Noirvember – Freudian Femme Fatales – 1946 : The Dark Mirror (1946) & The Locket (1946) ‘Twisted Inside’

The Dark Mirror (1946)

In films such as The Dark Mirror and The Locket, the male psychiatrist is posited as an antidote to the bad female by being "˜'established as a detective figure whose principal function is to investigate and ultimately to eradicate "˜deviance' (represented in these instances by excessive female desire.)'' From Frank Krutnik IN A LONELY STREET; FILM NOIR, GENRE AND MASCULINITY 1991

It is the phantom of our own Self, whose intimate relationship with and deep effect upon our spirit casts us into hell or transports us to Heaven – E.T.A. Hoffmann

”The figure of the double has been manifest in diverse forms. At times the doppelgänger has shown itself as an ether being – a shadow, a reflection or an animated portrait. At other points, it has taken the shape of an identical being – a person of kindred appearance, a relative, a twin.” From TWO-FACED WOMEN: THE "˜DOUBLE" IN WOMEN'S MELODRAMA OF THE 1940S – Lucy Fischer Cinema Journal 1983

In the 1920s hard-edged and gritty crime fiction became popular, and by the 1940s Hollywood embraced them. At the same time Freudian psychoanalysis became a big deal in America. People knew the basics of Freud’s ideas, so Hollywood could paint stories with ideas the audience could recognize, knowing that people would get the main gist. It became the foundation for some amazing visual displays. Dream sequences started popping up a lot in American cinema, most distinctive in thrillers and in particular in film noir. The Dark Mirror is one of the standout films made during the 1940s and 1950s that introduced psychiatry – like – Spellbound 1945 and two years later, de Havilland would star in Anatole Litvak’s The Snake Pit 1948.

Much of film noir's psychological pathology gives rise to obsessive fixations on the object of one's desire. What differs with Siodmak's The Dark Mirror is that the psychotic's fixation lies with their sibling and not a lover.

The Dark Mirror is a psychological film noir released in 1946, directed by Robert Siodmak who worked with shadows in his various film noir/horror/ and thrillers like an artist works with paints.  The film was produced and screenplay written by writer/director Nunnally Johnson who penned a slew of diverse screenplays that spanned the 1940s through the 1960s – including The Grapes of Wrath 1940, and The Dirty Dozen 1967.

Nunnally Johnson, transitioning from writer and producer to director, secured the rights and brought the story to life on screen. The film materialized through a collaborative effort between International Pictures, co-founded by Johnson and William Goetz, and Universal Pictures, marking their inaugural project under the Universal Pictures-International Pictures Banner.

The recently established studios were looking for a well-known name for their picture and Olivia de Havilland who was a huge star at the time came on board. She had recently taken legal action against Warner Bros. to terminate her contract and was now free from the studio's stranglehold.

In 1947, she delivered a noteworthy performance in To Each His Own for Paramount earning her the Academy Award for Best Actress. Following two films, The Well-Groomed Bride and Devotion in 1946, she entered into an agreement with Nunnally Johnson to star in The Dark Mirror.’

The Dark Mirror, like The Spiral Staircase both of which were classic ‘paranoid women’ /  "˜woman's films' stars de Havilland who plays identical twins, one of whom is a knife-wielding paranoiac killer. The casting of de Havilland is significant particularly because she not only starred in a variety of women's pictures but her sister Joan Fontaine was also an iconic star of the paranoid woman's films. Some of the most notable are Hitchcock’s adaptation of Du Murier’s Rebecca 1940 and Nicolas Ray’s Born to Be Bad 1950. The Dark Mirror presents itself as a psychological noir right from the start of the film with the Rorschach blots backgrounding the titles.

Olivia de Havilland engaged in a notable real-life conflict with her younger sister – silver screen star Joan Fontaine. This behind-the-scenes rivalry positioned the actress to confront her own duality in Robert Siodmak’s 1946 quintessential film noir, The Dark Mirror.

Siodmak made some of the most critical film noirs in the late 1940s and early 1950s, including, The Killers 1946, Cry of the City 1948 Criss Cross 1949 and The File on Thelma Jordon 1950. he had left the spotlight that shined on his pictures specializing in terror and became one of the most prominent directors of crime noir and suspense. By the early 1950s, he grew weary of Hollywood and returned to Germany.

In this way, the reception of Siodmak's 1940s Hollywood films demonstrates the ways in which the category of horrors incorporates films now seen as thrillers, film noir, and examples of the ‘woman's film.’ Siodmak brought with him the sensibility of German cinema strongly associated with the art of shadows and horror.

It's clear, that director Robert Siodmak was drawn to exploring the human psyche in his picture, and The Dark Mirror is a perfect example of this. Siodmak was fascinated with the dynamic of the good sister/bad sister which was apparent in his earlier works like Cobra Woman (1944) and The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry (1945).

Siodmak’s penchant for the use of shadow in his other work holds back his enduring use of chiaroscuro in The Dark Mirror. Apart from the opening scene, the only instances where he delicately manipulates light and shadow occur within the confines of the twins’ bedroom.

The bedroom is the place where we are most vulnerable, where they sleep, which is symbolic of the psychological warfare Terry wages against her sister Ruth. There was a historic rivalry and jealousy over the years. The perceived rejections by male suitors, even the adoptive parents who chose Ruth over her. At the end of the film, Detective Stevenson tells Dr. Elliot that he had the idea to lay a trap for Terry because he feared for Ruth's life. "˜'Even a nut can figure out that it's simpler to get rid of a rival than to go on knocking off her boyfriends all the rest of her life.''

A narrative featuring identical twins presented an ideal chance to delve deeper into the realm of the doppelgänger mythology, a theme that captivated him and inspired by Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1927).

Based on a short story by Vladimir Pozner that appeared in Good Housekeeping in 1945, The Dark Mirror is notable for its exploration into the complexities of the human mind and the manifestation of conflicting identities.

Pozner's story was nominated for Best Story at the Academy Awards, though it lost to "˜'Vacation from Marriage” by Clemence Dane, which was adapted into a British movie released as Perfect Strangers in the UK starring Robert Donat and Deborah Kerr.

Collaborating with cinematographer Milton Krasner, known for his work on Lang’s Woman in the Window 1944 and Scarlet Street 1945, and All About Eve 1950, Siodmak enlisted an old colleague – Eugen Schüfftan, for visual effects. Schüfftan created the visual effects for Metropolis 1927. In the film, over three dozen shots feature mirrors, some to set the tone, but mostly to depict the inner conflict of the twins, highlighting their interchangeable likeness. De Havilland is shot beautifully in split screen using a stand-in when both twins appear.

Though de Havilland gave a very nuanced performance balancing opposing identities, down to the tone of her voice used for each sister, their body language, facial expressions, the subtle arching of her eyelids, and the sister's diverging character traits, Siodmak tried to ensure that the audience would have subtle cues for each of the characters. They were visibly "˜labeled' for us. De Havilland's Ruth is gentle yet timorous and softly spoken. She wrings her hands out of nervousness. Terry, however, is the bolder one, more assertive and hostile by a hair's breadth when challenged. Terry also smokes and is left-handed, while Ruth chooses to favor her right hand.

In a large part of the film, as in so many films, clothes often tell a story, in particular at the beginning of The Dark Mirror the twins wear identical clothing, Irene Shraff's costume designs, monogrammed dressing gowns, tailored houndstooth suits, initialed brooches, and largish necklaces bearing the letter ‘T’ and "˜R' might have been used as visual clues to help us sort out which twin was which, however, this does not dismiss de Havilland's ability to traverse the dueling roles.

It is important to note once we become aware of how unbalanced Terry is, the sisters begin to dress differently. For example: Ruth can be seen wearing a white long-sleeved sweater and conservative pencil skirt, while in contrast – Terry goes to Elliott's apartment pretending to be Ruth wearing a chic black satin dress with a jewel-encrusted pill-box hat. The visual clues summon the fall of the girl’s connection to each other and begin to symbolically delve into the cliché good vs evil through the emblematic use of color coding- black vs. white.

The narrative is framed by the presence of two significant mirrors, serving as visual parentheses for the story.

Siodmak initiates ambiguity with his use of mirrors and reflections: right from the opening sequence there is a shattered mirror which is reiterated or "˜mirrored' at the climax of the film when Terry throws an object at the mirror after she sees Ruth's image in the glass. Throughout The Dark Mirror appearances are deceptions – this is the central substance of the story.

The Dark Mirror is a psychological study of identical twin sisters Terry and Ruth Collins both played by Olivia de Havilland who vex and bewilder Thomas Mitchell (Stagecoach 1939, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington 1939, Gone with the Wind 1939 also with de Havilland, It's a Wonderful Life 1946, High Noon 1952.) who plays surly Detective Stevenson who gets frustrated and ornery trying to solve a murder he is convinced one of them has committed. Lew Ayres plays the role of Dr. Scott Elliott, a psychiatrist tasked by Stevenson to help unravel the mystery as to which one of the twins is guilty of murder.

De Havilland's performance is striking under Siodmak's direction a tough process considering both Collins sisters had to be filmed separately for the scenes where she/they occupied the screen at the same time. Adding to the struggle to make this work was the disagreements between Siodmak and de Havilland who clashed from the beginning over how to approach the way the twins were portrayed. Siodmak was making a psychological thriller and de Havilland saw the film as a character study of paranoid schizophrenia (Greco) "˜'One sister could and one couldn't commit murder, and that's all there is to it,'' the film's resident psychiatrist explains.

"˜'The film suggests but does not develop the possibility that Terry is Ruth's other self, the "˜dark mirror' that reflects the negative potential lurking beneath Ruth's sunny mask. However, the insistence on the separation of the characters into icons of good and evil makes the film a superficial melodrama rather than a probing psychological study. Good and evil do not engage in an internal clash but are presented as the essence of two separate characters, as in a medieval morality drama.'' – Foster Hirsch The Dark Side of the Screen: Film Noir

The film’s foundation rests on the "˜old wives tale' about twins, suggesting that one must possess an inherent darkness"”in this instance, a deep-rooted psychological one. Featuring the dramatic taglines: Dramatic tagline Twins! One who loves… and one who loves to kill! This is conveyed in the film's promotional ads, “To know this twin is to love her"¦ to know this twin is to die!”

When one of the twins is accused of murdering a doctor, both come under scrutiny. Ironically, it becomes impossible to establish which twin was identified by the eyewitnesses, so the law can't touch them.

In The Dark Mirror, Terry, the malevolent sister, murders her fiancé the prominent Dr. Frank Peralta when she realizes that he actually feels more genuine affection for her virtuous sister Ruth, though he is unaware of Ruth’s existence. He experiences a tenderness in Ruth’s and a peculiar absence of emotion when he's actually with Terry. Seeking understanding, he consults a psychiatrist to explore the possibility of a split personality in the woman he loves. The primary suspect is one of the Collins twins. However, the authorities are confounded by the fact that the twins are identical in appearance, making it difficult to determine which one committed the crime. Dr. Scott Elliott is brought in to evaluate the sisters and aid in solving the case.

Dr. Scott Elliott who frequents the medical plaza's magazine stand where he purchases his lemon drops from Terry, is shocked when he discovers that she has an identical twin sister Ruth. Dr. Elliot (Lew Ayers) is called to the district attorney's office to help with the investigation because he is an expert in the study of behavioral genetics in twins.

The Dark Mirror was Lew Ayers’s first movie after a four-year absence acting as an Army medic and awarded three battle stars during WWII. He returned to acting and became famous for his kindly Dr. Kildare series of films which was on the nose having been away for four years working as a doctor.

A darkened cityscape leads to an apartment that unfolds with a nighttime homicide and a shattered mirror like a fractured mind, an overturned lamp, and a man lying on the floor with a. knife stabbed through his heart. It establishes an atmospheric backdrop for a sinister and psychological story where the thin line between the narratives’ proposed trope of good vs evil is obscured behind the enigma of perceived "˜female' duality.

At the opening of the film, it is nighttime in the city and Siodmak masterfully employs protracted camera movements through two rooms in an apartment. He unveils the time of a violent struggle, the time is precisely 10:48 pm. A man has been stabbed in the back. A prominent mirror over the fireplace becomes the silent witness to the murder – shattered – it is a visual testament to the intensity of the attack.

Cut to Detective Stevenson (Thomas Mitchell) assigned to the case, who is interviewing several witnesses in his office at the police station. The identity of the victim is revealed to be Dr. Frank Peralta. Two of the witnesses claim they saw a woman leaving his apartment around the time of the murder. Soon he learns the name, Theresa ‘Terry’ Collins.

Peralta’s assistant tells Stevenson that the doctor was in love with Terry and had planned to propose to her which gave Terry a motive. It was no secret that Terry was dating Peralta. Maybe it was a lover’s quarrel? As far as Detective Stevenson knows, the only suspect is Terry Collins.

The next morning, Stevenson brings his two solid witnesses to Terry’s magazine stand in the medical building, in order for them to lay eyes on her and confirm she is the woman they saw leaving Peralta’s apartment. They are both certain it was her. He begins to interrogate her but is cut off when Dr. Scott Elliot comes by to purchase his well-loved lemon drops. Stevenson continues to put pressure on Terry to give her whereabouts the night before. She is able to detail every move as well as deliver the names of several witnesses who can swear to her presence, including a police officer and her butcher.

Once Terry learns that Peralta has been murdered she faints and seems genuinely shaken up by the news. Stevenson cannot break Terry’s alibi so he can’t arrest her. But this cop is doggedly convinced the girl is good for the murder and drops by her apartment to get to the bottom of the confusion with the witnesses. Then Ruth appears. The sisters are wearing the same bathrobes, though one is adorned with the monogrammed ‘T’ and one has the letter ‘R’ on it.

Stevenson almost combusts from the revelation that there are two of them- identical in every way and he is convinced that one of them murdered Peralta. The Collins sisters are resolute to stay silent. Neither sister will confess to which one has the foolproof alibi and which one stayed home that night. This drives Stevenson to distraction. The interrogation is getting him nowhere, there are no fingerprints on the knife and no way to prove that either one of them was there at the crime scene.

Orphans since childhood, Ruth and Terry Collins are inseparable. They live together, dress alike, and even wear wire necklaces that bear their names with a peculiar"” over-obsessive clunky jeweled monogram – as if they force their identities upon us or perhaps each might be threatened by losing themselves without them. Ruth is older by seven minutes, yet Terry seems to be the more dominant, controlling sister. Terry has a maniacal obsession with Ruth and is driven to prove that she is the superior twin.

The story unfolds – Stevenson learns how Terry and Ruth seamlessly orchestrate a charade, both working at the magazine stand as the same girl – taking turns to enjoy moments of respite – essentially to "˜switch out'' when one of them wants time off.

Under the guise of a singular job (which they cleverly share under Terry’s name), to the casual observer, no one can tell the difference until the murder exposes that they are, in fact, two separate people. Even Dr. Peralta didn’t know he was actually dating twins at the time he asked Dr. Elliott about split personalities.

Terry stands as a mother figure, a notion that the ‘bad twin’ constantly drives home to Ruth by asserting she is protecting her, making it more of a challenge for Ruth to betray her sister in the maternal role.

Among other films exploring dynamics projected by the good twin/the bad twin trope – they are often suggestive of variations on schizophrenia.

Detective Stevenson brings the sisters in for a line-up but they are so uncannily alike, that the witnesses can’t tell them apart.

Because both Terry and Ruth stay quiet, the DA is forced to drop the case against them because they won’t be able to convict with no evidence. But Stevenson is a bulldog and isn’t willing to give up. That’s when he seeks out Dr. Scott Elliott to help him uncover the truth about which one murdered Peralta.

