyone. "“Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca

First off, while I cover a good deal of the film, I take it only as far as I can before giving anything away about the great Rebecca. My focus is on the mystery surrounding the first mistress of Manderley’s devoted servant Mrs. Danvers. So I will not be referencing any departures from du Maurier’s novel, nor Rebecca herself or Olivier and Fontaine’s marital outcome. I believe there are still fans of Hitchcock who have not seen the picture, and I want to leave them something to enjoy!

One of the most enduring classic thrillers, psychological thriller, suspenseful and intriguing in the realm of romantic Gothic mysteries. Considered a ‘woman’s picture.’ Brooding atmosphere, perfect pacing, and acting composition from the score to the set design to the cinematography. Manderley is a "˜castle of the mind.' It is too shadowy too remote too unreal because it IS in the mind. It exists now only in the heroine's mind. "Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again" As these words are visualized on the screen, we don't see a real Manderley, but a Manderley of the mind, a nightmare, a ghost. So imperceptible and subtle, Manderley is one of the vital characters of the story.

As the archetype of the woman-in-peril, Joan Fontaine conjures up the timid young woman who marries the moody and brooding Maxim de Winter, though all actors are overshadowed by Anderson's on-fire performance.

As scholar Mary Ann Doane points out that Rebecca is “initiating the ‘paranoia’ strand of the woman’s picture, a sub-genre in which gullible women discover that the men they married possess strange and sinister intents. The cycle continued through the 1940s-Suspicion (1941) Gaslight (George Cukor 1944) and Secret Beyond the Door… (Fritz Lang, 1948).”

Rebecca was adapted from author Daphne du Maurier and brought to the Gothic paroxysm on screen not only by master Alfred Hitchcock but by the exquisitely low burning maniacal machinations of Dame Judith Anderson (Lady Scarface 1941, All Through the Night 1942, Kings Row 1942, Laura 1944, And Then There Were None 1945, The Strange Love of Martha Ivers 1946, The Red House 1947, The Furies 1950, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof 1958, Inn of the Damned 1975) as Miss Danvers — the epitome of the word villainess.

Mrs. Danvers– That austere cold stare, the measured calculating rhythm of each syllable spoken like serpent-toothed silk cutting like finely sharpened knives to cut the jugular — a harridan — no, a harpy — no, a carefully slithering serpent of a woman in the vein of Angela Lansbury’s sinister housekeeper Nancy who helped the poor bedevil Ingrid Bergman feel gaslighted in Gaslight 1944 or the menacing Gale Sandaagard as Mrs. Hammond that same year in The Letter (1940), but Anderson has the benefit of du Maurier’s dialogue and Hitchcock’s direction at her command.

Interestingly enough, in reading the tensions that had developed over the autonomy in making du Maurier’s story on screen between two headstrong filmmakers, I imagined what the film might have been like in the hands of Val Lewton. Here is an excerpt from Leonard Leff’s book- “For Selznick who read a synopsis of the manuscript in late spring 1938, the story of the novel’s awkward and shy heroine seemed ideal. Selznick’s most impressive discoveries tended to be young women, including Ingrid Bergman, Vivien Leigh, and Joan Fontaine; furthermore, had had long been associated with the industry’s premier “women’s director” George Cukor. In certain respects a “woman’s producer,” attuned to the sensibilities and psychology of the American female (at least as purveyed by the era’s mass-circulation magazines), Selznick agreed with story editor Val Lewton that the second Mrs. de Winter “probably exemplifies the feeling that most young women have about themselves.”

From Hitchcock and Selznick: The Rich and Strange Collaboration of Alfred Hitchcock and David O. Selznick-by Leonard J. Leff- Among the hundred of manuscripts, galley proofs, ad publish novels that poured into the East Coast offices of Selznick International every month, Kay Brown read only a few that she could enthusiastically recommend. Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca became one of them. Rebecca is “the most fascinating story I have read in ages,” Born wired Hollywood, a certain best-seller. In the novel, a plain and innocent young women (the first-person narrator, whose name du Maurier never reveals) serves as paid companion to a crass American dowager visiting the Riviera. Gossip has it that the aristocratic Maxim de Winter has fled England to Monte Carlo in order to elude painful memories of his recently deceased, much-beloved wife, the fabulously beautiful Rebecca; yet almost inexplicably he proposes marriage to the unglamourous paid companion. Following a honeymoon in Venice, the newlyweds return to Manderley, de Winter’s mansion. Here, the young bride confronts not only the memory of Rebecca-which seems to permeate the estate and to preoccupy and torment its owner-but also her morose husband and the forbidding Mrs. Danvers, Rebecca’s devoted housekeeper.”

Directed by Alfred Hitchcock with a screenplay by Robert Sherwood and Joan Harrison (who produced Alfred Hitchcock's anthology suspense crime television show.) Adapted by Philip MacDonald and Michael Hogan from the 1938 novel by Daphne du Maurier. Music composed by Franz Waxman (Suspicion 1941, Sunset Boulevard 1950, A Place in the Sun 1951.) whose score at times sounds like a classic B horror film by RKO with its eerie organ tremolos.

Cinematography by George Barnes. (That Uncertain Feeling 1941, Ladies in Retirement 1941, Jane Eyre 1943, Spellbound 1945, Mourning Becomes Electra 1947, Force of Evil 1948, The File on Thelma Jordon 1950, War of the Worlds 1953). Art Department/Interior Design -Howard Bristol, Joseph B. Platt, and Eric Stacey. Art director Lyle Wheeler. Film editor James Newcom. Supervising film editor Hal C. Kern. Interiors designed by Joseph B Platt. Fashions by Irene.

The lighting for Rebecca creates a forbidden sense of place. The shadows distinguish where the secrets lurk, with the Gothic architecture and repressed desire.

“She” is in the innocence of white and Mrs. Danvers is always advancing in black…

Rebecca (1940) is auteur Hitchcock’s Gothic style thriller that often delves into the realm of classical horror, ‘old dark house’Â or haunting ghost story triggered by the remnants of a beautiful dead woman’s hold on an ancestral manor house and the new marriage brought home to thrive in its shadow. As scholar Tania Modleski writes Rebecca is a ‘presence’ which is never actually present. The character of Rebecca is symbolic of a subversive female desire, and Maxim de Winter who represents the patriarchal rule is terrorized and bound by her presence though she cannot be seen, her power remains intact within the walls of Manderley.

There was tension and discord between director Hitchcock who wanted control over the project and producer David O. Selznick. Though Hitchcock is one of the directors who manages to shake off any solid labels on his work, Rebecca is considered his first film noir. It was Hitchcock’s first American/Hollywood film, although it exudes that distinctly British style from his earlier mysteries. The melancholy tone of Robert E. Sherwood and Hitchcock regular Joan Harrison’s screenplay captures Daphne du Maurier’s 1938 disquieting Gothic novel perfectly.

Behind the scenes of Rebecca 1940 Alfred Hitchcock and Judith Anderson photo by Fred Parrish

Rebecca stars Laurence Olivier as Maxim de Winter, Joan Fontaine as Mrs. de Winter, George Sanders as Jack Favell, Judith Anderson as the sinister chatelaine Mrs. Danvers Nigel Bruce as Major Giles Lacy, C. Aubrey Smith as Colonel Julyan Reginald Deny as Frank Crawley, Gladys Cooper as Beatrice Lacy, Philip Winter as Robert, Edward Fielding as Frith, Florence Bates (The Moon and Sixpence 1942, Whistle Stop 1946, Portrait of Jennie 1948, A Letter to Three Wives 1949, Les Miserables 1952) as Mrs. Van Hopper, Leo G. Carroll as Dr. Baker

The master Hitchcock and cinematographer George Barnes know how to create a moody, atmospheric landscape of suspense. In Rebecca, Joan Fontaine is given the role of an innocent and painfully shy young heroine who remains nameless throughout the film, as she is in du Maurier’s novel. I read that there were early drafts of the original script where the heroine’s name was Daphne as in the writer, but obviously, the decision to keep her without a given name. She meets the brooding aristocratic widower Maxim de Winter played almost too effortlessly by Laurence Olivier who is the master of Manderley. They marry and Maxim brings his new bride back to his ancestral home. At first, she is clumsy and awkward trying to find her way around as mistress of the house. The second Mrs. de Winter is bewildered and haunted by the unseen presence of the first Mrs. de Winter, the uncanny and beautiful Rebecca, who has died in a boating accident a year before. Mrs. de Winter is psychically tortured by the sinister Mrs. Danvers who was Rebecca’s faithful and adoring servant played by the always imposing Judith Anderson, who bombards Joan Fontaine with memories and tactile possessions of the dead woman, whom we never see. She is truly a phantom that haunts the film, the narrative, and our heroine.

Considered for the leading role in Rebecca was Loretta Young, Margaret Sullivan, Anne Baxter, and Vivien Leigh who was restricted by her role in Gone With the Wind 1939. Director Alfred Hitchcock won the Oscar for Best Picture his first and only Best Picture Oscar. George Barnes also won the Academy Award for his Cinematography. Judith Anderson was nominated for Best Supporting Actress as the menacing Mrs. Danvers, the only time in her career she was ever nominated.

Continue reading “The Great Villain Blogathon 2019 Dame Judith Anderson as Mrs. Danvers “Do you think the dead come back and watch the living?”” →

A Trailer a Day Keeps the Boogeyman Away! Deep End (1970)

“DEEP END” (1970)

If you can’t have the real thing– you do all kinds of unreal things.

I LOVE creepy British psycho-sexual thrillers of the 1970s – Goodbye Gemini (1971) with Judy Geeson and Martin Potter, Twisted Nerve (1968) with Hayley Mills and Hywel Bennett, Beware My Brethren (1972) with Ann Todd, and The Night Digger (1971) with Patricia Neal and Nicholas Clay. And then there’s the non-conformist Polish auteur Jerzy Skolimowski with his portrayal of the seamy underbelly of a tawdry swinging London’s Soho at the end of the 1960s — Deep End (1970) similar to his other works – Le DÃ©part (The Departure 1967) and Walkover (1965) all representative of a character disadvantaged by his social class inhabiting a bourgeois realm and in Deep End, the story is about young Mike (John Moulder-Brown) set against a classist system that crowds him into a strange world that brings out his unstable burgeoning sexuality.

Like his colleague Roman Polanski, Skolimowski uses water in his films, and here in Deep End especially- it is used as a liminal space where the characters may move in and out of reality. Its significance here is a passage between childhood and maturity and life and death. All of the narratives is geared toward flow and not necessarily structured.

Actor, writer, producer, and director Jerzy Skolimowski (King, Queen, Knave 1972, The Shout 1978-actor in Mars Attacks! 1996, Before Night Falls 2000) Here he directs and has written the screenplay with Jerzy Gruza and Boleslaw Sulik for Deep End 1970.

Cinematography by Charly Steinberger creates a surreal and dreamlike landscape that lends itself to metaphorical interpretations of pubescent angst and awakening, set against a squalid London at the end of the 1960s. With a soundtrack by Cat Stevens using his song under the opening title ‘But I Might Die Tonight’ and German band The Can with their song ‘Mother Sky.’

Skolimowski uses the recurring theme of the color red in much the way – red was used as symbolism as illustrated in the poster of the blood trailing downward, it reminds me of the same motif used by Nicholas Roeg’s adaption of Daphne du Maurier’s incredibly hauntingÂ Don’t Look Now (1973) a particular favorite 70s horror of mine.

Deep End stars Cherubic faced John Moulder-Brown (The House that Screamed 1970, Forbidden Love Game 1975) as Mike, Jane Asher as Susan, Karl Michael Vogler as the swimming instructor, Christopher Sanford as Susan’s fiancÃ©e Chris, Diana Dors as Mike’s 1st lady client- a ‘withered rose’, Louise Martini as Beata the prostitute, Erica Beer as the Bath’s cashier, Anita Lochner as Kathy.

The grotesque and creepily moving tableau- a seedy Bathhouse where Mike (John Moulder-Brown) a 15-year-old towel boy whose awakening sexuality is aroused by Susan (Jane Asher-Masque of the Red Death 1964, Alfie 1966) a beautiful redhead who provokes and baits his distorted hormonal urges to the verge of madness. Mike is sexually inexperienced and obsessed with Susan until he transforms into a voyeuristic stalker.

Skolimowski’s film is uncomfortable, disorienting, oddly dark, curiously droll, and off-kilter in the same way, Polanski’s Repulsion (1965) is with its similar eye for detail as cinematographer Steinberger focuses the camera on each particle and trace of the bathhouse which creates a nightmare world that this disturbed young man inhabits among the other weirdos. In a similar vein as Polanski’s The Tenant (1976) and Cul-De-Sac (1966). Skolimowski was a co-writer with Polanski on Knife in the Water (1962). The film is littered with subconscious outrÃ© and offbeat imagery and weird and unsavory characters and we can see a bit of influence from Polanski at work.

Skolimowski (left) and Polanski (right)

Jane Asher’s character of Susan, a slightly older co-worker turns Mike into the secret world that goes on in the private rooms of the bathhouse where certain of the clientÃ¨le indulge in their deviant proclivities and are willing to pay for it. Among them is the blonde Rubenesque British actress Diana Dors who taunts Mike in a libidinous bizarre scene.

Skolimowski refers to Dors type of character as a “withered rose’ the presence of an older woman who once was famous for her sex appeal but is now pathetic as she tries to seduce much younger men or comparing herself to favorite male past times as seen with the Physical Ed teacher (Karl Michael Vogler) who was in reality older that Dors. And with Mike whom she taunts unmercifully.

Susan is not serious about her fiancÃ©e Chris, she participates in various private sexual encounters with clients at the baths, and gets perverse gratification out of turning on Mike, until he realizes that she is having a deeper affair with his former teacher.

“Mother’s Sky” is utilized in a great scene where Mike stalks Susan ‘the object of his fixation’ to a London Club, and then moves onto a seedy strip joint where his dreams become even more subverted when he sees the large cardboard cut-out of Susan, then he meets an old prostitute, and finally we follow them to the London Underground where he confronts her. When Mike’s obsession devolves it ends with tragic consequences as the story plays out with the quivers of young sexual innocence that quickly turns from disturbing pervy fixation to the kinky shivers of death. John Moulder-Brown is so perfect at playing at radiating a damaged boyish psyche.

If you love to luxuriate in odd British psycho-thrillers as I do, then Deep End will certainly fulfill that fancy mate!

Your EverLovin’ Joey saying, stay out of the deep end, and bring your own towel!

Black Christmas (1974) Bob Clark’s darker Christmas Story “Filthy Billy, I know what you did, nasty Billy!”

BLACK CHRISTMAS (1974)

Directed by Bob Clark (Porky’s 1981, A Christmas Story 1983) Screenplay by Roy Moore (She Cried Murder 1973 tv movie) Cinematographer Reginald H. Morris (When Michael Calls 1972 tv movie, The Food of the Gods 1976, Murder by Decree 1979, Phobia 1980, A Christmas Story 1983).

Reg Morris’ cinematography brings the shadowy moodiness that was the atmospheric style of When Michael Calls a suspenseful made for tv movie in the early 1970s. Cinematographer Albert J. Dunk created Billy’s POV shots by rigging up a camera harness that would mount the camera on his shoulder as he walked about the house and climbed the trellis and attic ladder himself.

Ironically, Clark who has created a deeply dark and disturbing tale set during Christmas, is responsible for one of the most authentically nostalgic, witty, and whimsical tributes to Christmas, the most beloved A Christmas Story. For a director to create the most splendid narrative that reminisces about a more innocent time, it remains a huge cult indulgence every Holiday Season, as we all collectively love to watch Ralph maneuver through the obstacles in his way of getting a Red Rider BB gun. Darren McGavin is brilliant as his old man whose expletives are still floating over Lake Michigan and the soft glow of electric sex in the window from that fabulously kitschy leg lamp. We’ve got one giving off that soft glow as I write this.

Black Christmas stars Olivia Hussey as Jess Bradford, Keir Dullea as Peter Smythe, and Margot Kidder as Barbara. Marian Waldman (When Michael Calls 1972 tv movie, Deranged 1974, Phobia 1980) as Mrs. MacHenry, Andrea Martin as Phyl, James Edmond as Mr. Harrison, Douglas McGrath as Sergeant Nash, Art Hindle as Chris, Lynn Griffin as Clare Harrison, Michael Rapport as Patrick,Â and John Saxon as Lt. Fuller. As an interesting note-Nick Mancuso plays the caller/intruder/psycho.

Continue reading “Black Christmas (1974) Bob Clark’s darker Christmas Story “Filthy Billy, I know what you did, nasty Billy!”” →

Quote of the Day! The Big Combo (1955) Mr. Brown: I’m gonna give you a break. I’m gonna fix it, so you don’t hear the bullets.

THE BIG COMBO (1955)

released Feb 5, 1955 by Allied Artists

Directed by Joseph H. Lewis (Gun Crazy 1950, My Name is Julia Ross 1945 , So Dark the Night 1946) Screenplay by Philip Jordan, Director of photography John Alton who's haunting chiaroscuro and noir figures in silhouette fill out the landscape of entrapment, corruption and decadence.

From Film Noir: Reflections in a Dark Mirror by Bruce Crowthers

In The Big Combo (1955)“Alton's dazzling black and white photography starkly counterpoints the film's perverse sexuality which constantly strains against the limitations of the Hollywood code. Whether exploring the sado-masochistic violence of the hoodlums, two of whom, Fante and Mingo are clearly homosexual or the psycho-sexual domination wielded by gang boss, Brown over the young woman from the right side of the tracks, the scripts and the director’s needs are continually and effectively fulfilled by Alton's camera.”

Stars Cornel Wilde as Leonard Diamond, Jean Wallace (Jigsaw 1949, The Man on the Eiffel Tower 1950, Storm Fear 1955) as Susan Lowell, Brian Donlevy (The Glass Key 1942, Impact 1949, The Quatermass Xperiment 1955, A Cry in the Night 1956) as McClure, Richard Conte (The Blue Gardenia 1943, Cry of the City 1948, Thieves’ Highway 1949, Whirlpool 1949, Oceans 11 (1960), Tony Rome 1967, Lady in Cement 1968) as Mr. Brown, Lee Van Cleef as Fante and Earl Holliman as Mingo, Robert Middleton as Peterson, Helen Walker as Alicia, Jay Adler as Sam Hill, John Hoyt as Dreyer, Ted De Corsia as Bettini, Helene Stanton as Rita.

Joseph H. Lewis Â from Film Noir and the Cinema of Paranoia by Wheeler Winston Dixon-
Lewis abandoned westerns and began a "frenzied round of freelancing that took him from Poverty Row to the majors, with such films as the disquieting horror Universal film The Mad Doctor of Market Street (1942) and the astonishing Secrets of a Coed aka The Silent Witness 1942 for PRC.”

The Big Combo is considered a "˜syndicate' film noir, where a mob organization is running the urban landscape, in which the organization is "˜all' but with a difference. According to writer/historian Wheeler Winston Dixon, director Lewis was an "eccentric and he depicts a universe that is as out of kilter as his often imbalanced camera set-ups; the camera sweeps in on the protagonists in their most intimate moments, frames them as silhouettes in wide shots that effectively use fog and a few shadows to disguise the fact that seem to entrap his characters in even tighter compositions."