The investigating officer on the case is Lt. Stevenson (Thomas Mitchell) enlists the unofficial help of up and coming psychiatrist, though Stevenson is more of a skeptic about psychology referring to him as a "˜fortune teller' who employs "˜gimmicks.' "Don't you witch doctors treat people with tinker toys?''

Dr. Elliot doesn't ascribe to the age-old superstitions that twins are usually "penalized in some way, physically or psychically."

He believes that "character, personality is the key" – that the two elements which are very black & white are pivotal, though one is a moral question and the other is scientific. Ayers is an actor who often comes across as a paternalistic figure puffs on his pipe and uses softly phrased insights as the even keel Dr. Elliott.

Dr. Elliot says, "Not even nature can duplicate' this quality, "even in twins" so this is what would tell who is the murderer. He adds that "˜one could and one couldn't commit murder, and that's all there is to it."

"˜'the insistent separation of the characters into icons of good and evil makes the film a superficial melodrama rather than a probing psychological study. Good and Evil do not engage in an internal clash but are presented as the essence of two separate characters, as in a medieval morality drama.'' Foster Hirsch

Terry and Ruth agree to be added as another set of twins for Dr. Elliott's research, though Ruth appears to be more wary of submitting to his examinations and acts cautious believing that Terry might be guilty of the murder.

Terry admits to Ruth that Peralta did propose to her and that she did see Peralta the night he was murdered. But Ruth agrees not to talk. She poses the question to Ruth, why would I kill him? Ruth is frightened that the truth will come out during Dr. Elliot’s examinations, but Terry thinks she's smarter than him and can pass all his ridiculous tests.

He invites the sisters to come to his office separately, where he puts them through a series of psychological tests, including the cliché inkblots that were groundbreaking at that time. Dr. Hermann Rorschach created them in 1921 to diagnose schizophrenia but that was modified in 1939 when it was used as a standard personality test.

As Dr. Elliott delves into the lives of Terry and Ruth, he discovers the stark contrast in their personalities. While Terry is manipulative, cunning, and emotionally unstable, Ruth is kind-hearted and virtuous.

The mystery deepens as Dr. Elliott tries to understand the motives behind the murder and grapples with the challenge of distinguishing between the sisters. The film takes an intriguing turn as Dr. Elliott employs psychological techniques to uncover the truth.

Elliott puts the girls through a series of standard psychological tests that seem to imply more of a moral evaluation than a psychiatric one. After Terry gives her impressions of the inkblots Elliott determines that she has a dark inner conflict, clever and calculating, even a tendency toward violence, after she describes "the lamb looks so innocent, but it has two men under its paws."

Terry's answers seem rehearsed, suggesting an attempt to assert her power though she tries to convey a helpless innocence. But Elliott notices the contrast in Ruth's answers right away. She appears very genuine, and is not aggressive, or threatening, with her contemplations more of a refined nature, as in dancers around a maypole and skaters in an ice show. Ruth is more retiring and amiable. This leads Elliott to conclude that Ruth is normal and Terry is the one who is mentally disturbed. Eventually, the monograms are disposable as de Havilland manifests the difference through her acting skills.

As Dr. Elliott delves deeper into the two personalities he begins to fall in love with Ruth, while Terry pursues him romantically. A pattern that is replaying itself. In the past, men have always chosen Ruth over her, while Terry desires them herself.

We learn that as orphans, a couple wanted to adopt Ruth but not Terry, and as they grew up, men were always drawn to Ruth, even Dr. Peralta preferred Ruth though he didn't know why. It was when he was with Terry that he feared she suffered from a split personality.

Ruth isn’t aware of Terry’s psychosis but Dr. Elliott is convinced that she is insane and killed Peralta in a jealous rage.

The narrative appears somewhat superficial, adopting a simplistic approach wherein the individual potentially toying with Elliott’s psyche, teasing him with aggressive insights, is labeled as the embodiment of evil. Meanwhile, the one exhibiting a gentler perspective through her mild and innocuous visions is deemed the epitome of normalcy.

"˜'20 percent of people who see things in the inkblots that expose the "˜'true secret patterns of their own minds'' The results for Elliott point to this"¦ "˜'one of our young ladies is insane.''

During the free association session, Dr. Elliott is left a bit mystified because the only unusual reflex is Ruth's reaction to the word "˜'mirror,'' to which she responds, "˜'death.'' Now he cannot wait to see how Terry responds to his prompts. But being visibly unnerved, having found out from Ruth how she reacted to the word mirror, it is not clear whether Terry would have given the same answer or if she is now toying with Elliott.

Terry is agitated when she hears Ruth's answer which shows some understanding of "˜that mumbo jumbo.' She refers to Dr. Elliott's tests as "˜'kindergarten games’' obviously trying to poison Ruth's faith in the doctor's credibility and that his psychological tests are nothing more than childish trials.

When Dr. Elliott gives them both a polygraph, it is hard for Terry to successfully manipulate her responses. Terry’s blood pressure spikes every time Elliott invokes Ruth’s name. Whenever her sister is mentioned the needle bounds frantically across the paper in a storm of black lines, especially bringing up the subject of a particular boy who liked Ruth.

From these tests, Elliotts makes his diagnosis – Ruth is sane and innocent of the murder while Terry is "˜'a paranoiac- a paranoiac is capable of anything.'' He is assured that Terry merely found his tests "˜'another challenge to her, another opportunity to show the world what contempt she has for it. That was the tip-off."

"A marker for insanity, or at least "˜'abnormality'' for women, then, is the transgression of typical patriarchal authority. The "˜tip-off' to Elliott that Terry is the "˜'wrong'' twin is her effort to thwart the masculine power and rules that are being applied to explain her motives, psyche, and very existence." – THE DARK MIRROR PSYCHIATRY AND FILM NOIR BY MARLISA SANTOS

Though Terry thinks she is putting one over on Elliott with his psychological "˜analysis' she begins to feel threatened by the growing romantic relationship between him and Ruth.

Terry witnesses Elliott and Ruth in an embrace outside their apartment building, but when asked Ruth doesn’t mention it. Terry becomes more desperate to sabotage Ruth's budding romance, something she evidently has done in the past. She decides to seduce Dr. Elliott herself, while gaslighting Ruth, trying to make her think she is losing her mind.

She begins to torture Ruth, hoping to push her to commit suicide and pin Peralta’s murder on her. She crafts illusions, spins nightmares, and conjures conversations, savoring every moment of her imaginative ploy.

Initially puzzling is why Ruth willingly covers for Terry despite being the target of Terry’s cruel gaslighting, nearly driving her to a mental breakdown. As Ruth witnesses Terry’s darker side, she hesitates to betray her, fearing that Terry’s potential for evil, even going as far as murder, might also exist within herself.

Terry starts by telling Ruth that she's been having nightmares, talking in her sleep, and then waking hysterical and terrified. Persuading Ruth to consume an excessive amount of sleeping pills, Terry secretly uses flashbulbs to light up their pitch-black bedroom in the dead of night. Ruth awakens startled while her cunning sister Terry pretends not to have seen anything.

Terry also secretly turns on a music box so it will remain playing after she leaves their apartment, to create the illusion that Ruth is only hearing the music from inside her head.

After all this, Ruth begins to believe she is descending into madness. Her head grasped between her hands she breaks down, – "Something's happening to me, and I don't know what it is. I don't understand it. I'm so scared; I don't know what to do." Pleased with her scheme to drive her sister crazy Terry reassures her –

"˜'Just remember that I'm with you and I'm always going to be with you. no matter what"¦ no matter happens, they can't do a thing without {her} consent.'' 

Terry is suggesting that Ruth is mad, but she'll be there to protect her as always. "˜'We'll be together as long as we live.''

"Terry converts feelings of loss and fragmentation into fantasies of total power and god-like control; she projects lack onto her own sister in the form of psychological disorder."˜' – Lutz Koepnick from Doubling the double: Robert Siodmak in Hollywood

Self-absorbed, Terry constantly seeks approval from Elliott, wanting to know what it is about Ruth that draws him to her. In a crucial scene, she even pretends to be Ruth, kissing Elliott and challenging him to be able to tell the difference. Yet she cannot restrain herself from self-aggrandizing “Terry is the smart one,” the one men usually go for.''

The use of a one-way mirror becomes a visual metaphor and a symbolic tool, reflecting not only the physical likeness of the twins but also the duplicity and hidden facets of their personalities. As the story unfolds, the audience is taken on a journey through the labyrinth of the human mind, exploring the nature of identity, morality, and the thin line between good and evil.

As the walls close in around Terry, she becomes more and more possessive of Ruth: "You and I are never going to be separated, as long as we live. You and I are going to be together. Always.''

Elliott tells Stevenson that Terry is a paranoiac and definitely killed Dr Peralta. Stevenson becomes concerned for Ruth's safety, so Elliott promises to tell Ruth that night about her sister. He calls the sister’s apartment and asks Ruth to come to see him later. But he is actually talking to Terry pretending to be Ruth. Fortunately, Ruth stops by his office right after the phone call, so he uncovers Terry's ruse. Later on, Terry arrives at his apartment not realizing that Elliott knows about her trickery.

In a demeaning and sexist soliloquy, Elliot begins to enlighten fake ‘Ruth’ about sisterhood rivalry. All sisters are rivals for men. How it is stronger for sisters than other women. Elliott doesn’t even take into consideration ‘social class’. This jealousy is ‘‘why sisters can hate each other with such a terrifying intensity.” Considering this misguided theory, the rivalry between twins is even more intense. It is this rivalry that has consumed Terry.

Dr. Elliot –"˜' All women are rivals fundamentally, but it never bothers them because they automatically discount the successes of others and alibi their own failures on the grounds of circumstances – luck, they say. But between sisters, it's a little more serious. Circumstances are generally the same, so they have fewer excuses with which to comfort themselves"¦ That's why sisters can hate each other with such terrifying intensity. And with twins, it's worse.''

He describes how the murder might have taken place. When he confronts Terry about her split personality, she realizes that he was in love with the part of her that is Ruth, even though he didn’t know that Ruth existed. In a jealous rage, she stabbed him in the heart. It struck me how risky this meeting is for Elliott, as Terry is genuinely dangerous having already killed one man. Sure enough, she goes to grab a pair of scissors when the phone rings, and Stevenson gives him the news that Ruth has killed herself. Terry snaps out of her homicidal rage and they rush to the sister’s apartment.

Terry as ‘Ruth’ tells Stevenson that Ruth killed herself because she was ‘sick’ and ‘twisted inside,’ words Elliott used to describe Terry. That it was Ruth who was insane and committed the murder. She killed herself over the guilt. Terry begins to ramble that she is actually Ruth. That it is Terry who has killed herself because she was so jealous of Ruth.

Elliot tries to provoke the fake "˜'Ruth'' into revealing herself as Terry, antagonizing her about her past rejections. The family that wanted Ruth but not her, and the boys who preferred Ruth.

He confronts Terry by telling her how mentally disturbed she is. He tells her while she is pretending to be "˜Ruth' that "Terry is "˜sick inside' and needs help. He imagines that it is tied to something that happened in their past when they were quite young but has grown inside like a poisoned seedling. "˜'more and more bitter and is now abnormal.’'

Finally working with the police, Ruth, who has been reluctant up til now to believe that Terry is dangerous stages her own "˜'suicide'' in order to trap her sister. As Terry begins to unravel, Ruth suddenly emerges from the bedroom. When Terry sees her reflected in a mirror behind her she throws an object and smashes it, symbolically destroying her sister who is the constant evidence of her "˜lacking.'

At this revelation it is all over for Terry and she smashes the mirror when she sees Ruth’s reflection.

By the end of the picture, Elliott and Ruth are united. He asks Ruth, ” Why are you so much more beautiful than your sister?”

"˜'Terry's possessiveness may be interpreted as a desire to absorb Ruth, to eliminate the "˜difference'' between them that haunts her and frustrates her desires.'' Marlisa Santos -The Dark Mirror

Dr. Elliot's comment in the end supports the actuality that good and evil can exist within two identical people as he tells Ruth, "˜'That's what twins are you know, reflections of each other, everything in reverse."˜'

This mental image -  signals the shattering of the mirror by the darker souled Terry at the climax of the picture when she is ultimately caught in her game of deceit, tricked by Detective Stevenson into thinking that the real Ruth has committed suicide. Caught by her own duplicity, she cannot help through her conceit she reveals her lies while claiming that she is actually Ruth and it was Terry that has killed herself.

She tries to convince Stevenson that "Terry' despised her (Ruth) out of jealousy because men always found her more attractive and likable. Unlike the doppelgänger who inhabits an evil that is transferred to the good person, this is subverted with the evil person Terry claiming that she possesses all the good attributes from their double.

The Dark Mirror is often praised for its innovative narrative and psychological depth. The film’s exploration of the duality within a single person, embodied by the twin sisters, adds layers of complexity to the story. Olivia de Havilland’s stellar performance in the dual role is a highlight, showcasing her ability to convey the nuances of two distinct characters.

It is lauded for its psychological depth, but some critics have noted that the resolution of the murder mystery may be somewhat predictable for modern audiences. However, it’s essential to appreciate the film in its historical context, considering its influence on subsequent psychological thrillers.

"˜'Sugar wouldn't melt in the mouth of Nancy, the heroine of The Locket. Yet if we are to believe the evidence, she is a first-class criminal. With this to go on, Nancy brings the wicked-lady psychopathic parade up to date. Laraine Day gives what must be her most fascinating performance. As with so many of these wide-eyed innocents who are supposed to be baddies inside, the spectator maybe have difficulty in crediting her with such heatless villainies. However, there is just enough of a defiant something about Miss Day. More of the spirit than the actual behavior, to raise the shadow of doubt. It is this question mark that holds one rapt.'' "”Philip K. Scheuer, "Laraine Day Psychotpath.'' Los Angeles Times May, 27 1947

"˜'The complexity of Sheridan Gibney's plot was what really enticed me to the material. It was an enigma within an enigma within an enigma. John Brahm, had done a very good horror picture at Twentieth about Jack the Ripper called The Lodger. He was a German- but not too German "” and I thought he would be good to direct this and give it some of the same atmosphere.'' "”producer Bert Granet in Lee Server's Baby, I don't Care

The New York Times (1946) found The Dark Mirror to be a lamentable production that operated as little more than a vanity project for Olive de Havilland, who "˜has been tempted by the lure of playing against herself.'

"˜'Siodmak explained that "˜audiences love a picture like The Dark Mirror because it affords what psychoanalysis call a psychic renovating'' The strategy of bringing all aspects of The Dark Mirror under the rubric of psychological science including even its purportedly positive influence on audiences, is indicative of the representational shift away from the cynical and at times gruesome depictions of psychiatrists and psychological practices that characterized wartime horror cinema. The horror films that went into production after the ebbing of the Shock controversy evinced Hollywood's newfound commitment to responsible depiction of psychiatry. A case in point was the 1947 film Possessed''– Bad Medicine from book Merchants of Menace: The Business of Horror Cinema edited by Richard Nowell.

In 1948 the Screen Guild Theater produced a radio version of The Dark Mirror starring Lew Ayres and Loretta Young. In 1950 de Havilland reprised her role for a radio broadcast at Screen Director's Playhouse.

Continue reading “Noirvember – Freudian Femme Fatales – 1946 : The Dark Mirror (1946) & The Locket (1946) ‘Twisted Inside’”

It’s the pictures that got small! – “Good Evening” Leading Ladies of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour Part 1

This is Part 1 in a series. See also Part 2 and Part 3.