Brown- “I’m gonna break him so fast he won’t have time to change his pants. Tell him the next time I see him, he’ll be in the lobby of the hotel, crying like a baby and asking for a ten-dollar loan. Tell him that. And tell him I don’t break my word. Diamond –**“You must have done something pretty fine to get as high as you are, Mr. Brown. I’m looking into that. I’m gonna open you up, and I’m gonna operate. I hate to think of what I’ll find.**

At the police station, booked on a phony charge just to harass Brown. Joe McClure-“Mr. Brown is a very reasonable man. You don’t know him.” Leonard Diamond “Oh, is he? Well I’m not. I intend to make life very difficult for you Mr. Brown.”

Joe McClure-“You shouldn’t talk like that, Lieutenant. You’re overstepping your authority.” Mr. Brown-“Joe, the man has reason to hate me. His salary is $96.50 a week. The busboys in my hotel make better money than that. Don’t you see, Joe? He’s a righteous man.”

From FILM NOIR: THE DARK SIDE OF THE SCREEN BY FOSTER HIRSCH

"One of the eroding factors in the fifties thrillers surfaced in such films as the Big Combo and The Phenix City Story where crime no longer springs from the aberrant individual but is instead a corporate enterprise, run like a business. (Or like Murder Inc.) This view of crime is widespread, almost communal undertaking, counters the traditional noir interest in the isolated criminal whose actions are controlled not by an impersonal conglomerate but by a complex interweaving of character and fate." Hirsch also points out that it represents another level of decadence.

From The Lost World of Film Noir by Eddie Muller-“This gray area between old-school hoodlum and the new “organization man” was fertile turf for noir fables…)… in The Big Combo the gangster picture is distilled into a sexual battle between the saturnine, sensual Mr. Brown (Richard Conte) and dogged but frustrated flatfoot Leonard Diamond (Cornel Wilde) Both men covet the appetizing Susan Lowell (Jean Wallace), whom Diamond has been stalking for months as part of his investigation of Brown’s illegal Combination.”

I have read that Chiaroscuro is director Lewis' domain and that he also liked to use icy blondes the way Alfred Hitchcock did. In Gun Crazy (1950) Lewis had Peggy Cummins, and in The Big Combo it is Jean Wallace, yet Lewis' women are more overtly "˜sex-kittenish than high-class blondes.- From Film Noir: An Encyclopedia Reference to the American Style by Alain Silver and Elizabeth Ward

Cornel Wilde does a blunt job playing a righteous cop, Leonard Diamond who will do anything to take down Mr. Brown who represents everything he detests in the world.

“I know his name. The name of a man who will pick up a phone and call Chicago and New Orleans and say “Hey Bill, Joe is coming down for the weekend. Advance him fifty thousand,” and he hangs up the phone and the money’s advanced, protection money. A new all-night bar opens, with gambling outside city limits. A bunch of high school kids come in for a good time. They get loaded, they get irresponsible, they lose their shirts. Then they get a gun, cause they’re worried, they want to make up their losses. And a filling station attendant is dead with a bullet in his liver. I have to see four kids on trial for first-degree murder. Look at it. First-degree murder, because a certain Mr. Brown picked up a phone.”

Robert Middleton who happens to be one of my favorite underrated character actors plays Diamond’s boss, Police Lt.Peterson, who’s trying to convince Diamond not to pursue Brown through his girlfriend Susan Lowell and realizes that after tailing her for months, Diamond might have developed feelings for her. “You’re a cop, Leonard. There are 17,000 laws on the books to be enforced. You haven’t got time to reform wayward girls. She’s been with Brown three and a half years. That’s a lot of days… and nights.”

Richard Conte is particularly more brutal as Mr. Brown than in some of his other portrayals of the embodiment of the crime aesthetic, possessing the essential flair of the well-heeled mobster. The Big Combo is one of the most bleak and perverse of all the mid-1950s film noirs. The pace of the film leaves us hanging in a world of perpetual threat and vexation.

Richard Conte infuses the role of Mr. Brown with an unusual intensity even for the enduring tough-guy Conte as he plays a ruthless mob boss who practically holds a society girl Susan Lowell (Jean Wallace) hostage by their odd attraction for each other. Susan has left a budding career as a pianist to be a trophy in Brown’s collections, seduced by his control, and the money he lavishes on her, yet ambivalent about her self-loathing and her attraction to his perverse power over her body and their sexual relationship. In a potent scene, he takes Susan to a secret room in her apartment filled with a hidden stash of money and ammunition. Brown to Susan- “This is my bank… we don’t take checks, we deal strictly in cash. There isn’t anybody I’d trust with so much temptation–except myself. Or maybe you.”

Mr. Brown- "Where'd you get that outfit?"Â Susan Lowell "What’s wrong with it?"Â Mr. Brown-"I like you better in white. You’ve got a dozen white dresses. Why don’t you wear them? " Susan Lowell-"White doesn’t please me anymore." Mr. Brown –"A woman dresses for a man. You dress for me. Go put on something white!"

Brown employs his two exploitable goons Fante (Lee Van Cleef) and Mingo (Earl Holliman) to stay close to Susan and watch her every move, acting as unwanted bodyguards.

Brown's far-flung organization is under attack by the overzealous hard-boiled detective Leonard Diamond (Cornel Wilde) who is determined to bring Brown to justice. All of Mr. Brown's associates are figures marginalized by society in some way, all defined by their "˜difference.' Brown gets his kicks pointing out what everyone else around him lacks while he pats himself on the back like a sadistic narcissist.

The film opens with Susan fleeing a boxing match, pursued by Mr. Brown’s two hired muscle heads, through dark alleys until she is finally caught by Brown, which only symbolizes his sexual dominance over her.

“It was for her I began to work my way up. All I had was guts. I traded them for money and influence. I get respect from everybody but her…”- Mr. Brown

Brown is so fixated on displays of dominance and strength that he fires his boxer after he loses his bout. First, he uses the opportunity to belittle his deputy McClure (Brian Donlevy) in front of the young boxer then he smacks Benny across his swollen bloody face waiting for his retaliation, but when it’s obvious the boy won’t hit him back, he cuts him loose.

Brown talking to Benny after the bout- “So you lost. Next time you’ll win. I’ll show you how. Take a look at Joe McClure here. He used to be my boss, now I’m his. What’s the difference between me and him? We breathe the same air, sleep in the same hotel. He used to own it!”

[yelling into McClure’s sound magnifier that is in his ear]

“We eat the same steak, drink the same bourbon. Look–same manicure, cuff-links. But we don’t get the same girls. Why? Because women know the difference. They got instinct. First is first and second is nobody…Â Now, Benny, who runs the world? Do you have any idea?” Bennie Smith "Not me, Mr. Brown." Mr. Brown "That's right, not you, but a funny thing, they’re not so much different from you, but they’ve got something. They’ve got it, and they use it. I’ve got it; [pointing to McClure] he hasn’t. What is it, Benny? What makes the difference…? Hate! Hate is the word, Benny! Hate the man that tries to beat you. Kill ’em, Benny! Kill ’em! Hate him till you see red, and you’ll come out winning the big money, and the girls will come tumblin’ after. You’ll have to shut off the phone and lock the door to get a night’s rest."

Brown lectures Benny- “You should have hit me back. You haven’t got the hate. Tear up Benny’s contract. He’s no good to me anymore.”Â

Brown cuts his fighter-Benny loose, telling him he just doesn’t have the killer instinct he needs. Brown is a narcissistic bully whose smooth philosophical meanderings taunt the people who work for him, women, and even the cop who is right on his heels.

Brown's two brawny side-kicks Fante and Mingo are obviously homosexual lovers, who thrive on violence as an enhancement to their sexual arousal like foreplay. Brown's former boss, the weakened and inadequate McClure must rely on a clunky portable radio-sized hearing aid in order to keep up with the gang's activities.

Lt. Diamond goes after the psychotic megalomaniac Mr. Brown trying to shut down his crime organization. There is conflict already within the organization as Brown is demeaning to McClure and verbally bates him constantly with put-downs, to try and get a rise out of him. McClure wants to get rid of Brown all together and take over as head of the mob once again, but in the end, he is too impotent, to smack down Brown’s power.

Brown has a prized possession "”his beautiful blonde girlfriend Susan who is watched over every minute of the day by his two thugs Fante and Mingo. When Susan finally has a breakdown and overdoses on sleeping pills as a way out, she finally asks Diamond for help.

Susan eventually attempts suicide by taking an overdose of pills, which puts her in Diamond's path. Diamond himself is attracted to Susan. Believing that the only escape from her amoral relationship with Brown is to die, Diamond tries to pull her away from his control.

First Diamond wants to expose Brown’s criminal organization and secondly, it would give him great satisfaction to take Susan away from Brown, as he also has developed feelings for her.

When Diamond harasses Brown by arresting him on false charges just to bring him into the station –he goes on a mission to persecute Brown, who retaliates as his credo is "First is first and second is nobody" Brown puts a contract out on Diamond, who is then kidnapped by his two vicious flunky's Fante and Mingo who are in a surreptitious relationship, with each other Mingo showing his sexual attraction and love for Fante in a rather covert yet palpable way. Though toward the end, while they’re hiding out, he does make mention that he’s sick of Salami. A thought, make of it what you will!

In a shocking scene Fante and Mingo torture Diamond, it is particularly brutal and vicious as they use McClure's hearing aid turned up to full volume amplifying sound to the point it could blow his ear drums out. The pain on Diamond's face is tangible. Then they begin pouring alcohol down his throat poisoning him, leaving him to appear as if he's been off on a bender, thank god his boss Peterson (Robert Middleton) is there to help Diamond recover.

Mr. Brown-“I think Mr. Diamond needs a drink. Got any liquor?” Fante-” How about some paint thinner?” Mr. Brown-“No, that’ll kill him. Anything else?” Fante- “Hair tonic, 40% alcohol.” Mr.Brown-“Fine.”