The CMBA Presents the 2023 Spring Blogathon: Big Stars on the Small Screen — In Support of National Classic Movie Day

SILVER SCREEN STAR'S JOURNEY TO A SMALL GOLDEN BOX

1955 Headliner Alfred Hitchcock film director © Copyright CBS Broadcasting Inc.
All Rights Reserved Credit: CBS Photo Archive

"This is the way of television"¦ Half-hour shows were becoming one-hour shows, so it was decided that ours was to become a one-hour show. I don't recall whose idea it was. I cannot say I know how the arrangements were made. In television the problem is to maintain a standard (especially after seven years). We were always pretty offbeat, but people get used to us being offbeat." "”Alfred Hitchcock (as quoted in "The Alfred Hitchcock Presents Companion," 2001)

“TV has done more for old movie stars than plastic surgery,” -Popular TV critic for the LA Mirror Hal Humphrey wrote his articles based on network and press agent publicity, defended television's stars in comparison to films during the time in the period when big screen actors were transitioning to television.

The Anne Sothern Show began in 1958.

Citing the examples of Joan Blondell, Ann Sothern, and Joan Crawford, Hal Humphrey claimed that these actresses were not “has-beens.” It might be more apt to describe them as mistakes made by the movie industry and rectified by television.”

During the 1950s after decades of escaping the world and its worries within the vastness of the darkened movie theater, television delivered the actors we imagined vividly on the big screen and altered the illusion by fitting them inside a little box in our homes.

Television of the 1950s brought the big screen stars into the inner sanctum of our living rooms.
The emergence of television in the 1950s and 60s transformed the entertainment industry, leading many iconic Hollywood actresses to transition from film to TV.

In the 1950s, the transition from film to television was still a relatively new concept, and many Hollywood actresses were hesitant to make the switch.

“The dominant tendency in star studies has been to denigrate the stature of television stardom, to argue that television does not actually produce stars of the complexity, depth, and cultural value that film does, largely because of the medium’s lesser cultural status and its essential familiarity and intimacy…

Television studies scholar Susan Murray rightly comments suspiciously on these theories:

“. . . it would appear as though, while the cinema’s star system was delineated by a complicated aesthetic, industrial and economic history, the television star is simply a fall from grace."

Therefore, it would seem essential for television to boost the images of such marginal stars by drawing on authenticity as a value superior to the artificiality of constructed glamour and by underscoring television’s ability to rediscover or uncover the genuine talents of the film world’s castoffs and supporting players.”

While some actors perceived TV work as an abdication of their star power, others recognized it as an avenue to sustain their careers and connect with a fresh audience.

Early television frequently recruited performers from various entertainment media, enlisting film actors, radio personalities, and Broadway/stage performers to provide programming talent for the burgeoning medium. Radio had previously offered such a space for Hollywood stars to supplement their film work, but television increasingly took over this role. (Becker)

Until the mid-1950s, studios purposefully kept their stars away from television. However, this claim overlooks the significant number of actors who were no longer bound by contracts with major studios due to the upheaval in the industry.

As a result, these actors were able to seek employment wherever opportunities arose. With labor changes in Hollywood and a decline in overall film production, television became an attractive and viable option for Hollywood actors who were out of work. Studios relented provided the stars received the opportunity to plug the studio and its recent releases. Variety also cited the decision to allow the 1953 Academy Awards to be aired on NBC as a sign of the film industry’s acceptance of television’s credibility.

Television desperately trying to establish itself big Hollywood name became an incredibly exploitable asset as famous actors discovered a new outlet that eagerly sought their skills and their drawing power Hollywood actors played a crucial role in contributing the nuance of prestige to their anthology shows and dramatic teleplays.

Early television strategically leveraged the fame of numerous Hollywood film actors to generate publicity for specific shows, attracting viewers and driving the sales of television sets. Simultaneously, television presented a convenient new job market, offering a fresh lease on life for supporting actors and former stars who needed to revitalize their careers, maintain their popularity, and make money from the emerging medium of television.

Several iconic actresses from classic Hollywood successfully made the swift transition including Joan Crawford, Loretta Young, Bette Davis, and Barbara Stanwyck, all made the leap to television during this period. One of the most notable actresses was Lucille Ball, who starred in the popular sitcom I Love Lucy from 1951 to 1957. Television actually made Lucille Ball a household name.

There were obstacles these actresses encountered, such as adapting to the demands of the smaller screen and managing the more accelerated production schedules of TV shows.

Their performances retained every ounce of their impact, if not enhanced, as they continued to evoke profound emotions and captivate us with the same level of skill, quality, and substance

In fact, given the advent of dramatic teleplays featuring exciting directors and writers who either adapted classic stories, challenging content, or groundbreaking camerawork much of the performances were enhanced by the live format.

The assumption that only displaced film stars would agree to appear on television is challenged by a diverse array of stars who wound up making a foray into that medium. So what precipitated the union between Hollywood movie stars and television programming during the first commercial decade of TV? And how did television showcase the abundance of screen royalty that ran the gamut of beloved character actors to the reigning stars on the big screen? They were able to transfigure stardom and draw audiences with the same desire to see their iconic stars continue to shine but on a more intimate level.

Joan Crawford and The Pepsi-Cola Playhouse on ABC from 1953-1955.

"It is commonly assumed that only dethroned film stars would ever consent to appear on television, but the wide range of stars listed above certainly complicates this hypothesis and raises myriad questions. What industrial circumstances made possible this substantial marriage between Hollywood film talent and television programming in TV’s first commercial decade, and how did early television present this plethora of film talent, from the character actor to the reigning star? What can we learn about concepts of stardom by closely analyzing the activities of film stars at the discrete historical moment when television began as a mass medium, borrowing programming formats, corporate methods, and talent from radio and theater, while simultaneously trying to forge a unique institutional and cultural identity?"¦

…despite an avowed stigma attached to film stars appearing on television, a significant number did appear on the infant medium"¦ and television’s presentations of these stars, along with the public discourse that surrounded them, helped to expose and even alter the parameters of the filmic star system as it was developed to that point, an aspect which audiences surely perceived." – Christine Becker: Televising Film Stardom in the 1950s

Alfred Hitchcock’s anthology television series, which aired from 1955 to 1965, was a popular show that featured a variety of Hollywood actresses in its episodes.

These actresses had already made a name for themselves in classic Hollywood films but found a new audience and showcase their talents. Anthology series typically featured a new story and cast of characters in each episode, allowing actresses to take on a variety of roles.
One of the more regular actresses to appear in Alfred Hitchcock Presents was Barbara Bel Geddes, who starred in the episode “Lamb to the Slaughter” in 1958. Barbara Bel Geddes’ performance in “Lamb to the Slaughter” episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents has also received acclaim, with critics noting her ability to shift between a sweet and innocent demeanor to a more understated sinister one as her character’s composed homicidal streak are revealed.

Bel Geddes previously starred in films such as “I Remember Mama” and “Vertigo,” and her appearance in Alfred Hitchcock Presents helped cement her status as a talented actress with a range of skills.
Another actress who appeared in the series was Vera Miles, who starred in the iconic episode “The Perfect Crime” in 1957 and Alfred Hitchcock Presents the very first episode, Revenge. And the episode that I will cover here Don't Look Behind You. and in Part 4 of my series, Death Scene co-starring John Carradine.

Teresa Wright appeared in perhaps 2 of the most enthralling episodes one darkly disturbing and one darkly humorous. And Mildred Dunnock appeared in 3 episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents and 1 episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour. Jeannette Nolan is in 5 of the series and Jessica Tandy appeared in 3. That's a lot of star power in a small box.

Miles had previously worked with Hitchcock in the film “The Wrong Man,” and her appearance in Alfred Hitchcock Presents helped establish her as a talented actress who could hold her own in a variety of roles.

In addition to Bel Geddes and Miles, several other classic Hollywood actresses appeared in the series, including Joan Fontaine, Teresa Wright, Lillian Gish, Mary Astor (who also appeared in the Boris Karloff Anthology series Thriller) Gladys Cooper, Anne Sothern, Gloria Swanson, Anne Baxter, and Bette Davis, just to name a few.

Bette Davis in Out There-Darkness for Alfred Hitchcock Presents S4E16 1959.

Gloria Swanson in Behind the Locked Door S2E22 1964.

Lillian Gish in The Alfred Hitchcock Hour episode Body in the Barn S2E32 1964.

These actresses brought their star power and talent to the Hitchcock series and helped to establish it as one of the most popular anthology shows of the era. When Hollywood wasn't giving them the scripts and not renewing their contracts, they found a chance to continue showcasing their versatility and kept themselves a continuing familiar face with their fans new and old alike.

The success of Alfred Hitchcock Presents helped pave the way for more classic Hollywood actresses to make the transition to television in the 1950s and 1960s. It also helped to establish television as a legitimate platform for entertainment and helped to blur the lines between film and television.

Other actresses who appeared in anthology series in the 1950s include Barbara Stanwyck in “The Barbara Stanwyck Show,” Bette Davis in “The Bette Davis Show,” and Joan Crawford in “The Pepsi-Cola Playhouse.”

These shows allowed actresses to showcase their versatility and reach audiences on a regular basis, helping to solidify their status as Hollywood legends and both critics and fans have praised these actresses’ abilities to transition from film to television

Acting in front of the camera wasn't the only transition powerful Hollywood actresses made, Ida Lupino – pioneering actress, director, and producer, known for her trailblazing work in the male-dominated Hollywood industry of the 1940s and 1950s stepped into the episode of The Twilight Zone with its scathing mediation on the Hollywood system that chewed up actresses and spits them out as they aged out of their perceivably viable roles. In The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine starring Lupino – the opening narration goes as follows:

The Twilight Zone S1E4 1959 Ida Lupino The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine.

"Picture of a woman looking at a picture. Movie great of another time, a once-brilliant star in a firmament no longer a part of the sky, eclipsed by the movement of earth and time. Barbara Jean Trenton, whose world is a projection room, whose dreams are made out of celluloid. Barbara Jean Trenton, struck down by hit-and-run years and lying on the unhappy pavement, trying desperately to get the license number of fleeting fame."

Lupino plays aging film star Barbara Jean Trenton a recluse who lived in her private screening room reliving her old movie roles from the 1930s over and over. When she is offered a part in a new movie playing the mother, insulted by the callous film mogul who tells her she's living in the past, all the while Martin Balsam tells her she's wishing for things that are dead"¦ Barbara vanishes into a movie reel with her old co-stars descends the stairs and blows Balsam a kiss goodbye throwing down a scarf toward the camera and vanishes.

Not just on screen but behind the scenes Lupino who worked avidly with the camera directed several of the Hitchcock episodes. Another influential woman in the technical side of Hollywood, Joan Harrison made the transition from film to television. She came on board to produce the show and create the legacy that both series became in American Television.

“Seeing a murder on television… can help work off one’s antagonisms. And if you haven’t any antagonisms, the commercials will give you some.”

“T.V. has brought murder back into the home where it belongs.”

“It seems to me that television is exactly like a gun. Your enjoyment of it is determined by which end of it you’re on.”

“Blondes make the best victims. They’re like virgin snow that shows up the bloody footprints.”

“A glimpse into the world proves that horror is nothing other than reality.”

"What is drama but life with the dull bits cut out.

“I’m sure anyone who likes a good crime, provided it is not the victim.”

Suspense is when the spectator knows more than the characters in the movie."

"Always make the audience suffer as much as possible."

“I can’t read fiction without visualizing every scene. The result is it becomes a series of pictures rather than a book.”

“I’m a writer and, therefore, automatically a suspicious character.”

“Dialogue should simply be a sound among other sounds, just something that comes out of the mouths of people whose eyes tell the story in visual terms.”

“You think she’s pretty, you ought to see my slingshot!”

Promotional portrait of British-born American film and television director Alfred Hitchcock (1899 – 1980) as he sits on a stool inside an open steamer trunk, next to an unidentified woman in a top hat, short, satin outfit, and fishnet stockings, for his anthology program ‘The Alfred Hitchcock Hour,’ August 10, 1962. (Photo by CBS Photo Archive/Getty Images)

“… I never said all actors are cattle; what I said was all actors should be treated like cattle.” – Hitchcock according to designer Edith Head who dressed Grace Kelly, Doris Day, and Ingrid Bergman in Hitchcock’s movies. The two reportedly clashed heavily over wardrobe ensembles.

"” Alfred Hitchcock

"No one is writing good suspense stories these days"¦ I don't know what has happened to the great story tellers "” people like Kipling and Stevenson. We have to take stories and shape them to our needs. Meanwhile, we must go on. We can't wait for the great ones to show up. I must take the scripts as they land on my desk. I'm responsible for sixteen programs, and I have only seven properties on hand. [Lloyd and Harrison produced all but four episodes from the first season] I've managed to get several fine stories, I believe. One is a gambling tale, A Piece of the Action, starring Gig Young and Martha Hyer. It has bitter irony in it. Another is The Final Yow, in which Carol Lynley plays a nun involved in a search for a stolen statue. It has a delicious twist." "”Norman Lloyd (The Newark Evening News, August 26, 1962)

Here are a few quotes from classic actresses who starred in The Alfred Hitchcock Hour and Alfred Hitchcock Presents:

Joan Fontaine & Gary Merrill in The Alfred Hitchcock Hour episode The Paragon S1E20 1963.

Fontaine and Hitchcock on the set of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour.

  1. “Working with Alfred Hitchcock was a great honor and an unforgettable experience. He was a master of suspense and a true genius of filmmaking.” – Vera Miles
  2. “Appearing in Alfred Hitchcock Presents was a unique challenge as an actress, as each episode was its own story and character. But it was also a great opportunity to showcase my range as an actress.” – Barbara Bel Geddes
  3. Alfred Hitchcock had a way of bringing out the best in his actors and actresses. He knew how to create tension and drama on screen, and he trusted his performers to deliver their best work.” – Joan Fontaine
  4. Alfred Hitchcock Presents was an exciting and innovative show, and I was thrilled to be a part of it. It allowed me to work with some of the best actors and directors in the business.” – Anne Baxter

Vera Miles and Hitchcock on the set of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour.

Hitchcock made the shift from a half-hour show to an hour format without much issue. "When we had a half-hour show, we could do short stories"¦{"¦} Now, in an hour, we have to go to novels." His staff read through thousands of crime novels to find the right script. Yet frequently it became necessary to utilize a short story and expand it, in order to fill out the hour.

In the opening set of each episode, the fabulist Hitchcock is given props against an empty stage. At times he himself becomes the prop or main focal point where he imparts either sage elucidation, comical warning, or sardonic advice. A witty prelude to the evening's tale or just a frivolous bit of shenanigans to put one in the mood for the evening's program. As he drolly introduces the night's story, his monologues were conceived of by James B Allardice.

Jessica Tandy in Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode The Glass Eye s3e1 1959.

THE ALFRED HITCHCOCK HOUR — “The Trap” Episode 18 — Aired 02/22/1965 — Pictured: (l-r) Anne Francis as Peg Beale, Donnelly Rhodes as John Cochran (Photo by NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images)
The Alfred Hitchcock Hour Triumph Episode 9 Aired 12/14/1964 Pictured: Ed Begley as Brother Thomas Fitzgibbons, Jeanette Nolan as Mary Fitzgibbons (Photo by NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images)

Patricia Collinge in The Alfred Hitchcock Hour episode The Ordeal of Mrs. Snow -S2E25 1964

Repeat Performances:

*Jessica Tandy 3 episodes Alfred Hitchcock Presents The Glass Eye and not included Toby S2e6 and The Canary Sedan S3e37.