Once he recovers from his torture, Diamond is even more determined to bring Brown down. Diamond starts to put the pieces together and find clues that point to Brown's involvement in the murder of a racket boss who disappeared a while ago, and whose place he took over in the organization. He discovers some of Brown's old associates, Dreyer (John Hoyt) an Austrian who runs an antique and import business, and Bettini (Ted De Corsia)a nice Italian man who owned a pizza parlor in the city and is now hiding out, fearing for his life.

Fante and Mingo go to Diamond’s hotel room intending to kill him and wind up murdering his sometime lover night club singer Rita who went there to surprise him with a date but becomes an unfortunate casualty being at the right place at the wrong time she is caught in the fray. Even Rita had laid things out for Diamond about the reasons why Susan would stay with a creep like Brown- “Women don’t care how a man makes his living, only how he makes love.”

After Diamond finds Rita’s body gunned down in his apartment- “She came to see me in her best shoes!” I treated her like a pair of gloves. I was cold… I called her up.”

Brown tries to school Diamond in the ways of the world, “You’d like to be me… You’d like to have my organization, my influence, my fix. You think it’s the money. It’s not–it’s personality. You haven’t got it. You’re a cop. Slow. Steady. Intelligent. With a bad temper and a gun under your arm. With a big yen for a girl, you can’t have. First is first and second is nobody.Â

Brown- “You’re a little man with a soft job and good pay. Stop thinking about what might have been and who knows–you may live to die in bed.”

Brown starts to get paranoid and panicky, getting rid of McClure who is a weak link in the mob, and then his two henchmen who know too much about his double dealings and can be linked to McClure's murder. Adding to Brown's worries, his ex-wife Alicia (Helen Walker) comes back into the picture after hiding out in a sanitarium aiding Diamond in Brown's capture. Ultimately leading to a showdown at an airplane hangar where Diamond corners Brown. Alicia “I’d rather be insane and alive, than sane… and dead.”

When McClure tries to double-cross Brown by using his own thugs against him, Fante and Mingo pretend to go along and wind up turning their machine guns on him instead, while Brown sardonically watches grinning like the sadist he is. With a flair of evil embellishment, Brown walks over to McClure who has two machine guns trained on him, and takes out his hearing aid. Brown-"I"˜m gonna give you a break. I’m gonna fix it, so you don’t hear the bullets." It is a stunning scene we are watching from McClure's perspective the flashing lights and smokey tendrils from the gunfire happen at us, but it is all done in eerie quiet and darkness. We are experiencing the frightening moment when he is shot to death. We become McClure at that moment.

Later Brown wants to dispose of his two thugs so there is no evidence of murder, he hands them a package while they are hiding out in an old building in the basement that used to be a speakeasy, They think the package is filled with food, guns and their share of the money they heisted from the bank, but it's filled with dynamite. As the two men are blown up, leaving Mingo alive for a brief moment just enough to give a deathbed confession to exact revenge for his lover's death and point the finger at Brown.

Richard Conte is icily ruthless as the film's antagonist, Mr. Brown who is not known by any other name, signifying an enigmatic symbolism for abject violence and immorality. As Dickos states "his imaginative brutality, Lewis bridges violence to the audience's darker, vicarious desire to see pain inflicted on the screen"

There is a sense of noir fatalism and an underlying current of deviant and provocative sexual appetite within The Big Combo. Much of the violence is influenced by a strong element of sadism. The relationship between Susan and Brown is structured by fatalism, as she is sullen and submissive to his neurotic controlling fixation, while she wants to escape she shows no strength or determination other than to give in to it. Brown is obsessed with Susan as an object, preoccupied with her body. This is illustrated in one scene where he devours her with studied kisses, worships her , and objectifies her with salacious flattery in a way that perversely brings her to ecstasy. It might be this odd sexual attraction to Brown that keeps her passive to his controlling behavior toward her.

From Film Noir Encyclopedia: Edited by Alain Silver and Elizabeth Ward
"The Homosexuality of Mingo and Fante is smothered in an atmosphere of murder and sadistic torture , as they refine the conventions of violence into a sexual ritual. Joseph H. Lewis's direction strongly points to a crude sexual bias throughout the film. Even Diamond appears to be sexually frustrated and compensating for impotence. Much in the same way as Lewis's classic Gun Crazy, there is an affinity between sex and violence.; and the exploration of futility presents an ambience strangely reminiscent of an earlier period of noir films, such as Scarlet Street and Woman in the Window. These attitude combine with John Alton's photography to create a wholly defined film noir, as striking contrasts between the black and white photography and Lewis's sexual overtones isolate The Big Combo's characters in a dark, insular universe of unspoken repression and graphic violence." -Carl Macek

From Street With No Name by Andrew Dickos

"The Homoerotic violence in the Mingo-Fante relationship, unencumbered by misguided sociological sentiments, is still stereotyped psycho-sexuality "”offensive enough on another score"”but it is raw and consistent with the noir world. The privilege of noir cinema, as distinguished from other genres, lies in the latitude these films were permitted in exploring sexual power and its ambiguity, and the reason is apparent; as the cautionary cinema of the great negation of a "healthy' puritanical American vision, the film noir almost mandates a depiction, however perverse, of those repressed impulses reigning hand-in hand with the anarchy that drives its protagonists to violence and paranoia. Unrepressed sexuality alongside these characteristics is far too messy to contain, so it must be vanquished. When it is particularly threatening, one may be sure that there is a woman involved."

Lewis's The Big Combo- "where it becomes almost pornographic to see Susan Lowell hopelessly submit to what is surely suggested to be an act of oral sex performed by her crime-lord boyfriend, Mr. Brown. But Lewis is no pornographer, he is a sensualist in the most serious way. No other works in American film until the 1960s broached the acknowledgment of these carnal hungers as a life-enhancing dimension of dangerous living"”indeed, in living a short, intense life unto quick death."

Both Lewis’ film noir masterpieces Gun Crazy and The Big Combo are sexually defined by the discursive violence of the external world"”so much a corollary for the violence of passion that Lewis and screenwriter Philip Jordan can barely mask the story of The Big Combo as merely another sensational example of the extent to which organized crime corrupted postwar American Life.

Your EverLovin’ Joey saying there’s an underlying current of shadows and light here at The Last Drive In, but no worries, you got what it takes to stick around -no need to turn up the volume for you to hear how much I appreciate you all!

Saturday Nite Sublime -Tourist Trap (1979) “You’re so pretty, it’s a shame you have to die!”

TOURIST TRAP (1979)

“You’re so pretty it’s a shame you have to die, it will be quick, but it won’t be easy. You’ll die of fright.”

Tourist Trap (1979) A Charles Band Production. Written and directed by David Schmoeller, (Puppetmaster series) co-written by J. Larry Carroll, director of photography Nicholas von Sternberg, music by Pino Donaggio (Don’t Look Now 1973, Carrie 1976, Dressed to Kill 1980, The Howling 1981, Body Double 1984) Art direction by Robert A. Burns (who worked on The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 1974, which like Tourist Trap also had minimal gore and no nudity), special effects by Richard O. Helmer and make-up by David Ayers, Robert A. Burns, Ken Horn, Ve Neill and and Karen Stern.

Stars Chuck Connors (The Rifleman, Soylent Green 1973, The Horror at 37, 000 ft. 1973, Nightmare in Badham County 1976 tv movie) as the creepy Mr. Slausen. Chuck Connors had actually sought out the part of Mr. Slausen stating that he wanted to be the Boris Karloff of the 1980s! It is a very good role for him indeed, as he is perfectly peculiarly menacing and off-beat.

Jocelyn Jones plays Molly-the virginal final girl who just happens to be the daughter of amazing character actor Henry Jones!

Jon Van Ness (The Hitcher 1986) as Jerry, Robins Sherwood (Death Wish II, Blow Out 1981) as Eileen, Tanya Roberts (Charlie’s Angels, Sheena: Queen of the Jungle 1984) as Becky, Dawn Jeffory as Tina, Keith McDermott as Woody, Shailar Coby as Davey and Albert Band and Linnea Quigley as Mannequins.

The reason I hold onto my VHS tapes (as sad and worn as they are), instead of buying the Blu-ray version with better quality and vivid colors, is unfortunately that the newer version is cut down making it a shorter version of the movie. I’ll wind up with the new release but I’ll never let go of my VHS unless it disintegrates into analog dust and goo in the Rubbermaid container!

Tourist Trap with its sublime moments of terror will forever stay burned into my memory for its original brand of creepiness, partly due to the animated mannequins, the sense of isolation and dread, and Pino Dinaggio’s enigmatic melodically robotic score incorporating ghost town saloon tinny piano sounds, and wind up toys, that drives the story perfectly! This to me is undoubtedly one of THE scariest films of the 1970s decade of horror. Not just the mannequins that play a factor in the level of freakiness, it’s the fact that the victims themselves get transformed somehow into mannequins themselves. Yes, they do, indeedy they do!

A group of young people driving in one of those jeeps called ‘the Thing’ of the late 70s go for a trip out in the desert but of course, as it is with all these pictures in order to set up the chilling storyline, they must become stranded! Fortunately, they break down by Slausen’s Lost Oasis, a tourist-trap museum run by the deranged Mr. Slausen, which is filled with a collection of remarkable automatons and life like-mannequins and some who are even gunslingers (you’ll find out)

These unusually menacing figures can not only move, they also possess the powers of telekinesis. Slausen (Connors who is effectively creepy in this macabre dark fairy tale about getting lost and winding up at the wrong house) might be the one who has the power to move objects at will, but either way, the film becomes a manic fun-house ride that is incredibly frightening as well as suffocating because they are trapped at the Lost Oasis. One by one, Slausen dispenses with the group except for Molly who has caught his eye and animated his you know what, if you catch my drift. Actually, we get a little back story as Slausen tells Molly “You remind me of my wife.” whose likeness or life itself has been dedicated to wax in the museum.