*Patricia Collinge 4 episodes Alfred Hitchcock Presents –The Cheney Vase, The Rose Garden, Across the Threshold, and The Landlady-  The Alfred Hitchcock Hour – 2 episodes Bonfire – and not included The Ordeal of Mrs. Snow April 17, 1964.

*Anne Francis 2 episodes Alfred Hitchcock Presents Hooked and not Included Keep Me Company and The Trap S7e5 Feb 22, 1965, aired Nov.7, 1961.

*Mildred Dunnock 3 episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents – None Are So Blind, Heart of Gold and not inlcuded The West Warlock Time Capsule S2e35 and 1 episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour – Beyond the Sea of Death.

*Vera Miles 1 episode of Alfred Hithcock PresentsRevenge and 1 episode of  The Alfred Hitchcock HourDeath Scene.

*Margaret Leighton 1 episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents Tea Time and 1 episode of  The Alfred Hitchcock Hour Where the Woodbine Twineth.

*Barbara Bel Geddes – 4 episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents – Lamb to the Slaughter, The Morning of the Bride and not included The Foghorn s3e24, and Sybilla S6e10 aired Dec. 6, 1960.

*Gena Rowlands – 1 episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents – The Doubtful Doctor and 3 episodes of The Alfred Hitchcock HourRide the Nightmare, The Lonely Hours, and Murder Case.

*Doris lloyd 5 epsiodes of Alfred Hitchcock PresentsThe Impromptu Murder, and not included Dip in the Pool, Safety for the Witness, The Shartz-Metterklume Method and The Silk Petticoat. And 4 episodes of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour – One of the Family, Thou Still Unravished Bride and not included The Dark Pool s1e29, and Isabel s2e31.

*Gia Scala – 2 episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents -Deathmate and not included Mother, May I Go Out and Swim? s5e26 and 1 episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour not included The Sign of Satan s2e27

*Jeannette Nolan –4 episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents – The Right Kind of House, The Morning After, and not included The Young One s3e9 and Coming Home s6e35. 1 episode of The Alfred Hitchcock HourTriumph.

*Teresa Wright – 2 episodes of  The Alfred Hitchcock Hour – Three Wives Too Many and Lonely Place.

Mildred Dunnock in The Alfred Hitchcock Hour – Beyond the Sea of Death -S2E14 1964.

Teresa Wright and Bruce Dern in Lonely Place The Alfred Hitchcock Hour S3E6 1964

Married American actors Gena Rowlands and John Cassavetes (1929 – 1989) in an episode of the television anthology series ‘The Alfred Hitchcock Hour’ entitled ‘Murder Case,’ January 24, 1964. The episode, directed by John Brahm, was originally broadcast on March 6, 1964. (Photo by CBS Photo Archive/Getty Images)

Alfred Hitchcock Presents renamed The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (between 1962-1965), is a classic American television anthology series hosted by preeminent filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock, the show was also an Alfred Hitchcock Production produced by Joan Harrison and Norman Lloyd, airing on CBS and NBC between 1955 and 1965. The series premiered on CBS in October 1955 and went through several changes during its long run. It switched over to NBC for the 1960-61 season. It then returned to CBS with its hour-long format from 1962-1963. Getting whiplash it turned back to NBC once again to finish out its final season.

"One must remember that in the early half-hour days, we were getting the cream of the crop"¦ Some of the best stories of their type in English literature, such as The Glass Eye. In the latter days of the hour show, however, we occasionally had to develop stories from scratch, and the results didn't always measure up. The half-hour show, which ran twenty-two and a fraction minutes, was sometimes a delight in its brevity and its point, but that doesn't mean it was a better format." "”Norman Lloyd (as quoted in "The Alfred Hitchcock Presents Companion," 2001)

Both series have become seminal works in television history, known for their unique blend of suspense, mystery, and dark humor. The show often revolved around murder plots, mind games, gaslighting, and visceral intrigue, featuring psychological dramas, suspenseful thrillers, and crime-oriented stories often framed through a noir lens and written by celebrated authors featuring a far-reaching cast of Hollywood stars and electrifying performances by beloved character actors.

Both series’ earned a fistful of Emmy, Look Magazine, Golden Globe, and Television Champion awards for the best anthology and/or mystery program during their decade-long run.

Known for its suspenseful and thrilling stories that often revolve around murder, mystery, and psychological intrigue that often framed crime-oriented stories through a noir lens.

"I much preferred writing for the half-hour show"¦ There was always the possibility of doing what I call "˜gems.' The half-hours were compact and full of sharp point-breaking, bringing the audience in at the middle and then hitting them with the climax. Very clean. This got a little difficult to achieve in the hour shows, which were more like features except that they weren't, not really. They were actually more like extended half-hours. More was told about the same thing. I think the show suffered because of it, and I think the Hitchcock people felt so, too." "”writer Henry Slesar (as quoted in "The Alfred Hitchcock Presents Companion," 2001)

Initially, a variety of the stories adapted for the show appeared to be written with the implication that "˜crime does pay if you’re clever and lucky enough to get away with it – clincher. But this did not sit right with the network censors, not to mention Hitchcock's regular derogatory indictment of their commercials which put him at odds with the sponsors. So"¦ by the postscript he would update us on the fate of the villains, evildoers, and culprits to assure us that there was a moral code that existed on the show, and ultimately these malefactors paid a price for their immorality.

In other stories, not all the players were inherently malicious, wicked, twisted, greedy, or conniving. Innocent bystanders and some protagonists were set down in a story that challenged them to come out on the other end of their unnerving or sinister circumstances, and ultimately either found redemption or were delivered from their ordeal. Instead of fate’s unwavering day of retribution, anyone who deserved a break got one, and the sympathetic characters found a silver lining to their storm cloud. Many of the show’s stories, revealed their humanity

The episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents cover a wide range of genres, including crime- drama, mystery, suspense, psychological thriller, and the occasional horror story. Many of the episodes are adaptations of short stories and novels by famous authors, such as Roald Dahl, Ray Bradbury, and Cornell Woolrich, among other notable novelists and screenwriters.

One of the trademarks of the series is its surprising turnaround of events and twist endings, which are often unique, cleverly crafted, and carefully calculated plots that keep viewers on the edge of their seats. The show’s stories often explore the darker aspects of human nature, delving into the psychology of the characters and their motivations. Themes of guilt, paranoia, revenge, and moral ambiguity are often explored, creating a thought-provoking viewing experience, framed with masterful understatement all wrapped up with Hitch’s deliciously droll commentaries, dramatic musical flourishes, and palpable fade-outs.

“Alfred Hitchcock Presents” has been highly acclaimed for its innovative storytelling, compelling performances, and Hitchcock’s masterful direction.

Hitchcock's strictly British sense of humor, the deliciously wicked tone of the series, and his attitude toward directing television had carried over from his big-screen work in a similar vein for small-screen audiences.

At first, Hitchcock was hesitant about the idea of appearing on TV as his primary interest rested with film. Hitchcock biographer John Russell Taylor wrote the revelation Alfred Hitchcock Presents could work came from MCA's Lew Wasserman who had been Hitchcock's former agent and friend. In 1955, Wasserman was putting his mind to potential programming during the early days of television. "We ought to put Hitch on air." The idea of putting the master of suspense hosting a weekly show had a great deal of good sense."

Hitchcock had signed a contract with Richard Decker allowing his name to be the image of a monthly magazine Decker published featuring short stories with a mystery theme written by established or up-and-coming authors. In return for allowing his name to be used Decker hired Hitch's daughter Patricia as assistant editor. The publication would be called Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine.

In the mid-fifties, very few of Hollywood's major studios were actively involved in producing series for television. In 1959 MCA under President Lew Wasserman's leadership added Universal Pictures to its growing list of subsidiaries, and MCA/Revue was changed to Universal Television which then released Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

According to biographer John Russell Taylor, Hitchcock was not pretentious about his success in the motion picture business, however, the iconic director was aware that not many filmmakers who had maintained visibility on his level were actively working in that industry’s medium. While other directors wouldn’t want to be associated with television, Hitchcock had faith in his friend Lew Wasserman and agreed to delve into the world of the small screen, and the series was born.

Alfred Hitchcock named the new telefilm company Shamley Productions after the summer home he and Alma owned in a small village in Shamley Green south of London.

*For most in Hollywood, tv was considered a spurious and unauthentic medium, a commercial junkyard suitable only for unknowns and has-beens."(from John McCarty and Brian Kelleher from Alfred Hitchcock Presents – An Illustrated Guide to The Ten-Year Television Career of the Master of Suspense)

Wasserman viewed the show and Hitchcock's hosting of it as a logical, intuitive outgrowth of the very successful Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. In fact, many of the series' episodes were adapted from stories that first appeared in the magazine.

And Hitchcock's attitude toward directing television was that it was a bit of jolly devilry and fooling about from directing feature-length films, as it was far less a painstaking endeavor.

Though Hitchcock still brought his methodical work ethic to the table-

"He took enormous pride in doing these things very fast on a tight TV schedule without going a moment over. I remember when he did Lamb to the Slaughter" and he finished on the nose at six o clock quitting time, he turned around and said "there's your picture" Then he looked at everybody as if to say, "So don't comet o me with any ideas that you need an extra hour or two for something else. "It was all in fun, but the message was clear: all of you had better be able to finish at six too." – Norman Lloyd

Vera Miles in the premier episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents ‘Revenge’ S1E1 in 1955.

After its debut on October 2 1955 with the first episode "Revenge" directed by Hitchcock himself, each week gained devoted viewers who were thrilled with the show's sense of the macabre.

Hitchock’s well-known public persona while considered the archetype of genius over collaboration, boldly moved into the realm of television and was part of a team that created an anthology series with a team of extraordinary writers & directors who were perceptive, literate, and witty.

Hitchcock directed only 18 episodes during its run including Revenge with Vera Miles, Breakdown with Joseph Cotten, The Case of Mr. Pelham, and Back for Christmas starring Isobel Elsom and Hitchcock regular, English gentleman John Williams. The series was an instant hit and ran for five seasons on CBS, and three on NBC. It won three Emmy Awards and was nominated for 11 more. The series is considered a classic of American television and has been praised for its suspenseful stories, Hitchcock’s iconic introductions, and its illustrious and stellar cast, to say nothing of the outstanding resource of imaginative writers like – Richard Matheson, Ray Bradbury, Roald Dahl, Garson Kanin, John Cheever, Henry Slesar, Ellery Queen, Charles Beaumont, H.G. Wells, Rebecca West, Barré Lyndon, Morton S. Fine, Evan Hunter, Margaret Manners, Robert C. Dennis, Francis M. Cockrell and Columbo’s Richard Levinson and William Link.

Above are two images of Jessica Tandy and Tom Conway in The Glass Eye S3E1 1957.

Robert Stevens who directed 145 episodes of a similar theme show Suspense which ran between 1949-1954 directed over thirty episodes in Hitchcock’s series more than any other director overall, including some of the most memorable like the chilling installment – The Glass Eye starring Jessica Tandy which is a ghoulish adaptation of the classic theme of the ventriloquist who is bedeviled by his dummy. This installment of the show’s second season earned Stevens an Emmy as best director of a half-hour show. He was the only director ever to win an award for Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

In 1959 Stevens took time to direct the pilot for Rod Sterling’s Twilight Zone with Earl Holliman in Where is Everybody. He did another of the show’s most memorable episodes, Walking Distance.

They helped establish Alfred Hitchcock Presents and The Alfred Hitchcock Hour as one of the great classics of American television – distinctive for their sardonic prologues with Hitchcock as the master of ceremonies conducting the series of sketches, and macabre tableaus that invited you into the evening’s story. Hitchcock intoning impish incentives by writer Jimmy Allardice. The show offered a collection of Mephistophlean teleplays, infused with suspenseful, often darkly humorous masquerades.

The series also features a collection of impressive directors: Ida Lupino, Paul Henreid, Herschel Daugherty, John Brahm, Arthur Hiller, Alan Crosland Jr., Leo Penn, Joseph Pevney, Robert Stevenson, Stuart Rosenberg, Bernard Girard, Robert Florey, John Newland, Don Medford, Francis Cockrell, Boris Sagal, Alf Kjellin and George Stevens Jr.

Hitchcock, Joan Harrison, and actor/producer/director Norman Lloyd preferred stories about unextraordinary people, their lives outwardly not illicit or taboo however they become involved in dubious, unlucky, or dangerous situations like murder, blackmail, or misguided schemes that descend into a darkly ironic conclusion.

Norman Lloyd, whose speech and singularity carved out a niche as typically British and thoroughly sardonically impish appeared in several of Hitchcock's films, most notably Saboteur 1942 as the menacing Frank Fry who meets a spectacular cinematic end.

Norman Lloyd in Alfred Hitchcock’s Saboteur 1942.

"Around 1955 they got Hitchcock to say he'd do television which was a big thing. And in '57 the order for the half hour show was amplified, with a new series called Suspicion. I think Suspicion had many shows. Hour shows. And MCA took ten of them. New York took ten and so forth. And with the ten he was adding on they used to do 39 half hour shows a series. It was his producer Joan Harrison, is how I really learned how to be a producer. Divine. She was beautiful, exquisitely dressed, in perfect taste for the set. She was divine. She was a writer for him, and she was now his producer. And they needed someone else to come in an help her because of the quantity of the work not for the half hours, but now the hour. So she and Hitch decided, they wanted me to do it. Cause I also knew Joan very well. And so they presented my name"¦ however"¦ And this was told to me by Alan Miller who headed television at MCA, he came back, Alan Miller from the network and says "˜there seems to be a problem about Lloyd' and Hitch said, "˜I want him!' that was the end of the blacklist!" -Norman Lloyd

The television series also consisted of several episodes that featured both Hitchcock and Lloyd’s daughters Patricia and Josie.

The show is characterized by its Aesopean host- "Televisions jovial undertaker" (McCarty and Kelleher)"¦ offering his solemn "˜Good Night.’

Alfred Hitchcock’s cheeky little teasers featured its iconic musical initiation with Gounod's "Funeral March of a Marionette" as Hitch's silhouetted kisser merged with the quirky little line drawing which was led into one of Allardice's offbeat fun size segues.

Hitchcock emerges mischievously at the beginning and end of each episode, delivering satirical introductions and conclusions, with his signature tongue-in-cheek reaction to that evening’s stories. His dry and sardonic presence effectively compliments the show’s featured parable and displaces any tension from the seriousness of the episode with Hitch’s comic relief.

The show was ravenous for stories trying to compete with its rivals The Twilight Zone and Boris Karloff’s Thriller. The insistence on only published stories.

One of Hitchcock’s primary producers was a British-American film producer, screenwriter, and casting director, Joan Harrison. She met Hitchcock in 1935 after answering his ad in a London newspaper for a secretary. She may have begun her career as a secretary to Alfred Hitchcock in 1939. Harrison gained momentum, forging ahead with her career, and by 1940 she was Hitchcock’s associate producer.

But it was her ultra-motivated astuteness and keen administrative proficiency that helped advance herself until in 1939 she became his closest collaborator co-writing several screenplays for Jamaica Inn, Rebecca 1940, Foreign Correspondent Suspicion 1941, and Saboteur. Additionally working with Hitchcock on several films, including Shadow of a Doubt (1943), Rope 1948 and Strangers on a Train (1951).

In 1942 she pursued her own career as an independent producer, a position not held by many women, then. Much of her films fall under the influence of a mystery bent, with one of her finest films being They Won't Believe Me 1947 a psychological film noir directed by Irving Pichel and starring Robert Young, Susan Hayward, and Jane Greer.