The beauty of Tourist Trap is in its restraint to use violence or gore, it is intense, lurid, tacky, and wonderfully 70s-style horror.Â It’s the moodiness of the surroundings and the idea that wax dummies are dangerous, not to mention the paraffin masks that Slausen & Davey wear that are wholly imaginative and inject something incredibly spine-tingling into the non-human atmosphere. With screaming mannequins, their grotesque mouths gaping open in a choir of falsetto!

Don’t expect to learn the deep dark secrets of the mannequin’s powers or whether Slausen and Davey are the same man as you’ll never see them together at the same time, and Shailar Cobey is credited as playing Davey. There just are no signposts in this film, no clear explanation for any of the goings on, it is as ephemeral as a twisted dream. It is as I said, a Fun-house ride through creepy-ville. And Connors is spectacular as a hyper-sexual, lonely man-child who has too many toys to play with or I should say not enough living dolls. There are hints of House of Wax (1953) starring Vincent Price, though the narrative is different, the essence of what makes the story terrifying is the mania of the antagonist’s medium of sculpting wax over living bodies. Tourist Trap is nightmarish, deliciously campy, disorienting, frightening, and wickedly fun to watch as the mannequins invade the space, where there is nowhere else to run.

Eileen: “Mr. Slausen, can I use your phone?”

Mr. Slausen: “Oh sure, help yourself… but it doesn’t work. I got nobody to call.”

Davey: [deep, raspy voice] “We’re going to have a party!”

Davey: “My brother always makes me wear this stupid mask. Do you know why? Because I’m prettier than him.”

IMDb Trivia:

The script originally called for nudity, but Schmoeller said he was too bashful and embarrassed to bring it up with Tanya Roberts and the other actresses during casting. When they got to the lake scene, he finally asked them if they’d be willing. The collective answer was no.

Stephen King praised the film in his book Danse Macabre, especially its frightful opening scene.

Director David Schmoeller was startled when the film received a PG rating despite its disturbing subject matter. Schmoeller stated in an interview with TerrorTrap.com that he felt the film would have been more commercially successful had it received an R rating.

The mannequin who gives the female lead something to drink is actually Schmoeller’s then-wife. The mannequin originally had 2 lines, but Schmoeller had them edited out during post-production. She then never forgave him for that.

Tanya Roberts insisted on running through the woods barefoot in one scene. She thought it would help her better project a sense of pain and fear. The result was also that her feet were bloodied.

Pino Donaggio’s fee for composing the score was one sixth of the movie’s budget.

The plaster used in the death scene was actually dough.

Though the masked killer was called Davey, the production crew have since dubbed him “Plasterface”.

Tourist Trap was actually based on David Schmoeller’s senior film project at film school. (According to Schmoeller’s commentary on the 20th anniversary DVD)

Jon Van Ness did his own stunt when he jumps through the window.

Jocelyn Jones was a classically-trained actress, whereas Chuck Connors was self-taught. During filming, Connors would often ask Schmoeller why Jones would have to go through various routines before filming scenes (such as breathing exercises.) (According to Schmoeller’s commentary on the 20th anniversary DVD.) Shot in twenty-four days.

Irwin Yablans reportedly hated Pino Donaggio’s score for the film, as Yablans wanted another synthesized score in the same tradition as John Carpenter’s Halloween.

This is your EverLovin’ MonsterGirl saying If you happen to break down near a tourist trap anywhere USA, just wait for AAA!

A Trailer a Day Keeps the Boogeyman Away! The Prowler (1951)

THE PROWLER (1951)

Directed by Joseph Losey (M (1951 version) These Are the Damned 1962, Eva 1962, The Servant 1963, Modesty Blaise 1966, Accident 1967, Secret Ceremony 1968) Music by unsung composer Lyn Murray.

The Cinematography by Arthur C. Miller (How Green Was My Valley 1941, The Song of Bernadette 1943) creates both a landscape of alienation within the city and continues to spread even in the wide open spaces. Miller understands how to frame his visual lens in the same way George E. Diskant, Nicholas Musuraca, and Conrad L. Hall do. By taking the internal machinations of the players, the subtexts (usually themes of alienation) and either the pervasive or subtle moralizing, are transposed onto the landscape as either closed-in space or vastly wide open in contrast.

Evelyn Keyes (Johnny O’Clock 1947, The Killer Who Stalked New York 1950, Iron Man 1951, Hells Half Acre 1954) who has a natural gutsy sex appeal plays a repressed suburban California housewife Susan Gilvray married to the older William (Emerson Treacy)who works nights as a late-night radio host.

One night she sees a prowler outside her house and calls the police to come Webb Garwood ( Van Heflin) and his partner Bud Crocker (John Maxwell) show up to investigate but don't find anyone lurking around. There's something seedy and intrusive about Webb who shows up a second time Susan is more like a shut in and so she invites Webb in for a cup of coffee.

Of course, Webb makes a play for Susan as he had already set his sights on her during the initial call. The two wind up having an affair, until her husband John gets a clue that something’s going on. Susan ends it with Webb and he quits the police force.

Webb concocts a plan to murder William making it look like he is accidentally shot dead during what would be thought to be another prowler incident. At the inquest, John's death is ruled an accident.

Van Heflin plays a perfectly tightly wound psychopath who swarms and suffocates Evelyn Keye's character Susan until she is trapped by his frightening obsessiveness with control and greed. The climax is quite intense as the pacing leaves you gasping for air a bit in that classic Losey bleak and nihilistic view of human nature that is his style.

IMDb trivia"”Novelist James Ellroy (“L.A. Confidential”, “The Black Dahlia”) once called this his favorite film and described it as “a masterpiece of sexual creepiness, institutional corruption, and suffocating, ugly passion.”

Webb Garwood: "I didn’t do it, Susan. I’ll swear that by the only thing I ever really loved and that’s you."

I’ll be prowling around The Last Drive In folks! Your EverLovin Joey

Beautiful Poison: Jean Simmons in Angel Face (1953) & Gene Tierney in Leave Her To Heaven (1945)

It's that dastardly wonderful time of year whenÂ Speakeasy* Shadows and Satin & Silver Screenings host The Great Villain Blogathon 2017! featuring an endless array of diabolically cunning, insensate evil, down right nefarious and at times psychotic adversaries that Cinema has to offer!

Now in the past several years I've taken a long look at Gloria Holden & Gloria Swanson: When the Spider Woman Looks: Wicked Love, Close ups & Old Jewels -Sunset Blvd (1950) and Dracula’s Daughter (1936).

Dark Patroons & Hat Box Killers: for 2015's The Great Villain Blogathon! I focused on the extraordinarily passionate Vincent Price in Dragonwyck 1946 and the ruthlessly sublime Robert Montgomery in Night Must Fall 1937"”in a twisted nail biter by director Walter Graumen who puts the lovely Olivia de Havilland in peril at the hands of a sociopathic animal James Caan "” Lady in a Cage (1964) for the spectacular Blogathonian lady's hosting the 2014’s "”The Great Villain Blogathon and once again last year for 2016's event, I featured True Crime Folie Ã deux: with my take on Truman Capote’s true crime drama In Cold Blood (1967) & the offbeat psycho thriller The Honeymoon Killers (1969).

I was tempted to do a double feature tribute to the two masterful, despicably loathsome characters brought to life by Robert Mitchum. First his superb manifestation of the crazed preacher Harry Powell in Charles Laughton's expressionist masterpiece The Night of the Hunter (1955). And then as the animalistic psychotic Max Cady in director J. Lee Thompson's Cape Fear (1962).

I might not wait until The Great Villain Blogathon 2018, and just do a special feature "Robert Mitchum's Alpha Madmen" because he & these two films are just too good not to write about before next go around! And I'm simply mad about Robert Mitchum, not to worry, not mad in the same way as Angel Face's Diane Tremayne!

The Great Villain Blogathon is perhaps one of my favorite blogathons because the possibilities are devilishly deliciously endless. My mind began to wander around all the delightfully deadly possibility of dastardly dames…

Beautiful Anti-Heroines with a psychological underpinning as in THE DARK MIRROR 1946 starring Olivia de Havilland playing twin sisters one bad, one good, de Havilland also embodies that certain dangerous allure in MY COUSIN RACHEL 1952.

THE STRANGE WOMAN 1946 features a very cunning and mesmerizing Hedy Lamarr, and then there’s always Anne Baxter who portrays a deeply disturbed woman in GUEST IN THE HOUSE 1944. All would be excellent choices for this bad ass… blogathon! BUT…!

This year, I find myself drawn to two intoxicatingly beautiful antagonists who's veneer of elegance & delicate exquisiteness is tenuously covering their obsessive shattered psyches. Jean Simmons and Gene Tierney both manage to create an icy austerity and a menacing malignancy within the immediate allure of their physical beauty and wiles.Â

Also significant in both these films, the characters of Diane Tremayne and Ellen Berent flip the male gaze and conquer it for themselves, being the ones "˜to look'.

In both these films, the two deadly women are father-fixated! Both are pathologically jealous. And both women will not go "easy" Diane won't put the car in gear "Easy!" and Ellen will not leave Dick alone and go away "easy." These two killer psycho-noir ladies are a great pairing of deadly damsels!

DEFINITION : beauty |ËˆbyoÍžodÄ“|

noun (pl. beauties)

1 a combination of qualities, such as shape, color, or form, that pleases the aesthetic senses, especially the sight: I was struck by her beauty | an area of outstanding natural beauty.

DEFINITION : CRIMINALLY INSANE

criminally |ËˆkrimÉ™n(É™)lÄ“|

adverb

1 in a manner that is contrary to or forbidden by criminal law:

psychosis |sÄ«ËˆkÅsÉ™s|

noun (pl. psychoses |-ËŒsÄ“z| )

a severe mental disorder in which thought and emotions are so impaired that contact is lost with external reality.

DEFINITION: OBSESSION

obsession |É™bËˆseSHÉ™n|

noun

the state of being obsessed with someone or something: she cared for him with a devotion bordering on obsession.

an idea or thought that continually preoccupies or intrudes on a person’s mind:

DEFINITION: FREUDIAN

Freudian |ËˆfroidÄ“É™n| Psychology

adjective

relating to or influenced by Sigmund Freud and his methods of psychoanalysis, especially with reference to the importance of sexuality in human behavior.

DEFINITION:PATHOLOGICALLY JEALOUS

pathological |ËŒpaTHÉ™ËˆlÃ¤jÉ™k(É™)l| (also pathologic)

adjective/noun

the science of the causes and effects of diseases, especially the branch of medicine that deals with the laboratory examination of samples of body tissue for diagnostic or forensic purposes."”"¢ mental, social, or linguistic abnormality or malfunction"”compulsive; obsessive

jealous |ËˆjelÉ™s|

adjective

*feeling or showing envy of someone or their achievements and advantages:

*feeling or showing suspicion of someone’s unfaithfulness in a relationship:"¢

*fiercely protective or vigilant of one’s rights or possessions:

"¢ (of God) demanding faithfulness and exclusive worship.

From Mary Ann Doane's book "The femme fatale is the figure of a certain discursive unease, a potential epistemological trauma. For her most striking characteristic, perhaps, is the fact that she never really is what she seems to be. She harbors a threat which is not entirely legible, predictable or manageable. In thus transforming the threat of the woman into a secret, something which must be aggressively revealed, unmasked, discovered "¦ Her appearance marks the confluence of modernity, urbanization, Freudian psychoanalysis"¦The femme fatale is a clear indication of the extent of the fears and anxieties prompted by shifts in the understanding of sexual difference in the late nineteenth century"¦ "

Doane goes on to say that it's no wonder cinema was a great place for the femme fatale of 1940s noir with the femme fatale representing a sign of deviant strength. That could be said of both of our highlighted villainesses!

ANGEL FACE (1952)

She loved one man … enough to KILL to get him!

Directed by Otto Preminger written by Frank Nugent, Oscar Milland, Chester Erskine, and an uncredited Ben Hecht.

Jean Simmons stars as the antagonist Diane Tremayne Jessup, Robert Mitchum plays Frank Jessup, Mona Freeman as nice girl Mary Wilton, Herbert Marshall as Diane’s beloved father, Mr. Charles Tremayne, Barbara O'Neil as stepmother Mrs. Catherine Tremayne, Leon Ames as attorney Fred Barrett, and Kenneth Tobey as nice guy Bill Compton, who is also Franks ambulance jockey partner. Cinematography by Harry Straddling (Suspicion 1941, A Streetcar Named Desire 1951, A Face in the Crowd 1957, The Dark at the Top of the Stairs 1960, Gypsy 1962, My Fair Lady 1964) and haunting score by great composerÂ Dimitri Tiomkin.

Angel Face is a bit of a reserved psycho-drama/noir directed by Otto Preminger who also produced. Quite striking in its few brutal moments scattered throughout as the murders play out at the hands of the extremely poised Jean Simmons, (So Long at the Fair 1950, The Big Country 1958, Spartacus 1960) which is what gives the film its nasty ironic burn in the end.

Jean Simmons was absolutely mesmerizing as Charlotte Bronn, a tormented woman who suffers a nervous breakdown, who leaves the institution and tries to make sense of her life with her austere husband Dan O’Herlihy, sister Rhonda Fleming, and sympathetic Efrem Zimbalist Jr. in director Mervyn Leroy’s Home Before Dark 1958.

In Angel Face, Simmons plays it almost perfectly chilling with her refined beauty that displays no affect, a few obvious inner demons behind those dreamy eyes, not so much bubbling passion underneath as there are bursts of fervency out of necessity. She stunningly floats through the scenes with ice water in her veins, determined to possess, first her father (Herbert Marshall) and then Frank Jessup (Robert Mitchum).

As an actor, Robert Mitchum possesses an enormous range, and many layers to his film & real-life persona– although he always exudes that smooth yet brawny exterior, he can either play it self-possessed, a coolly determined hero or visceral anti-hero, and at times he’s been quite effective as a sicko. In Angel Face, Mitchum while still the usual rugged beast and cocksure fella, this time he is foolish and unsympathetically led by his pants, right into our anti-heroin’s trap…

Frank should have stayed with nice nurse Mary, a nice fella for a girl.

Herbert Marshall as Charles Tremayne tries to explain to the doctor and the ambulance drivers what might have happened when the gas valve was left on in his wife’s bedroom.

Robert Mitchum plays former race car driver Frank Jessup, an ambulance jockey who becomes drawn into Diane Tremayne's (Jean Simmons) psychotically woven web of obsessive love. Frank and Bill are called to the wealthy Tremayne family's hilltop mansion when Catherine Tremayne (Barbara O’Neil) is almost asphyxiated when the gas valve on her bedroom fireplace is stuck on. In reality, Diane's attempt to gas her stepmother fails. It seems that Diane is insanely jealous of the woman who took her dear doting father Charles’ (Herbert Marshall) attentions away.

Catherine Tremayne insists that someone has tried to kill her and that the gas inhalation was not a suicide attempt. Catherine Tremayne is looked after by the doctor, given a sedative, and tucked into bed. Frank wanders down the great staircase, lured by haunting piano playing.

Frank wanders into the parlor when he hears the refined and innocent doe-eye-looking Diane playing a classical melody on the grand piano. He is immediately struck by the beautifully delicate young woman. As soon as Diane sees Frank who tells her that her stepmother is okay, she becomes hysterical. He tries to calm her down in his gruff manner, "Look take it easy I told ya she's gonna be fine." Diane continues to sob, "Leave me alone." He grabs her arm forcefully and yells at her to stop it, but Diane acts as if she is inconsolable, while Frank is getting more frustrated with her. So, the big guy slaps her, slaps her hard. Some sort of awareness washes over her face, in fact, she might have rather liked getting smacked in the face and so, she slaps him back, just as hard. Frank laughs, "Now look, the manual says that's supposed to stop hysterics, it doesn't say a word about getting slapped back." "I'm sorry", "That's alright forget it. I've been slapped by dames before."

We can see that there is something definitely off about this strange young woman and it should have raised the hair on the back of his neck but Frank is a bit of a dog you see.

Frank and Bill drive back to the hospital where they are set to get off from work. Frank says goodnight to Bill and walks over to the cafe because Mary is waiting on his call. Bill tells Frank he’s a lucky guy, and he agrees- “You know it!”

What Frank doesn't realize is that Diane has jumped into her little sportscar and has followed the men in the ambulance all the way back to the hospital. She watches as Frank enters the cafe. Harry the cafe owner says, "Well if it ain't the dead body jockey" "Sure Harry that's why I come here it looks like the morgue."

Frank puts a coin in the phone and begins to call Mary but he gets a busy signal. He turns around and voilÃ Diane is standing there. She floats out an innocent sounding, "Hello." Frank pleasantly surprised says "Well hello, you do get around fast don't ya." Diane answers, "I parked my broomstick outside" Frank-"Beer Harry… what do witches drink?"

Now"¦ This is why Frank is a dog, it doesn't trouble him that this young woman has followed him to work. He was supposed to have dinner with his girlfriend Mary who is a nurse at the hospital and a wonderful person.

Naturally, one busy signal and Frank's attention span is switched to this young stalker whom he finds intriguing. He finally gets Mary on the phone and tells her that he's too tired to get together and goes off into the night to dine and dance with Diane. He is now ensnared in her web.

Frank-“I’ll see you tomorrow” Mary-“Tomorrow… was it a rough call?” Frank staring at Diane- “Yeah, rough.”

Diane asks Mary to lunch… she’s got a plan you see.

What makes Diane even more conniving is that the next day she meets Mary for lunch and tells her about her evening with her boyfriend. She puts it under the pretense of helping the couple out with Frank’s plans on owning his own sports car repair ship, Diane having the means to offer financial support. But the seed is planted and Mary gets the heavy hint dropped that Frank is a dog and feels betrayed by Frank's lie about being too tired. Mary is no dope and she lets Diane know that she won't be a fool. She tells Diane that she would have rather not known about their evening together and knows that Diane has brought her to lunch to try and shake her faith in Frank and to "find out how stupid" she was. Mary isn't the typical good girl in noir"”she's more streetwise than that and a bit jaded by the ways of the world. She’s a good girl, but not a dumb girl.

That night Frank is about to go out on a date with Mary and he continues to lie about the previous evening "I was so beat last night I hit the sack as soon as I got in" Mary tells him "That, I can believe."

Diane walks into the diner and tells Frank that she met with Mary for lunch.

Diane-“Go ahead hit me.” Frank-“First I’ll buy you dinner then I’ll hit ya.” Diane -“When I tell you what I did you probably won’t want to see me again, ever.” Frank-“Sounds pretty grim.” Diane-“I had lunch with Mary I told her about last night… oh not everything just that we went out together.” Frank gripes-“Well why did you say that, I told her that…” Diane-“I just told her that I wanted to help you get the garage.” Frank-“Oh yeah you’re a big help.”

Later that evening while dropping subtle barbs at each other about the price of Diane’s spending, she lays the groundwork for getting Catherine to hire Frank as her new chauffeur.

Diane to Catherine complaining about her expense account-“Don’t you know it’s the simple things that cost the most!”

Diane tells Catherine that she could really use a chauffeur…

Now that Frank and Mary's relationship is strained Diane moves in for the kill, she initiates a passionate kiss, she tempts him with the idea of a race coming up, tempting him with “pebble beach” and that she will loan her car to him, also luring him with the security of a better-paying job.