Joan Harrison produced one of the most underrated film noirs Phantom Lady 1944, directed by Robert Siodmak, based on a novel by Cornell Woolwich author of Rear Window, and scripted by Bernard C. Schoenfeld, who would both later write many of the show’s episodes. Another highly effective and sorely underrated noir Harrison directed is Ride the Pink Horse 1947.

The Very Thought of You: Andrea King in 4 Fabulous Unsung Film Noir Gems!

In 1944, she left Hitchcock’s production company to start her own, producing several films, including The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946), and The Locket (1946). 

One of the aspects of both the half-hour and full-hour series’ magic was the brilliant cast, borrowing from some of television’s outstanding dramatic character actors of that period, but notably, the stars who made the transition from the big screen to television’s more intimate venue.

Working with Hitchcock on The Trouble with Harry clearly foreshadowed the direction Hitch’s show was going to take. In 1955 Joan Harrison rejoined him as an associate producer both knowledgeable about mystery and suspense literature – she became actively involved in the story selections.

In 1955, Harrison not only produced the show but she served as the casting director for Alfred Hitchcock Presents for its entire run from 1955 to 1965.

She helped cast some of the show’s most famous episodes, including Back For Christmas, Lamb to the Slaughter, and “Hitch Hike”

Isobel Elsom and John Williams in Alfred Hitchcock Presents – Back for Christmas s1e23 1956.

Alfred Hitchcock Presents Hitch Hike S5E21 1960 starring Suzanne Pleshette, John McIntire, and Robert Morse.

Joan Harrison lends the show its engaging charm which credits Harrison’s keen eye for selecting the best possible actors to fit the archetypal characters for the compelling ironic murder mysteries, nail-biters, and crime-driven stories.

Harrison who progressed from secretary to screenwriter to independent producer signed onto the show where she was fully able to materialize her vision of some of the most suspenseful dramatizations. She retired from the film industry in 1965.

Norman Lloyd started producing and directing a limited number of episodes each season. At this same time, Gordon Hessler was elevated to associate producer.

Gordon Hessler who had a tv background that included a period where he was enlisted as a story editor, director, and production associate also joined the show as a producer. Once Harrison started to phase out her involvement on the show and move back to England with her husband British mystery writer Eric Ambler,  she passed it on to Lloyd while he continued to assist as associate producer.

"At the end of this time, there was a rearrangement at Shamley and I was made a producer equally with Joan Harrison. It was also around this time that the show went to an hour. We both produced alternately. Then, for the final two years, I was made the show's executive producer alone."

Eventually, he moved on to directing horror features- The Oblong Box 1969, Scream and Scream Again 1970, Cry of the Banshee 1970, Murders in the Rue Morgue 1971, and The Golden Voyage of Sinbad 1974.

The series often used writer Robert Bloch who began working on the show in 1959 in the middle of its ten-year run. The writer hadn't met with Hitchcock while filming the adaptation of his novel Psycho 1960. Two of Bloch's published stories had been bought for the series and adapted by others before his arrival in Hollywood later that year.

He began adapting his own published stories and his work was dramatized for the series. He was heavily involved in the show and mutually committed to writing screenplays and contributing to Boris Karloff's similar anthology series Thriller both programs produced at Universal Studios.

Boris Karloff’s anthology tv series: It’s a THRILLER!

"Shortly after I began my own work as a novice television writer for a little-esteemed syndication series, I was summoned to Hitchcock's Shamley Production office and offered an assignment to do a script based on Frank Mace's story ‘The Cuckoo Clock.'– Robert Bloch

“Give them pleasure. The same pleasure they have when they wake up from a nightmare.” – Alfred Hitchcock

Continue reading “It’s the pictures that got small! – “Good Evening” Leading Ladies of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour Part 1″

BRIDES OF HORROR – Scream Queens of the 1960s! – Part 4: The Dark Goddess-This Dark Mirror

 BARBARA STEELE   – BLOODY WELL BELOVED

The role Barbara Steele plays in the legacy of Italian Gothic cinema of the 1960s achieving cult status, is arguably her most recognizable contribution to the sub-genre of the horror film. She's been christened The High Priestess of Horror, Queen of Horror, and The Dark Goddess, the latter, the implication being her prowess is proof there’s a link between beauty (a woman's power) and evil. Steele's persona is suitable as a femme fatale, and the sum of her work is extremely feminist.

According to journalist Maitland McDonagh, she is The Face that Launched a Thousand Screams. She is the sadomasochistic Madonna of the “cinefantastique”; the queen of the wild, the beautiful, and the damned.”

“Of all the stars of horror cinema, Barbara Steele may have come the closest to pure myth {"¦} she suggests a kinky and irresistible sexual allure" – (David J Hogan)

“With goldfish-bowl eyes radiating depraved elfin beauty, and what she calls herold, suspicious Celtic soul burning blackly within, Steele played the princess in a dark fairytale.” ‘They sense something in me’ she once said of her fans, but surely it was true of her directors also. Steele followed with ‘Maybe some kind of psychic pain. The diva Dolorosa of the 1910s, reincarnated as a voluptuous revenant.’ – (from David Cairns and Daniel Riccuito for Sight and Sound)

“Angel Carter (1982) named the three surrealist love goddesses as Louise Brooks first and foremost followed by Dietrich and third Barbara Steele. With regards to Steele however, not all the following descriptions emanate from surrealists caught in the grip of amour fou” (obsessive passion).- (The Other Face of Death: Barbara Steele and La Maschera Del Demonio by Carol Jenks from NECRONOMICON edited by Andy Black)

“The very symbol of Woman as vengeful, alien and "˜other'.” (Nicholls 1984)

“Steele perfectly embodies both the dread and the desire necessary to imply alluring and transgressive sexuality.” (Lampley-Women in the Horror films of Vincent Price)

"It's not me they're seeing. They're casting some projection of themselves, some aspect that I somehow symbolizes. It can't possibly be me." Barbara Steele quoted-(Warren 1991)

"You can’t live off being a cult." Barbara Steele

"When did I ever deserve this dark mirror?"

 

Continue reading “BRIDES OF HORROR – Scream Queens of the 1960s! – Part 4: The Dark Goddess-This Dark Mirror”

A Trailer a Day Keeps the Boogeyman Away! The Premonition 1976 – Bright Mother, Nightmare Mother

I saw this obscure chiller during its theatrical release and remember being very effected by its moody, dissonant, and menacing tone. Like many of the horror films that exist in the ether of the 1970s, (Let's Scare Jessica To Death 1971, The Brotherhood of Satan 1971, Don't Look Now 1973, Silent Night, Bloody Night 1972, Lemora, A Child’s Tale of the Supernatural  1973, The Witch Who Came From the Sea 1976, Squirm 1976, The Sentinel 1977, Tourist Trap 1979) this is among those films that left an impression on me.

A supernatural-psychological horror film by director Robert Allen Schnitzer, with cinematography by Victor Milt leads us in a dream state that is not only atmospheric and Kafkaesque it conjures up lucid nightmares for the bright mother, Sheri, and for us.

Raven-haired psychotic Andrea Fletcher (Ellen Barber) has been declared an unfit mother, and unfortunately is released from the mental institution too soon. She immediately goes in search of her little girl Janie (Danielle Brisebois in her first role) who has been adopted by Sheri and Miles Bennett (Sharon Farrell and Edward Michael Bell).

Andrea seeks help from her companion Jude, a former patient at the same hospital, a woeful carnival clown who goes looking for Janie, finding her with her adoptive mother Sheri.

The two wounded souls, Andrea and Jude, restless in their desire to reunite Janie with her birth mother, leads to Janie’s kidnapping. When Andrea snaps, Jude kills her in a fit of rage. Devastated by the loss of her daughter, Sheri has a breakdown and becomes haunted by psychic images of her daughter and Andrea's tortured spirit. Andrea’s insanity reverberates beyond her death and outward like an echo that is picked up by Sheri, whose disturbing visions reveal that she is clairvoyant.

Sheri's husband Miles, an astrophysicist brings in a colleague, Jeena Kingsly a professor of parapsychology, who studies the realms of human consciousness. Kingsly attempts to help Sheri connect to Janie telepathically. The two mothers begin a psychic tug-of-war over the possession of Janie.

Ellen Barber gives a paralyzing performance as the deranged Andrea, volatile and unhinged, she is a dark wraith in her red satin dress and black velvet cameo choker.

The character of Jude is perhaps the most layered. Richard Lynch (The Seven-Ups 1973, God Told Me Too 1976, Vampire 1979 TV movie, The Ninth Configuration 1980, The Formula 1980, Invasion U.S.A 1985, Bad Dreams 1988, Rob Zombie's Halloween 2007) – is an interesting actor, ever present in so many roles, with his interesting angular face, scarred and weathered and blond hair that hangs like a darker archangel, he is oddly sinister-sexy. A hard-working acting in film and television, he is striking often cast in horror and action films, playing odd characters with his unique persona. Schnitzer apparently hired him for his “widely divergent moods” Lynch influenced by legendary mime Marcel Marceau, brought an element of his gestures to the role of Jude.

This is your EverLovin’ Joey saying I had a premonition that you’ll be back to The Last Drive In, very soon! Happy month of October!

BRIDES OF HORROR – Scream Queens of the 1960s! – Part 3

M-Z

M

ELSA MARTINELLI

Euro art house director Roger Vadim adapted Blood and Roses in 1960, from Sheridan Le Fanu’s Sapphic vampire novella Camilla, setting down in contemporary Italy.

A lonely and bitter young heiress – jealous of her cousin’s engagement to another woman – becomes dangerously obsessed with legends surrounding a vampire ancestor, who supposedly murdered the young brides of the man she loved (IMDb).

The role of Carmilla was cast by Annette Vadim and Elsa Martinelli plays Georgia Monteverdi engaged to Leopoldo (Mel Ferrer). Camilla is secretly in love with Leopoldo. He and Georgia host a costume party to celebrate their upcoming wedding, which includes fireworks, that wind up unearthing the grave of Milarka, who is Carmilla’s ancestor, a vampiress. Milarka now possesses Camilla and designs to corrupt the lovers. Although the film is in technicolor, Vadim shoots his impressionistic dream sequence in black-and-white with red-tinted blood.

The film stoked the theme of the lesbian vampire, though not explicit, the trope gained traction in the late 1960s and 70s with Hammer Studios. Martinelli also appeared in The 10th Victim 1965.

Hayley Mills

Hayley Mills comes from acting royalty, she is the daughter of great British actor John Mills and the younger sister of Juliet Mills. I happened to have the good fortune of meeting the gorgeous Juliet Mills twice at the Chiller convention here in New Jersey. I have to say that I’ve never met a more kind and gracious actor who has a profound inner glow. Having already been a fan, I’m even more enamored with her.

Hayley was discovered while at her parent’s home in 1958 by director J. Lee Thompson who immediately cast her opposite, of her father in the thriller Tiger Bay 1959. Her breakthrough performance, winning an award at the Berlin Film Festival and being acknowledged in Hollywood by Walt Disney signed her to a five-year contract. There she starred in Pollyanna 1960 garnering rave reviews and a second hit was for The Parent Trap 1961. She went on to do That Darn Cat! 1965 and The Trouble with Angels 1966.

Mills had been offered the role of Lolita in Stanley Kubrick’s film (1962) but her parents warned off the part fearing the sexual nature of the role would taint her iconic image of purity. Sue Lyon was cast in the role instead, but Mills regretted not taking the part.

in Twisted Nerve 1968, Hayley Mills plays Susan Harper who befriends psychopath Martin Durnley (Hywel Bennett) who appears to be a painfully troubled young man, taking on the persona of a six-year-old boy who calls himself Georgie. His mother (Billie Whitelaw) infantilizes Martin. He has a brother with Down syndrome who has been hidden away in an institution. Georgie becomes fixated on the lovely and patiently kind, who realizes there’s something very wrong with Martin who ultimately goes into a murderous rage.

After Twisted Nerve in 1968, Hayley Mills went on to do more psychological thrillers in the 1970s – Once again co-starring with Hywel Bennett in Endless Night in 1972, and Deadly Strangers in 1975.

ANNA MASSEY

Anna also comes from acting royalty being the daughter of actor Raymond Massey. She is known for her role as Helen Stephens in Michael Powell’s Peeping Tom 1960 starring Karlheinz Bohm as Mark, a disturbed young man who films women as he kills them with a tripod sword so that he can get off on their reactions of terror. Anna plays Helen Stephans, the one girl that Mark feels a connection.

Once Mark is drawn to Helen they begin to spend time together. In Helen's innocence, she remains out of danger from his dark, deranged eye on women's suffering.

She also appeared in Otto Preminger’s Bunny Lake is Missing 1965, the psycho-sexual thriller drenched in paranoia. Carol Lynley reports her little girl missing, but there seems to be no evidence that she ever existed. Anna plays Elvira Smollett one of the teachers at the school where she disappeared.

Massey went on to do two more horror films in the 1970s, Alfred Hitchcock’s Frenzy 1972 and The Vault of Horror 1973 an anthology directed by Roy Ward Baker.

Continue reading “BRIDES OF HORROR – Scream Queens of the 1960s! – Part 3”

31 Flavors of Noir on the Fringe to Lure You In! Part 1

Read: Parts Two, Three & Four

“A man could spend the rest of his life trying to remember what he shouldn’t have said.”- Force of Evil

“All that Cain did to Abel was murder him.” –Force of Evil

“He pushed me too far!… So I pushed him just far enough.” –The Lineup

“You’re like a rat in a box without any holes” – I Wake Up Screaming

“From now on, no one cuts me so deep that I can’t close the wound.” – I Wake Up Screaming

“I’m gonna give you a break. I’m gonna fix it so you don’t hear the bullets!”- The Big Combo

“I was born on a Monday, I might as well go out on a Monday. Like dirty laundry.”- Man in the Dark

Heads up… this feature includes spoilers…💣

1-I Wake Up Screaming 1941

I Wake Up Screaming is the first official noir produced by Fox, directed by H. Bruce Humberstone (he worked on Charlie Chan programmers and B-movies) who was not considered a noir director. With a screenplay by Dwight Taylor based on the novel by Steve Fisher. Eddie Muller said it personified film noir and calls the 1941 film – Proto-noir, as it was the first of its kind.

Darryl F. Zanuck wanted the film’s location changed to New York City, so it wouldn’t reflect badly on L.A. There are a number of sleazy characters involved and he wanted to shift the story from Hollywood to Broadway.

The film was remade as Vicki in 1953 (with Jeanne Crane and Jean Peters, though it lacked the highly stylized artistry) Photographed by Edward Cronjager (Seven Keys to Baldpate 1929, Hell’s Highway 1932, The Monkey’s Paw 1933, Island in the Sky 1938, The Gorilla 1939, Heaven Can Wait 1943, Desert Fury 1947, Relentless 1948, House by the River 1950, The Girl in Lovers Lane 1960) pours out murky noir shadows, darkened streets, unusual camera angles, low key lighting and the high contrast, one-point lighting that illuminates the ink black threatening spaces. The film is stark yet dynamic.

With music by Cyril J. Mockridge, you'll hear the familiar often-used noir leitmotif, the melody Street Scene by Alfred Newman. I Wake Up Screaming stars Betty Grable as Jill Lynn, Victor Mature as Frankie Christopher, Carole Landis as Vicki Lynn, and Laird Cregar as Ed Cornell. The film also co-stars Alan Mowbray as Robin Ray and Allyn Joslyn as Larry Evans. Quirky character actor Elisha Cook Jr. plays Harry Williams the desk clerk in Vicki’s apartment building who’s a real weirdo. William Gargan plays Detective Jerry ‘Mac’ MacDonald.