He decides to take a job with the Tremayne's as her stepmother Catherine's chauffeur, though he tells Diane he's just "not the type" even move into an apartment over the garage. Diane tells Frank about her father, how he is a widowed writer, who has been wasting his talent, marrying into money for its comfort with the rich Catherine whom Diane despises for the way she treats him.

Part of Diane's diabolical plot to draw Frank into her web, she pretends to be nice to Catherine asking her to invest in Frank's desire to open up his own garage that caters to sports cars.

This is also a way for Diane to ingratiate herself into Frank’s life by appealing to his love of fast cars, as an extension of her own dangerous mind, she drives a sports car that Frank seems to be dazzled by and covets as he was once a race car driver. This is just an example of one of Diane's manipulative powers as she seduces Frank with the illusion that he will be in control. Race cars are vehicles that represent freedom and freedom of movement as they are capable of high speeds and risk-taking. Both Diane and Frank seem to want to move at their own speed and of their own volition with no one interfering. In that way, they are suited. Frank wants to do his own thing, opening up his own garage and Diane is looking for someone new to possess and control since her father is now a little more out of her reach.

But this is where the bait, or point of attraction leads Frank down a dangerous spiraling road led completely by Diane's calculating will"” where he will ultimately and literally crash and burn.

And so Frank meets with his employer who is receptive to him. Catherine actually thinks he’s a very nice young man and calls over to her lawyer to look over the papers, feeling fine about lending a great deal of money for him to open up his own garage, though she must wait for her attorney to look over the financial details of the transaction. Frank believes the deal is going to happen, until Diane sabotages the whole thing by insinuating herself using deception once again, pretending to show Frank a crumpled paper from the waste pail with the figures for the investment, that her stepmother supposedly trashed. Frank seems surprised that Catherine decided not to go ahead with it, as she appeared keen on the idea.

“Oh, Frank I’m so sorry.” Frank-“Don’t take it so hard. You had a nice idea it just didn’t work that’s all.” Diane-“I’m so sorry for you.” Frank-“She changed her mind forget it, we’ll make a big night of it.” Diane– “Not tonight.” Frank slightly annoyed-“Now why?” Diane warns him, “It would be safer not to. We have to be careful for a few days. More than ever now.” Frank-“What do we have to be careful of now?” Diane-“Well if she finds out she’ll dismiss you and I couldn’t stand to lose you now…” Frank-“So she fires me and I get another job. Maybe it’s better that way. At least we won’t have to play around like this. Hiding like kids.” Diane-“You don’t know her Frank. She’d lock me in.” Frank laughs-“How could she lock you in?” Diane-“She could do anything to me because of my father. If I try to fight her, she makes him pay for it, she knows I can’t stand that, please try to understand.”

Of course, Diane has constructed this lie as Catherine was very interested in going through with the deal. She wants to poison Frank's mind against Catherine, and Frank doesn't go straight to Catherine and merely asks if this is true, he just takes Diane's word for it.

Once he is working for the Tremayne's, and the prospect of his garage will not materialize-Frank gets antsy.

While Diane plays chess with dear old daddy, Frank gets bored playing chauffeur above the garage and tries to call Mary but he can’t reach her. Diane says goodnight to Father laying out his milk, biscuits, and cigarettes by his bedside, like the loving daughter, he can’t do without.

While Diane sits at the piano and plays her lamenting melody, in her eyes she appears like a black widow knowing that she has a juicy fly trapped above the garage, planning her next strategy which comes in the middle of the night.

She comes to Frank’s room crying and frightened claiming that Catherine had been in her bedroom looking down at her. Diane says with her most delicate voice-“It was so strange I wanted to speak but I couldn’t.” Diane tells Frank that Catherine had closed the window and put the gas on in her room, that she heard that awful hissing sound. She didn’t dare leave the room. Frank wants to tell her father and the police, but Diane quickly gathers her composure, “No Frank we mustn’t do that.”Â

Diane's pretense of paranoia about Catherine's trying to kill her emerges more clearly for Frank who is now taking notice of it.

An exercise in frustration, Frank begins to realize that he is in love with a lovely yet quite homicidal head case! but he fails to untangle himself from this deadly beauty.

FrankÂ [of Diane’s supposed ‘evil’ stepmother] … "If she’s tryin’ to kill you, why did she turn on the gas in her own room first?"

DianeÂ “To make it look as though somebody else was guilty"¦”

FrankÂ "Is that what you did?"

DianeÂ "Frank, are you accusing me?"

FrankÂ "I’m not accusing anybody. But if I were a cop and not a very bright cop at that, I’d say that your story was as phony as a three-dollar bill."

Diane “How can you say that to me?"

FrankÂ "Oh, you mean after all we’ve been to each other?… Diane, look. I don’t pretend to know what goes on behind that pretty little face of yours – I don’t *want* to. But I learned one thing very early. Never be the innocent bystander – that’s the guy that always gets hurt. If you want to play with matches, that’s your business. But not in gas-filled rooms – that’s not only dangerous, it’s stupid."

Diane tells him that she’s very tired. He says “Yeah, that I can believe.” When she tries to kiss him, he pulls away from her.

Meantime Frank visits with Mary, who is on her way out to meet up with Bill for a date. She is surprisingly nice to Frank which is more than he deserves. She tells him Bill was sure he’d show up for last night’s bowling tournament he tells her –“I’ve been busy.”

Frank asks how Bill did in the tournament, she tells him “Wonderful.” Frank answers, “He’s been making out alright with you too huh.”Â

Mary says, “Bill was very sweet to me after you walked out.”

Frank-“I took a job that pays better than being a lousy ambulance driver, is that a crime?” Mary- “Is taking the boss’s daughter to the Mocalmba (club) part of the job?” Frank-“They got a good band there, remind me to take you there sometime.”Â

You just can’t blame Mary for trying to move on, Bill is a much more dependable and very likable guy who has worshiped Mary from the beginning. She asks about Frank’s new life, and he tells her that he's thinking of quitting.

He tells her, "I’ve been thinking about quitting, it’s a weird outfit, not for me."

Frank asks-“What’s the score Mary, has Bill taken over or do I still rate?”

Mary-“That’s a hard question to answer and I don’t think a fair one to ask” Frank-“A very simple question, yes or no, Bill or me? Can’t you make up your mind?” Mary tells him, “Yes, but I want to be sure you can make up yours. Can’t we let it go at that for a while” Frank-“Oh, I’m on probation, okay, how bout tonight, we got a date?” Mary laughs- “Why not” Frank says, “You know something you’re a pretty nice guy… for a girl.”

The next day Frank is going to leave, but Diane has packed her bags and stumbles onto Frank packing his own bags. She asks him where he is going. He tells her that he’s quitting, and when she asks why, he tells her, “Well maybe it’s the altitude. Living up here makes my heart pound.”

Of course, Diane collapses onto the couch and begins to weep. Frank tells her, “Now let’s face it I never should have taken this job. You shouldn’t have asked me… you know I’m right. You have your world I have mine. You got beautiful clothes a big house, someday you’ll come into a lot of money. I got a pair of big hands and not much else.”

“But all I want is you. I can’t let you go now… I won’t.”

He tells Diane that he wants to quit his job and she becomes upset as her plaything and the object of her second fixation is now slipping away from her. Frank doesn't want to be involved with the whole package anymore. “It’s no good I tell you, I’m not getting involved.” She asks "Involved with what?"

"How stupid do you thinkÂ I am –You hate that woman. Someday somehow you’re gonna hate her enough to kill her. It’s been in the back of your mind all along.”

Diane says coldly-“So she’s fooled you too! Just like she has everyone else.”

Diane reminds Frank about her father’s book. That one day she went into his desk to hide a present for him, just “something between him and me…”

And she found inside the drawer where he was supposed to keep his manuscript, there was nothing but a stack of blank paper. He hasn't written a line since he married Catherine. At first Frank just blows this off, “So he got tired. Writer marries a rich widow what’d ya expect him to write… checks.”Â This touches on a nerve, “Don’t joke about my father!” She tells Frank that Catherine has "humiliated and destroyed him."

Frank tells her that there’s no law that says she has to stay, she could move out and find work the way other girls must do. She tells Frank that she would leave if it weren’t for her father. “That’s where I came in. I guess that’s where I leave.”

“Frank please will you tell me one thing? Do you love me at all? I must know…”

“I suppose it’s a kind of love. But with a girl like you, how can a man be sure.” Diane quietly asks, “Will you take me with you?”Â

Frank-“You had it all figured out didn’t ya? You mean you’d really leave your father and everything here.” Diane-“If I have to, to keep you.” Frank-“I could be wrong about you.”

Diane begins to tell Frank how she can sell her jewels and the fancy car and he can get a small garage at first. He wants her to be sure of what she is getting herself into. She tells him that she’s sure. They hear Catherine’s car pull around. He tells her to think it over for a few days. Her kisses and sympathetic story about her poor father have worked perfectly on Frank. And she makes sure that he promises that he won’t leave until then. Diane’s maneuvering has worked.

Diane leaves Frank’s room, and walks passed Catherine’s car. Tiomkin’s score plays fervently, feverishly as she looks down the steep cliff and seems thoughtful about the car that is framed behind her. Finding an empty package of cigarettes stuck in the hedge, she holds it out and watches it as it drops down the deep cliff side. Shades of darker things are soon to follow.

Diane is so sinister she even loans Catherine a pair of her new driving gloves, just for the irony of it all. Sometimes she can be so sweet.

Catherine needs to go to her bridge game looking for Frank to drive her, Diane makes the excuse that he needed to go to Santa Barbara, having loaned her sports car to him. Diane offers to drive her instead, knowing all too well that she’ll refuse. And of course, Catherine does in fact decide to drive herself to her bridge game. At the last minute, Charles decides to tag along for a ride to Beverly Hills.