Cook is great at playing quirky oddballs (Cliff the crazed drummer in Phantom Lady 1944, George Peatty in The Killing 1956, anxious trench coat-wearing Wilmer in The Maltese Falcon 1941, Watson Pritchard in House on Haunted Hill 1959).

I Wake up Screaming bares a resemblance to a whodunit, as the killer is chased down with the story playing a bit of a shell game with us. There are common noir themes of obsession, perverse lust, corruption, and homicidal jealousy. The film also has a preoccupation with images and artifice, tossing up flashbacks like a circus juggler.

Right before model, Vicki Lynn heads to Hollywood to reach for her rising star, she is brutally murdered. Delicious Betty Grable in her first non-music role, plays Jill Lynn, Vicki’s sister, who is drawn to the man (Victor Mature) who is presumably her sister’s murderer.

Vicki functions as an essential part of the narrative early on in the film and is resurrected by way of flashbacks. Frankie knows that while there are images that still exist of Vicki she is no longer present. In fact, Vicki is a myth and a manufactured deception in some ways. Jill on the other hand is genuine, unpretentious, and warmhearted.

Carol Landis who died at 28 from an overdose, plays murder victim Vicki Lynn. I Wake up Screaming backflips into the weeks leading up to her death. The film is also somewhat of a noir variation on Pygmalion, as Victor Mature who plays Frankie Christopher, sports and show business promoter, discovers a beautiful girl waiting tables and gets the hot idea of turning Vicki into a celebrity and society girl. Vicki’s appeal is the sphere of influence that drives the plot. Mature always makes the screen sweat with his sexy brawny build, swarthy good looks, strong jaw line, and the aura of his glistening obsidian hair.

The film opens with a sensational news headline ‘MODEL MURDERED’ Right from the top Frankie is being grilled by the cops in the interrogation room. Burning white hot lights are up close in his face. He says to the shadow of Cornell (Cregar) who's a bulky shadow shot with single source lighting) to his opaque figure, "You're a pretty tough guy with a crowd around.”

The flashbacks begin. Frankie goes back to the first time he meets Vicki at the lunch room on 8th Avenue while eating with Larry Evans (Alan Joslyn) and Robin Ray (Alan Mowbray). Vicki asks "Is that all?" Lary Evans says "No, but the rest of it isn't on the menu." She handles his come on, "You couldn't afford it if it was.” Frankie pours on the charm. He gets the notion to take Vicki and mold her into a celebrity. “You know I bet in 6 months I could take that girl and put her on top of the ladder." Mature and Landis worked together in One Million Years B.C.

Has-been actor Robin Ray (Mowbray) and ruthless gossip columnist Larry Evans (Joslyn) decide to get involved in developing Vicki Lynn’s mystique and cultivate her glamour on the road to fame. Of course, both men wind up having a yen for her. A cynical Ray (Mowbray) complains that all women are alike. Evans (Joslyn) tells him, “For Pete’s sake, what difference does that make? You’ve got to have them. They’re standard equipment.”

Frankie takes Vicki Lynn out into New York cafe society – All three schemers, the columnist, the washed-up actor, and Frankie, bring her to the cafe and make a big noise, grabbing the attention of Lady Handel (May Beatty) who invites them over to her table. In order to give the impression that Vicki will now be a new sensation, Larry Evans brags in front of the table, that he'll plug her In his column. They also think that it’ll help Vicki to get noticed if she’s seen on Robin Ray’s arm. The outing is a success. When they bring her home to her apartment building they meet the squirrely desk clerk Harry Williams (Elisha Cook), who takes his sweet time, getting up for Vicki. Frankie gives him a hard time after being so disrespectful. Williams sneers, “She ain’t nobody.”

Back to the present and Frankie's still in the sweat box. They're questioning Jill too. She’s telling the cops about Vicki’s plans. She’s got, "Grand ideas about becoming a celebrity." They ask about Frankie’s involvement. Another flashback – the sisters are talking about Vicki’s new venture. Vicki tells Jill, "They're gonna glamorize me." Jill tells Vicki that she doesn't trust Frankie’s promises, and apologizes for sounding stuffy. She warns Vicki about having unrealistic aspirations. Flashback even further. Frankie shows up at the cafeteria. Vicki keeps dishing out the wisecracks. He shows her the newspaper article about her making a splash at the El Chico Club.

"Why all the cracks you don't even know me?" "I don't know anything about art, but I know what I like." Back in the present day, at the police station. Jill continues to tell the cops how successful Vicki's climb was. Backward once again-

Jill Lynn I don’t want to tell you your business, but don’t you think you’re making a fool of yourself?
Vicki Lynn What do you mean?
Jill Oh, this Frankie Christopher. People like that, what have they got to do with people like us?
Vicki Jill, they’re going to help me!
Jill In what way?
Vicki They’re gonna’ glamorize me. They may have started this thing as a gag, but, after taking one look at those million-dollar debutantes tonight, I realized I can give them cards in spades and still come out on top.
Jill Vicky, you’ll never come out on top by any shortcuts. One week your picture’s on the cover of a magazine, the next it’s in the ash can.

Frankie arrives at the girl’s apartment, and Vicki breaks the news to Frankie that she's going away to Hollywood. She'd done a screen test and signed a long-term contract. He's angry. She went behind Frankie's back after everything he did for her. She defends herself "Some people think I'm a pretty attractive girl. I'm no Frankenstein you know!" Frankie comments, "I wonder."

Jill tells the cops she was pounding a typewriter breaking her fingernails, and Vicki did get the Hollywood contract, so she might have been right about taking the risk with an acting career and becoming a star.

Another flashback The three men are sitting around the bar.

Robin Ray [indignant] Can you imagine her walking out on me, after all that I’ve done for her? Me!

Larry Evans [slightly incredulous] “You’ve” done for her? What have *you* done for her?

Robin Well, I took her out to all the bright spots, I let her be seen with me everywhere… It made her feel important.

Larry Why, you parboiled old ham! You don’t think anybody thought there was anything between *you* two, do you? If it hadn’t been for my plugging in the column, people would’ve thought she was your trained nurse.

Robin Why, you ink-stinking word slinger! I was famous when they were changing your pants 20 times a day!

Jumping to the present again, Jill is still being questioned by the cops. They want to know if Vicki had anyone in her life. Jill remembers a peculiar thing that happened. She tells them she was sitting at the table in the cafeteria waiting for Vicki to get off work. The peeping prowling, Ed Cornell's giant shape stares at Vicki through the window. He has a queer look on his face. Jill maintains her stare, holding her coffee cup, she is unable to put it down as she studies him, uncomfortably. Once he notices Jill catching him ogling Vicki, he skulks away. Mockeridge's score undergoes a sinister change, with emphasis on the rhythmic accents of a classic horror picture.

Jill tells her sister, "You seem to have an admirer there's some guy looking through the window like the wolf looking for the 3 little pigs." The girls are walking on the street, Cornell is leaning against a wall, and Jill points out to Vicki that he's the one. "He gives me the creeps," Vicki says, "You'll have to get used to that, they've got more wolves in New York than they have in Siberia," She tells the cops she saw him several times after in odd places. He never said anything but watched Vicki, it frightened Jill. There was something strange about him, the way he looked at Vicki. Always turning up in strange places. The cops look skeptical about her "mysterious stranger."

The cops think Jill is trying to protect Frankie "I just don't believe he did it, that's all" They ask if she's involved with him, and accuse her of being in love with him and wanting Vicki out of the way. Jill demands to see someone in authority, so they tell Mac to get Cornell. Who walks in? The creep who watched Vicki through the plate glass!

Enter rabid, self-righteous homicide Detective Ed Cornell (Cregar). Once he sets his sights on Frankie he begins to mercilessly hound him to the ends of hell if necessary, going after him with a flaming vengeance, trying to pin the murder on him. Cornell knows that Frankie is innocent but he is determined to persecute him. Cregar made an all too short career out playing imposing characters. He died at 28 in 1944 due to complications from a crash diet, always struggling with his weight, striving to obtain leading man status.

Jill is startled, the room is smoky and this massive shape looms over her with his girth "That's him, that's the man!" They think she's crazy. First, it's a mysterious stranger peeking through windows and now it's Ed Cornell. "That’s my job to look at people." Leaving the dark corner of the sweat box into the smoke factory with Frankie, things become more visible as Cornell emerges as a menacing force. She insists, "I did see you." “Alright Alright, I'm a peeping tom."

Jill Relates what happened on the car ride with Frankie, the night he learned Vicki was leaving, and she tells him he'll be glad to get rid of her because Jill is in love with him. Jill is just covering up her feelings. Frankie says Jill being in love with him, never entered his mind. Vicki is sure, "I know it's much deeper than that. That's why it’s so dangerous. Anything might happen."

Cornell writes down everything on his pad. Jill says that Vicki didn't mean the line about being glad to get rid of her, but he corrects her, “What she meant doesn't count. It's what she said.”

The night Jill found Vicki, as soon as she came out of the elevator she got a feeling something was wrong. There was music blasting from the radio. Frankie was there already – "Jill you don't think I did it, do you?" Jill is in shock.

Cornell goes back into the interrogation room with Frankie and tells him he knows about Vicki’s ‘get rid of me’ statement. The obsessed Cornell comes up with a scenario. Frankie’s mind got more and more inflamed with jealousy and hurt pride. Went up there and killed her in cold blood. Cornell loses his cool and lunges at Frankie, "I've got a mind to kill you right now."When Cornell gets rough, the other cops have to break it up. They all like Frankie and ask if he's got any tickets to the fights. They ask Cornell "What's the idea of riding him, so hard?” "I have years of experience in this racket. If that isn't the look of a guilty man, I'll take the rap myself." The District Attorney winds up getting his back up with Cornell when he focuses so much on Frankie’s guilt.

The District Attorney (Morris Ankrum) apologizes to Frankie. Jill is in the office too and tells him they think they know the identity of the killer. It’s the switchboard operator at the sisters’ apartment building. They think it’s Harry Williams. Jill leaves the police station and Frankie asks why they think it’s Williams. The D.A. tells him, William’s been missing since 5 pm last night, probably hiding out scared and shaky.

Frankie is released and later that night, Mature wakes up to find the huge, menacing Cregar sitting beside his bed, “Well that's the first time, I had a bad dream with my eyes open." “Someday you’re going to talk in your sleep, and when that day comes I want to be around.” The scene hints at Cornell’s repressed homosexual passion.

Cornell tells him he’ll get all the evidence he needs and tie him up like a pig in a slaughterhouse. Frankie unrattled, tells him, "You're the bright boy” and reminds him that they think Williams murdered Vicki. Victor Mature is so smooth, so mellow when he’s playing at being sarcastic, He says, "You're like something out of a museum you ought to have a magnifying glass and one of those trick hats with the ear flaps" Frankie throws Cornell out after he calls him cocky, and has had it his way too long. First with Vicki, then Jill. Cornell’s resentment is showing.

Jill finds Harry Williams who’s returned to the apartment building. She’s moving out, but he has already packed up her bags and taken them down to the lobby. Williams is a suspiciously hollow little insect who Jill finds strange. Frankie meets up with Robin at the police station. The cops show a reel of Vicki singing at a nightclub. Cornell watches her longingly which gives Frankie a window into Cornell’s longing for the dead girl. Cornell looks at Frankie with contempt.

The film of Vicki appears in the dark room filled with cigar smoke that makes wispy clouds float, and the rays of light from the projection booth. The light cast on Frankie's eyes is like an illuminated mask, it accentuates his epiphany "” that Cornell is obsessed with Vicki. He catches something in his stare. The light on Cornell’s face as HE stares back at Frankie, unmasks only half of his face, revealing the duplicity Cornell projects throughout the picture. It’s a brilliantly framed shot by Cronjager.

The film reel resurrects Vicki from the dead, like a ghost haunting the room. Robin Ray squirms in his chair and runs to get out. The door is locked. His behavior hints at his guilt. They put the lights on and bring him into the D.A.’s office. Ray tells them how he felt about her. She laughed at him. Called him "a has-been and didn't want to hitch her wagon to a falling star." He's the one that arranged the screen test but she went down there alone. He is obsolete, they decided they didn't need him. While he talks about her, Cornell looks out the window. Daylight casts patterns from the Venetian blinds that cut across his face. Odd angle profiles tilt the two-shot of Cornell and Mac off-kilter. Ray has an alibi. He was at a sanitarium. Cornell checked it out already and is gleeful that it rules out yet another suspect. He wants Frankie to fry for it. Cornell would have Frankie in the death house by now. “That won’t prevent you from going to the hot chair.” 

As Frankie is leaving the police station Cornell asks him for a lift uptown "Sure, always happy to oblige a goon"

Ed Cornell [bumming a ride in Frankie’s car] “I’m sorry to have to ask you to do this, but I’m a little short on cash lately. You see, I’ve spent so much of my own dough, trying to build up this case against you.”

Frankie Christopher (Victor Mature) Well, if there’s anything you need, just let me know.”

Ed Cornell Oh, I imagine they’ll make it right with me when I bring in the material for your trial. They usually do in these cases. I nick a guy on my own time and send him up to the chair, then I get back pay.”

Frankie Christopher “Must be a great life – like a garbage man, only with people!”

Ed Cornell “I got practically all the evidence I need now. I could arrest you today for that matter, but you might get some smart mouthpiece and get off with life instead of the chair. I won’t be satisfied until I’m *sure* it’s the chair.”

Frankie Christopher “You’re a gay dog, Cornell. You make me feel as if I’m driving a hearse!”

Ed Cornell Oh, I know your type. I’ve seen hundreds of them. I don’t scare you enough to make you commit suicide, but I worry you just the same. And when the day comes they all act different. Some scream, a few faint, some light a cigarette and try a wisecrack. But it sticks in their throats – especially when they’re hung.”

Cornell shows up at Jill's new apartment to intimidate her. Jill “What’s the good of living without hope?” Ed Cornell signals his own personal torture- “It can be done.” He advises her to just play along, insisting that she’s not even sure Frankie’s innocent. Once he’s left, Jill pulls out a note from behind a framed painting on the wall. It's from Frankie to Vicki, "After what you did last night, the sooner you're out of the way the better it will be."

Frankie takes Jill to the fights and then out on the town. She asks if he ever brought Vicki to the fights, and tells him it’s the first New York nightclub she’s ever been to. The El Chico club, he first took Vicki to. She sees how nice he is without all the flashy bluster and pretense. He's actually very real. Cornell follows them. Frankie asks her why she suddenly called him, "The trouble with you is that you pretend you don't care about things but you do. You were very upset about Vicki’s death weren't You? He tells her he'd like to find the guy, “Save the State on its electric bill. She was a good kid” Jill doesn't want him to be guilty. "Did you love her?" “No, do you think if I'd loved her I would have tried to exploit her the way I did?… Vicki was pretty, gay, and amusing She had lots to offer and I wanted to put her in the right place on the map. After all, that's my business But when a man really loves a woman, he doesn't want to plaster her face all over papers and magazines. He wants to keep her to himself."

Looking into her eyes, he tells her he’s in love with her. Larry Evans sees them together and calls in the story "Stepping out"¦ Dancing on the grave."

Frankie takes Jill to his favorite swimming spot. It’s a lovely scene, that brings some lightness to the external space in the story. She shows him the note he wrote to Vickie and he asks why she didn’t turn it in to the police. Jill tells him she knew he was innocent and what the note meant, at the moment they were dancing at the nightclub. When they are back at the apartment, Cornell walks in and takes the note. They cuff Frankie. Cornell who is obviously framing him is just waiting for the chance to catch him. Frankie tells him anyone could have written a note like that. He was burned up when Vicki dropped the bomb that she was leaving. He finds out that Cornell has planted a set of brass knuckles in his apartment. Vicki was hit hard behind the ear with a heavy object. The depraved Cornell punches Frankie in the guts. "You're like a rat in a hole."