Diane languidly floats as if in a psychotic trance and sits at her piano performing the same melody she played the night she failed to asphyxiate Catherine. We can hear Diane playing her melancholy ‘death song’ on the grand piano as her stepmother and father proceed to drive. But…

Diane has figured out how to tamper with the gear shift. She's been watching Frank tinker with the mansion’s cars and learns how to reconfigure the brakes and the shift.

Catherine starts up the car, put the gear into drive AND the car shoots backward rather than forwards –it has been rigged to go into reverse, as her stepmother and father are propelled over the steep cliff’s edge.

An homage to the earlier murder, the convertible car goes careening over the jagged cliff, rolling over and over and smashing against the rocks, the crash dummies used are quite effective as they (Catherine and Diane's father) seem to become crushed under the twisted fiery metal"¦

here's a nifty gif to illustrate

It is one horrific scene indeed. A scene that truly rattles me!

Diane is successful at the second attempt on her stepmother's (Barbara O'Neil Stella Dallas 1937, Gone with the Wind 1939, All this, And Heaven Too 1940, Secret Beyond the Door 1947, Whirlpool 1950) life. The problem with Diane's almost ingenious perfect murder unbeknownst to her is that dear Daddy wasn't supposed to be a passenger in the car so he also dies in the fiery crash, a casualty in the wreckage of Diane's unbridled psychotic scheme of stepmother machine meddling.

The police think there is something strange about the accident and Frank is charged with murder after Diane's packed suitcase is found in his room.

The cop on the case knows Frank from driving the ambulance, and he brings Frank in for questioning. Detective Lt. Ed Brady asks how Frank came to work for the Tremaynes, and Frank tells him that he sort of just fell into it, after they had gotten the call about Catherine’s near asphyxiation. Ed tells him he knows. He’s got the report right there on his desk, Detective Lt. Ed Brady (Larry J. Blake)-“Probably accidental, sure makes you wonder, don’t it.”Â Frank asks, “What da ya mean?” Ed “She claims somebody tried to murder her” Frank laughs it off-“She was hysterical, why would anyone try to murder her?” Ed-“Are you kiddin’ a woman with her kind of money? Oh by the way Frank, what sort of a girl is this stepdaughter er… Diane?” Frank tells him, “Very nice girl, very pretty girl.” Ed-“Any boyfriends?” Frank-“None that I ever saw. She and her father were very close.” he puffs on his cigarette some more. Ed mentions “But didn’t get along with her stepmother eh” Frank- “I didn’t say that.” Ed-“Okay okay, when was the last time you drove the Tremayne car?”

Ed shows him the packed suitcase and then tells Frank he should get himself a lawyer.

Attorney Fred Barrett (Leon Ames), Diane’s lawyer comes to see her in the prison hospital ward.

“She idolized the man Fred it’s no wonder her nerves are cracked!”

Diane suffers a breakdown as she had only wanted to kill her stepmother, she never intended on killing her beloved father when she tinkered with the car. It looks like Frank is involved because he was the last known person to handle the car. He was known to have worked on the cars at the Tremaynes.

The Tremayne family lawyer hires one of L.A.'s best defense attorneys, Fred Barrett a master at playing on a jury's emotions.

Barrett tries to tell her that it won’t serve either her or Frank to shoulder the blame because the jury would believe them both guilty. In a moment of honesty, she tries to save Frank’s neck. Seeming less like a crazy girl and in more control of her powers now in the aftermath of what she has done, inadvertently killing her father, she wants to take responsibility for the murders herself, not wanting anyone to defend her and that she acted alone.

Diane confesses to the crime-“But I’m telling the truth.”

“The truth is what the jury decides…not you, not me, not Frank.”

At first Frank doesn’t want to go along with Barrett’s plan.

Barrett-“To be perfectly blunt Mr. Jessup I’m not particularly invested in saving your neck. The concern is with my client Diane Tremayne” Frank-“Yeah that’s what I figured” Barrett tells him, “But the point is you have a much better chance together than separately. And the evidence actually points much more to you than it does to her. The fact that an automobile was involved” Frank interrupts, “If she thinks she can get away with that she’s lost her mind.”

Frank and Diane are married at the hospital…

The ladies at the prison bake the bride and groom a wedding cake-“Kids we sure hope you beat the rap!”

Barrett concocts a scheme to have Frank and Diane married in the hospital jail ward where Diane is spending her time while first catatonic, she is then convalescing after the breakdown. Diane’s legal team insists that she marry Frank so that it would seem like the couple was just innocent young people who intended matrimony and not having a sordid affair. They want Diane to keep her honest revelations to herself. A morally distasteful strategy that might guarantee a good outcome for them at the trial.

This scheme tries to offset any more scandal for the headlines framing it as two innocent people in love. And that explains they leave the Tremayne house that day with plans to elope.

Another bad choice, Frank goes along with it, hoping to save his own skin not wanting to be convicted of the murders himself. He allows yet again an outside influence to manipulate his life. The idea of Frank and Diane getting married seems to push Diane further into the delusion that they will remain married and that she will have a future with Frank.

But Frank now wants nothing to do with the obsessive murderous Diane. D.A. Judson (Jim Backus) brings in the car's mangled motor and drive shaft to demonstrate his theory of how the transmission was jimmied to stay in reverse. The defense attorney Barrett manages to create a measure of reasonable doubt, supplied by with his own specialists who do create doubt in the minds of the jury and the trial ends with an acquittal. And the couple is now free to go. Frank wants a divorce.

Returning to the mansion Frank tells Diane he'll go visit Mary to see if she'll take him back. If she won't he'll leave for Mexico. Diane is devastated and in desperation makes him an offer. She'll loan him her jaguar to go see Mary. If Mary takes him back, he can keep the car. If not he'll bring the car back.

Here we are not sure whether Diane's psychosis has broken up a little like a dark cloud getting clearer, as she appears more genuine at this point, or if she is still manipulating Frank.

She shares a little history about her childhood and where her fixations might be coming from. She tells him that she was only ten years old when her mother was caught in an air raid in England, after which her father "became everything" to her. But once he married Catherine, Diane says she used to fantasize about what she and her father would do if her stepmother were dead.

She tells Frank that now she realizes that Catherine never meant any harm and she wants him to believe her when she says that she would give her life to bring them back. This is why she tells Frank that he cannot leave her because she wouldn't know what to do without him. Now appearing just more desperately lonely than viciously psychotic. But Frank isn't ready to stay married to her, not even try at staying close, though he doesn't hate her, he is "getting out all the same."

After Frank leaves she closes up the house, dismisses the servants, and wanders around the estate alone, before she goes to Frank's room where she spends the night curled up in the armchair wrapped in his jacket.

Diane believes that she'll never see him again. She goes to Barrett's office, wanting to confess, and Barrett reluctantly agrees to take her statement. Diane details how she unwittingly got Frank to show her while giving the car a tune-up on how to rig the car to go in reverse. But he tells her she can't be tried again due to double jeopardy. Her admission shows that she might not be totally delusional, just a regretful psychotic.

When Diane returns to the lonely mansion, Dimitri Tiomkin's dark score swells dramatically around Diane as she appears to drift bereft with grief through the empty halls and rooms. But Diane's hopes are sparked when Frank returns, Mary has by right rejected him, preferring the kind and loyal ex-partner Bill and Frank decides to leave for Mexico.

Diane pleads with him to let her go along. He says no way. Even though he's called a cab, he decides to let her drive him to the bus station. They get in the jaguar, and Diane brings champagne and two glasses.

It might not be necessarily clear when the idea came to Diane If it was the final realization that she'd be driving him to the station never to see him again. Maybe she thinks she can change his mind over that glass of champagne. But something clicks in her brain when Frank criticizes the way she puts the car in gear, as he exclaims. "Easy" seems to spark her reaction…

He pours the champagne as she starts the engine. Then looking at him, she floors the car in reverse as the two go frighteningly backward over that scary steep cliff…

And rockets them down the same cliff that killed her father and stepmother, the car smashing against the rocks and mangled into the same kind of twisted metal sculpture.

Irony-a few minutes later the cab arrives"¦. Frank you idiot.

The scene is given its moxie by cinematographer Harry Straddling (Suspicion 1941, A Streetcar Named DesireÂ 1951, A Face in the Crowd 1957)

Angel Face dramatically embraces the darker implications of noir.

I admit, I’d have a hard time saying no to Jean Simmons too… but Franks stupidity and Mitchum's ability to play a tough guy (who smokes a cigarette sexier than any man I can think of) a guy just floating where the wind blows his pants is aptly described in Silver and Ursini's book"”FILM NOIR: THE DIRECTORS– on Otto Preminger

"One of the big achievement of Preminger his writers his cast and composer Tiomkin is to create a tone of amour fou in Angel Face that is realistic, poignant, delirious and suspenseful in equal doses. Frank is not the smartest guy, but he's not a dummy, either. His lackadaisical attitude about life is embodied in Mitchum's languid body language. Slow on the uptake about how dangerous Diane is, his problem is one of the noir anti-hero most common:thinking with his balls and not his brains. If he hadn't given Diane a second chance, if Mary had taken him back;and if he'd realized Diane was willing to sacrifice her own life to be with him. A lot of ifs. Frank is always a half-beat behind trying to get in rhythm and he pays for it dearly. Preminger actually generates some sympathy for Diane when she tries to make up for the murders by confessing, only to realize the state will never punish her. Barrett's assertion she may end up institutionalized if she presses the issue is more unpalatable to her than the gas chamber. When she comes home before seeing Frank for the final time, the romantic delirium builds to fever pitch, culminating in a bittersweet shot of her curled up in the shadows in Frank's room. Frank's coat wrapped around her. It is one of the most moving sequences"¦ the character is completely self-aware of her own psychosis. Angel Face is Preminger's finest noir."