As Cornell is about to take him downtown, Frankie is on the ground after Cornell’s hostile assault, Jill hits Cornell from behind and helps Frankie escape. Big fat head bullying him, she says.

Frankie proposes, “Mind marrying a hunted man?” She tells him, "Most married men have a hunted look anyway." He tells her his real name – Botticelli, the son of Italian immigrants. Then he shows her how to hide in the city. They duck into an adult movie house, watching the same picture over and over. Then they decide to split up for the time being and she goes to the public library. The cops find her, and Frankie sees them taking her away. The newspaper headline says "Christopher eludes police dragnet." Cornell stalks the streets. Frankie sneaks up on him. "Let Jill go”, and he'll turn himself in. Ed Cornell (Laird Cregar) “I’ll follow you into your grave. I’ll write my name on your tombstone.” "You're not a cop you're crazy trying to frame an innocent man." Frankie throws a tootsie roll at him and takes off. Cornell assures him, he'll eventually get him. Always smirking like the devil.

Cornell tells the D.A. a parable about the African Butterfly and how to trap the male to set the female free. He wants him to let Jill out of her box to lure Frankie. She goes home, sneaks out through the window, and surprises Frankie at the adult movie house. At the apartment, she has found little cards from flowers that were sent to Vicki, and at the funeral. She shows them to Frankie. The message on the cards says, "Because I promised."

They go to Rosedale Cemetery and when he meets the caretaker, Frankie pretends to be a reporter and asks if anybody lately has been around Vicki’s grave. There were many flowers at the funeral, and the caretaker tells him that the grave's been getting flowers each day since she died. Frankie learns where they were sent from, and goes to Keating Florist. It turns out that Larry sent them. Frankie confronts Larry who admits he was with Vicki the day she died. He had promised to send her flowers every day when she left for Hollywood, and he wanted to keep his word. Larry winds up giving Frankie a clue about the killer, and he goes to the old apartment and gets Mac to give him a half hour. He has a strong hunch.

The next scene is ripe with atmosphere when Frankie leans against the wall in Vicki’s old apartment. The lattice shadows fence Frankie in. Harry Williams is sleeping at the front desk. Vicki rings the desk and speaks in Vicki's voice "Hello Harry, this is Vicki" He's visibly shaken. Frankie watches his reaction. His eyes open wider as the buzzing mocks him, "Harry this is Vicki. Why did you do it, Harry? Didn't you love me?" Frankie confronts Williams. “You let yourself in with your passkey and waited for her. You loved her. She panicked and screamed.” Williams admits,  “I told the cop that when he chased me to Brooklyn. Cornell knew all along it was Williams. The dirty Cornell told him to just come back and keep his mouth shut. Mac hears the confession. Frankie tells him, he wants 5 minutes alone with Cornell.

He goes to his apartment and finds a perverse and macabre shrine to Vicki. Her image is like a talisman in his suffocating little apartment. He discovers the prominent photograph of Vicki in an elaborate frame. Cornell unaware that Frankie is there, comes in and places fresh flowers underneath the photograph, as an offering. Frankie watches then emerges, "You knew. Why'd you want to fry me?"He tells Frankie, "I lost Vicki long before Williams killed her. You were the one who took her away from me" Cornell wanted to marry her. Had this furnished apartment set up. Bought her perfume. “Til he came along and put ideas in her head. She thought she was too good for me. He could have killed him then.” Frankie puts it to him, "Why didn't ya?" "Cause I had the hook in your mouth and I wanted to see you suffer."

Cornell resented Frankie’s closeness to Vicki and inhabits a world that excludes him. In contrast to the suave Frankie Christopher, he is a lumbering and awkward outsider. To Cornell, Vicki will always be as unattainable as the first time he gazed upon her through the window. He was struck by her beauty, but she was completely and forever out of his reach. Cornell is like a lurking monster straight out of a classic horror movie. His uneasy presence lends to a surreal and menacing mood.

A Trailer a day keeps the Boogeyman away! I Wake Up Screaming (1941)

Continue reading “31 Flavors of Noir on the Fringe to Lure You In! Part 1”

Secret Beyond the Door (1947) Freud, Lang, the Dream State, and Repressed Poison

SECRET BEYOND THE DOOR (1947)

"Most people are asleep."

"Wind was there and space and sun and storm"¦ everything's beyond the door."

Fritz Lang's psychological film noir, Secret Beyond the Door (1947) is suggestive of a dream state, from which the characters never quite emerge. The film draws blurry lines between what is latent and obvious desire. The doors are symbolic of the compartmental anxieties within the dark recesses of the mind. Secret Beyond the Door is steeped in metaphor, sunless and surreal, and an evocative score by Miklós Rózsa. Cinematography is by Stanley Cortez, who is responsible for another dream like milieu in Night of the Hunter (1955). It was Joan Bennett, who insisted on using Cortez as cinematographer.

The film co-stars marvelous character actor  Anne Revere  as Mark’s sister Caroline, Barbara O’Neil, Natalie Schafer, and Paul Cavanagh.

Bosley Crowther, ""¦ Lang is still a director who knows how to turn the obvious, such as locked doors and silent chambers and roving spotlights, into strangely tingling stuff"¦ For all its psycho-nonsense, this film is mildly creepy."

The screenplay by Sylvia Richardson is based on Rufus King’s novel Museum Piece No. Thirteen, and also appeared in the December 1945 issue of Red Book.

Long ago I read a book that told the meaning of dreams. It said that if a girl dreams of a boat or a ship she will reach a safe harbor, but if she dreams of daffodils she is in great danger. But this is no time for me to think of danger. This is my wedding day. "“Celia Lamphere

The film opens with a voice-over by Joan Bennett. Celia Lamphere, (Bennett) journeys through her surreal and sleepy addiction to her new husband, architect Mark Lamphere (Michael Redgrave). Celia's obsessed with the suspicion that Mark is hiding hideous secrets, she plans to succumb to his murderous compulsions. But Mark is not the only one with creeping psychosis. Celia herself is driven by a troubled, neurotic psyche that initially drew her to his enigmatic nature.

Celia wanders through a corridor literally and metaphorically, first in a reverie and then a shadowy nightmare. She first meets Mark on a trip to Mexico when she is mesmerized by the power of passion which can drive two men to fight each other to the death for a woman (Donna Martell). "How proud that woman must be to cause death in the streets." She realizes that Mark is watching her excitement in this, his eyes like fingers. At that moment, Celia has a taste for danger. Like Mark, the thrill of death represents a strong aphrodisiac for her.

Celia: Suddenly I felt that someone was watching me. There was a tingling at the nape of my neck as though the air had turned cool. I felt eyes touching me like fingers. There was a current flowing between us… warm and sweet… and frightening, too, because he saw behind my make-up what no-one had ever seen. Something I didn’t know was there.

Throughout the film Celia strays from reality and finds herself adrift within a conscious flowing daydream. Her voice-over shows she is controlled by the intense beating of her heart. She relates the feeling to drowning "When you are drowning, your whole life flashes before your eyes."

British actor Michael Redgrave made his U.S. film debut as Mark. Initially Lang wanted James Mason in the lead role. Mark turns dark and brooding soon after he marries his new bride. He has been married before and his first wife has died under curious circumstances. Also part of the plot is his serious young son David — who blames him for his mother's death.

There is also, his strangely loyal secretary Miss Robey (Barbara O'Neil) who wears a scarf over one side of her face having been disfigured In a fire. One thinks of Rebecca later on. The film co-stars character actor Anne Revere as Mark's sister Caroline.

Celia: I heard his voice and then I didn’t hear it anymore, because the beating of my blood was louder. This was what I’d hunted those foolish years in New York. I knew before I knew his name or touched his hand and for an endless moment, I seemed to float like a feather blown to a place where time had stopped.

Mark: You were living that fight. You soaked it all in – love, hate, the passion. You’ve been starved for feelings – any real feelings. I thought: 20th Century Sleeping Beauty. Wealthy American girl who has lived her life wrapped in cotton wool but she wants to wake up. Maybe she can. 
Celia: Is it as hard as all that? 
Mark: Most people are asleep. 

Mark shows all the telltales signs that he is delusional, having a preoccupation with several murder rooms and one locked door #7 in his estate. He's filled with macabre declarations, "I have a hobby collecting "˜felicitous’ rooms", (Celia mistaking the word for happy, not "˜apt' for murder) "the way a place is built determines what happens in it", "certain rooms cause violence even murders."

Mark Lamphere takes his guests on a tour of his murder rooms.

"As an architect Mark Lamphere gives particular credence to the influence of space and human lives. He repeatedly uses the word "felicitous" to describe his theory that elements of particular space make certain human actions possible. And therefor "˜apt' for that locale." "” The Dark Mirror Psychiatry and Film Noir by Marlisa Santos

Redgrave understands how to walk that fine line between innate intensity and male hysteria — one just needs to see his performance as Maxwell Frere in Dead of Night's (1945) segment The Ventriloquist's Dummy, where he wrestles with his "˜dummy partner' Hugo.

Mark is fascinated by the connection between the action of murder and the significance of his locked rooms as psychological theatre. The film utilizes production design by Max Parker (Chandu, the Magician 1932, Arsenic and Old Lace 1944) who creates a dreamworld of disruptive psychosis. It's within this fairytale steeped in misogyny that Redgrave wants to act out his fantasist murderous impulses. Secret Beyond the Door is a retelling of Bluebeard, the archetype of the serial killer who desires to annihilate women who dominate him. We see a hint of Mark's roiling demons when he takes a group of party guests on a tour of his rooms as curios — original replicas of historic murders. One of his guests, a psychology major, associates the murder of a wife or lover to "unconscious hatred for the mother."

Celia confronts Mark, "It was the way you immersed yourself in those stories you were almost happy about their deaths."

"Probably the most overt Freudian depiction of noir psychosis is found in Secret Beyond the Door, a film that features various re-castings of fairy tale patterns bound up with the psychoanalytic interpretations of childhood trauma and sexual relationships. From the start, the film makes no artistic attempt to submerge its psychoanalysis frame ["¦] all of Celia's fears and desires are open for scrutiny from the time that she first encounters Mark."Â "” The Dark Mirror Psychiatry and Film Noir by Marlisa Santos

She takes a subconscious journey both surreal and substantive as she navigates her new relationship with Mark and her awakened death wish.

During their honeymoon Celia unleashes Mark's sinister urges when she locks the door to their room. This catalyst brings his childhood trauma to the surface. As a young boy he perceived a painful transgression by his mother. His recollection of this seemingly insignificant incident turned into hatred of all women, that has carried throughout his life. These machinations bring him to homicidal delusion. His memories are locked away just as his morbid rooms are show pieces.

Celia embraces her husband's impulses, setting herself up within the replica frozen in time of the death room #7 meant for her. But she desires to unlock Mark's subconscious as well as his locked room.

Celia- "This is my room, waiting for me"

She waits with lilacs, waiting to trespass on the madness that has led him to this dark place. The link between love and death becomes interwoven as Celia prepares to sacrifice herself to Mark if she cannot save him from his tortured sickness. Kelly Oliver and Benigno Trigo cover Freud's fascination with Eros/Thanatos in in their analysis of Secret Beyond the Door, drawing this connection between love and death. Which "according to the film's logic, death is love's uncanny double."Â 

"Inasmuch as closed space can be interpreted as "˜cave', "˜the grave', a house, woman"¦ entry into it is interpreted on various levels as "˜death', "˜conception' "˜return home' and so on: moreover all these acts are thought of as mutually identical".-Teresa de Lauretis

Mark's voice-overs wrestle with the urge to strangle Celia if left alone with her. He imagines what he will say when asked if the murder was premeditated. Redgrave is framed within the scene by the prominent energy of his twisting a scarf as if he is preparing to strangle Celia. Holding the scarf, the murder weapon from Don Ignacio's room, his voice-over gives us the sense of the film's prowling subconsciousness.The darker counterpart to Celia's dream-like twists and turns.

Mark: There’s something in your face that I saw once before in South Dakota. Wheat country. Cyclone weather. Just before the cyclone, the air has a stillness. A flat, gold, shimmering stillness. You have it in your face – the same hush before the storm and when you smile it’s like the first breath of wind bending down the wheat. I know that behind that smile is a turbulence that… 

Mark's Freudian Oedipal struggle with hatred for his mother and all women with latent murderous desire is never quite explored as deeply as it could be in the film. In flashback we understand that he has been shut out of his mother's affection in one scene. Though here, murder seems to be an expression of male exasperation, one wonders if this was consequential in creating such a conflicted and disturbed monster?

"The symbolism of shutting Freud's psychological door is present yet after all the Freudian iconography, the basic motivation lies still in the darkness, with one door closed, leaving us outside the "˜Interior turmoil.'" (Marlisa Santos)

*From Women in Film Noir Edited by E. Ann Kaplan

"In the threatening family mansions of the gothic, or in The Haunting's evil old Hill House, a door, a staircase, a mirror, a portrait are never simply what they appear to be, as an image from Fritz Lang's paranoid woman's film' Secret Beyond the Door. The title sums up the enigma of many of these films in which the question about the husband's motives becomes an investigation of the house (and of the secret of a woman who previously inhabited it.) 

Freud believed dreams were masks that disguised wish fulfillment. They are metaphorical inroads that point to our subconscious desires. And dreams"” like folklore and images in art"” are used as symbolism manifesting these unconscious emotional conflicts. Director Fritz Lang very often infused his films with an appetite for expressionist symbolism. With recurring iconography of doors and corridors, Secret Beyond the Door is perhaps one of his most pronounced visions of Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams cloaked in the cinematic vogue of film noir.

Some Men Destroy What They Love Most!

This is your EverLovin’ Joey saying, there are no secrets between us, here at The Last Drive In! See ya soon!

Chapter 3 – Queers and Dykes in the Dark: Classic, Noir & Horror Cinema’s Coded Gay Characters:

The subtle gay gangster films of the early 1930s – Little Caesar 1931, The Public Enemy 1931 and Scarface 1932

"Criminals should not be made heroes"¦ The flaunting of weapons by gangsters will not be allowed"¦"

“… the fashion for romanticizing gangsters” must be denounced.

The three films also evenhandedly parcel out social pathology and sexual aberration: homosexuality in Little Caesar. Directed by Mervyn LeRoy from the novel by W.R. Burnett Little Caesar was first out of the gate and an immediate sensation. A diminutive bandit whose single-minded ambition compensates less for his stature than his repressed homosexual desire, Caesar Enrico Bandello is compact, swarthy and tightly wound; his golden boy pal Joe played by the scion of Hollywood royalty Douglas Fairbanks Jr. is tall, patrician and easygoing.

When Joe finds a female dancer and show business success, the jilted Caesar unhinged by a jealousy that dare not speak its name even to himself, makes his first mistakes in judgement. The male triangle is completed by Caesar's worshipful lapdog Otera (George E. Stone) who gazes up at Rico with a rapturous desire that, unlike Rico, he barely bothers to sublimate. Doubly deviant Rico dies for his social and sexual sins, asking in tight close-up and choked up tones, "mother of Mercy, is this the end of Rico?"The famous last words inspired an incisive remark from Robert Warshow on gangster psychology:" Even to himself he is a creature of the imagination" from FILMIC – From Sissies to Secrecy: The Evolution of the Hays Code Queer by Mikayla Mislak

"This is what I get for likin' a guy too much," Rico ‘Caesar’ tells himself after he realizes he’s lost, Joe. Joe, who he has referred to as "soft" and a "sissy." The very pretty Joe (Douglas Fairbanks Jr.) has decided to give up the racket, to be a professional nightclub dancer. Robinson wisecracks, “Dancin’ just ain’t my idea of a man’s game.”

Joe is romantically involved with Olga (Glenda Farrell). ‘Caesar’ is not only jealous of Joe’s relationship with Olga, but he also appears to have no use for women at all.

In the end, there is a telling close-up, a well of tears in his eyes, a subtle quiver in his face. Rico cannot shoot Joe, even though he needs to keep him from squealing. The image of Robinson coming head-on with his feelings reveals his struggle with the repressed love for his dancing pal. The scene is very effective when the camera closes in on Robinson, capturing his dewy, wide-eyed stare. Behind the scenes what helped the intensity of the look of longing turned out to be a serendipitous moment when Robinson had to fire a pistol while looking into the camera, and was unable to keep his eyes open, each time he pulled the trigger. Eventually, they had Robinson’s eyes held open with cellophane tape. The effect worked perfectly.

Another interesting point in Little Caesar that hints at his latent homosexuality is a scene that highlights his clumsy fussiness. Rico is trying on a tuxedo and gazing at himself in the mirror. Posturing gleefully as he swishes at his own reflection. In this scene, Rico also becomes caught in his effete sidekick Otero’s (George E. Stone) gaze, who joyfully watches his boss flit for the mirror.

In The Public Enemy (1931) there is a noteworthy scene when Tom (James Cagney) goes to his tailor to get fitted for a suit. It’s a hilariously fidgety few moments for Cagney while the flamboyant tailor fawns over his arm muscles. When the movie was re-released, the sequence wound up on the cutting room floor.

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According to Mislak In Howard Hawk’s Scarface (1932), it could be seen as having a gay subtext, as Antonio ‘Tony’ Camonte (Paul Muni) shows a repressed homosexual desire for his best friend Guino Rinaldo played by George Raft. Hawk’s film doesn’t work on a blatant exhibition of violence, instead, Scarface’s subtlety draws on the subliminal impression of his sexual impulses.

Through my readings, it has been noted that there is a coded gayness inferred from the character of Camonte in Scarface. Rather than the repressed sexual desire for his close friend Guino, I catch more a wind of an incestuous desire for his sister Cesca (Ann Dvorak). Camonte hovers over her with an iron will, not allowing her to have any man touch her. She even alludes to his untoward attentions at one point telling him that he loves her more than just a brother. Camonte (Muni) does focus obsessively over his hair and his wardrobe, which Poppi (Kathy Morely) tells him is ‘sweet’. But there are a few references to Guino being queer. He wears a carnation which is a code for being a gay man in film. Camonte says he’d like a carnation too, takes it out of Guino’s lapel, and tells him “Better no one sees you with this.” He also makes a comment about one of the North Side gang members not being taken seriously because he owns a flower shop! Guino doesn’t show any interest in women until nearly close to the end of the picture, when he submits to Camonte’s sister, Cesca.

“The placement of homosexuality or the real possibility of it in an antisocial context is quite natural. Homosexuality when it is invisible is antisocial. The only condition under which homosexuality has ever been socially acceptable has been on the occasion of its voluntary invisibility, when homosexuality were willing to pass for heterosexuals. Obvious homosexual behavior is reflected onscreen as in real life, only in the ‘twilight world’ of misfit conduct. During the brief period of explicit reference to homosexuals in pre-Code films of the early 1930s. Gay characters were psychologically ghettoized by their routine relegations to a fantasy world or an underworld life….

….in addition to strengthening the Code in 1934, Will Hays reacted to criticism by inserting morals clauses in the contracts of performers and compiling a “doom book’ of 117 names of those deemed “unsafe” because of their personal lives. Homosexuality was denied as assiduously off screen as it was on, a literally unspeakable part of the culture. By 1940 even harmless sex-roles farces such as Hal Roach’s Turnabout were considered perilous in some quarters. The film, about a married couple (Carol Landis and John Hubbard) who switch roles by wishing on an Oriental statue, was described by the Catholic Legion of Decency as dealing with ‘subject matter which may provide references dangerous to morality, wholesome concepts of human relationships and the dignity of man.’ ” –Vito Russo

HITCHCOCK SUBVERTS SUSPENSE!

Hitchcock sensed the ambiguous sexuality in Mrs. Danvers (nicknamed Danny) who embodies the forbidding identity of the coded lesbian in 1940s films. As she strides down the halls of Manderley, there is an element of the angry older woman trope, who is vacant of male companionship by choice, with an added streak of dissatisfied longing. She embodies the sterile matron, showing characteristics of an ‘old maid’ attributed to a repressed lesbian.” Rebecca serves as Fontaine’s idealized mother and that Hitchcock’s films present images of ambiguous sexuality that threaten to destabilize the gender identity of the protagonist.” -(Tania Modleski)

Gay Coding in Hitchcock films

Article by Scott Badman & Connie Russell Hosier

“In typical Hitchcock-ian fashion, the “Master of Suspense” often employed in his films subtle references to gay culture, defying conservative attitudes of the late ’50s.”-Scott Badman & Connie Russell Hosier | February 7, 2017- Editor's note: The following article, like many of Alfred Hitchcock's films, includes references to sex and violence.

Did Martin Landau play a homosexual in North by Northwest? Did Alfred Hitchcock really show gay sex on-screen in Rope, albeit in an unusual way? Was the whole plot of Rebecca driven by the twisted jealousy of an evil lesbian? And, most surprisingly, did Hitchcock depict a gay marriage way back in 1938's The Lady Vanishes?”

Alfred Hitchcock was a complicated man, who put a singular stamp on all his films, infusing them with his droll and macabre sense of humor and imbuing his work from the point of view of a satyr. Hitchcock projects his dark and twisted view of the world as at the end of his films there is sort of a perverted release that he leaves us to contemplate. It also appears that he was playful with the use of his gay-coded characters in many of his films.

Nothing Hitchcock did was unintentional, thereby reinforcing proof that there is a gay subtext to many characters in various films. He was very measured in every detail even before the camera captured the scene. But this method of implying a queer pathology and positing queer elements to the narrative. He was ingenious in the way he veiled his ciphers within the cloak of deniability, in order to slip it by the censors in his cheeky manner.

Though Hitchcock would often imbue his pictures with coded gay characters, among scholars it is still speculative as to which side his view fell on. Given that everything Hitchcock constructed was intentional, it’s easy to see why he would be viewed as homophobic, due to his use of stereotypes that eventually led to queerness possibly being as the source of the crimes. But you have to consider that during the time he reigned, it’s a tribute to Hitchcock that he even embraced the complex issue of homosexuality. It shows me that there was a conscious level of understanding.

In his life, Hitchcock surrounded himself with gay culture be it in England or Hollywood, and he worked with many gay writers and actors. Ivor Novello who starred in two of Hitchcock’s silent pictures was good friends with him and Alma. Hitchcock was also friends with Rope stars John Dall and bisexual Farley Granger who played coded gay characters in the film. Granger also had the lead in Strangers on a Train, co-starring Rober Walker who plays another of Hitchcock’s coded gay characters, Bruno. Anthony Perkins who struggled with his sexuality in real life, plays the ambiguous, stammering, Norman Bates in Psycho. According to Jay Poole, Robert Bloch was interested in ‘abnormal psychology’ and was familiar with Freudian theories on sexual identity. His novel was more suggestive of the taboos, in terms of the incestuous relationship with Norman’s mother and his confused sexual identity.

The assessment of ‘camp’ and queerness can be seen as negative. More contemporary audiences might perceive Psycho as more campy than lurid or scary. Norman’s appearance in the fruit cellar might register with audiences as if he’s a big ugly ridiculous drag queen with a knife. The rest of the film is darkly humorous. (Doty cites Danny Peary)

In contrasting these male characters, one representative of sexually suspect psychosis, the other of gendered and sexual normalcy, Hitchcock blurs the lines between them, creating effects that will inform future depictions of American masculinity… While Lila Crane has been read positively as a lesbian character, and also as Carol Clover’s prototype for the ‘final girl” I demonstrate here that Lila is a more ambiguous figure, tied to social repression and the law. […] (Norman’s voyeurism and Lila’s examination of Norman’s room as pornographic) Infusing these pornographic motifs with addition levels of intensity and dread was the increasingly public threat of homosexuality within the Cold War context in which Hitchcock’s related themes gained a new, ominous visibility. What emerges in Psycho is a tripartite monster-voyeurism-homosexuality-pornography.” — (Scott Badman & Connie Russell Hosier)

WARNING SPOILERS:

Saboteur (1942) producer/writer Joan Harrison wrote the screenplay and collaborated with Hitchcock on many projects for both film and television. In the period of the 1940s to the 1950s, movies often conflated homosexuality with unsavory characters like Nazis, communists, and terrorists.

Saboteur stars Robert Cummings as plane mechanic Barry Kane who is framed for the terrorist bombing of a military installation’s aircraft hanger where they manufacture planes. After he sees his friend die in the explosion, police assume that it was Kane who filled the fire extinguisher with gasoline. Kane goes on the run, to try and find the man he suspects is the saboteur, Frank Fry (Norman Lloyd) who is the real murderer who committed the heinous crime.

Kane stumbles onto a secret group of ‘the firm’, 5th columnists who are plotting to sabotage key targets, military planes, ships, and dams. Kane is dropped into the middle of a cabal of dangerous Americans who have infiltrated positions of power in order to carry out their nefarious plan to disrupt the democratic system and cause chaos. Socialite dowager Mrs. Henrietta Sutton (Alma Kruger) is a New York philanthropist who provides cover for the ‘firm’ run by Otto Kruger as the coldly, sinister Tobin. Kane pretends to go along with the group, and in one scene in a taxi with Alan Baxter who plays Mr. Freeman, there is a queer exchange between the two. Freeman tells Kane about his two little children, one of them is a boy, whom he wishes was a girl. He’s letting his son’s hair grow long and hesitates to cut it. Then he shares his reminiscence about his boyhood when he had glorious long blonde curls. Kane tells him to cut his son’s hair and “save yourself some grief.”

Purely by Hitchcockian fate, Kane is thrown together with Pat (Priscilla Lane) who comes to his aid and at one point tries to distract Fry at the top of the Statue of Liberty. The beautiful Pat flirts with Fry in order to stall him until the police get there, but he isn't the slightest bit interested in her at all. In fact, he seems annoyed by her presence. He's a slim effete figure, a swishy loner with a serpent-like grin. Theodore Price, in his book ‘Hitchcock and Homosexuality (1992), has no doubt Fry was gay. (Ken Mogg 2008)

Saboteur climax prefigures that of North by Northwest between Thornhill (Cary Grant) and the sinister Leonard (Martin Landau) who is also a gay Hitchcockian figure.

We first hear a remark spoken by socialite Mrs. Sutton (Alma Kruger) when Barry (Kane) is taken to the saboteurs’ New York lair, as Barry enters the upstairs room. Mrs. Sutton is addressing a couple of her male colleagues, whom she reprimands: ‘I have to hover over you like an old hen.’

This is precisely the line Hitchcock uses in Rebecca to characterize the somewhat de-natured estate manager Frank Crawley (Reginald Denny) – nearly all the men in the film are so afflicted – and will be used again in The Paradine Case to characterize the gay Latour (Louis Jourdan).

Frank Crawley is ‘as fussy as an old mother hen’; Latour, we’re told, had been ‘like an old mother hen’ to his beloved master, the blind Colonel Paradine.- Ken Mogg (2008)

In North by Northwest (1959) Martin Landau’s character Leonard, displays an undercurrent of homosexuality, that is subtly implied. He’s a devoted bodyguard whose gaze on his boss, Phillip Vandamm, seems to be bubbling with a refined sensibility, romantically fixated on Vandamm (James Mason), a communist spy being hunted by the CIA. For a 1950s film, Leonard’s immaculate fashion sense and his fastidious swagger are a cue of his being queer. Nearing the climax of North by Northwest, the telling scene set in a mid-century modern house reveals Leonard’s love for Vandamm. Hitchcock even sets up the motive for Leonard shooting the object of his affection, jealousy, and rejection. In a notable line toward the end of the movie, Leonard remarks, “Call it my woman’s intuition” affirming the effete stereotype of a feminine gay man. Vandamm is genuinely flattered (contrary to homosexual panic) by Leonard’s feelings, which hints at his motivation for killing the thing he loves. Vandamm (Mason) tells him in that coldly sober tone of his, “I think you’re jealous. I mean it, and I’m very touched. Very.” As Scott Badman & Connie Russell Hosier point out, Hitchcock’s direction shows a “progressive perspective for its time but so brief that it doesn’t fully register with most viewers. Much later, Landau acknowledged that he played Leonard as a homosexual, albeit subtly.”

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From the opening of Strangers on a Train (1951), Hitchcock frames the entranceway to the story with a close shot of the main character’s shoes walking to catch the train. Bruno wears elaborate wing tips with high heels and Guy wears a more toned-down fashionable pair of shoes, which are in opposition to each other and illustrate the contrast between the two main characters.

Robert Walker’s Bruno is a menacing, creepy guy with flashy ties, who positions himself after a chance meeting on a commuter train, to assert his influence over famous tennis player, Guy Haines (Farley Granger). Bruno begins to flatter Guy and insinuate himself by sharing his knowledge of Guy’s personal life. He is very proud of the tie that his mother gave him. It is a garish accouterment dappled with lobsters. Like his silken smoking robe and another tie with the name, Bruno embroidered on it. Bruno also spouts a lot of ‘ideas’ he has in that ever prompted mind of his, when talking about Guy’s upcoming divorce and bigamy scandal, “I've got a wonderful theory about that."

Bruno insists on Guy having lunch with him, “sent to my compartment… You see you'll have to lunch with me.” It is obvious, though Hitchcock is very subtle about broadcasting the cues, that Bruno is wooing Guy. Bruno is very effeminate in his demeanor, you could say that he has a ‘flaming’ air about him, always dropping hints about his sexuality. “My father hates me”, insinuating that he is not the kind of man he expects of him. “I've got a theory that you should do everything before you die." He tells Guy amorously, “I like you, I’d do anything for you.”

Bruno Anthony’s plan is for both men to exchange for each other’s murders. There are several scenes that scream Hitchcock’s gay coding. Initially, when the two men meet each other on the train, Bruno is flirtatious, dressed in ‘flamboyant clothes’, which to gay audiences, is seemingly clear to be a gay pickup. Bruno’s not only attracted to the handsome Guy, but he is in fact stalking him as an ‘object’ to fulfill his needs and be his ‘partner’ in his deranged homoerotic plot.

His mother, Mrs. Anthony (the wonderful character actor Marion Lorne) does Bruno’s nails and dotes on her son. As Bruno tells his mother, he wants his nails to look right.

Homosexuality is not explicitly stated, but there is too strong an import for critics and audiences in the know, to ignore. And, considering Hitchcock’s fascination with homosexual subtexts, it’s not a stretch to read into various scenes this way.

There is also the insinuation that Bruno has some serious mother issues, which is one of Hitchcock’s points of reference for his gay coding, such as his use of it with Norman Bates in his film Psycho. Bruno amuses himself by antagonizing his mother (Marion Lorne) who is completely in the dark about the twisted pathology of her homicidal son.

Bruno has set up a visit from Guy who finds himself talking to the sociopath, who’s been waiting for Guy while lying in bed in his silky pajamas. Is this actually arranged as a bedroom seduction?

Another brief sequence takes place at the end which centers around a carousel, a possible symbol of fluid sexuality, and sexual foreplay. The scene shows Bruno and Guy wrestling with each other, the movements could be read as Bruno really achieving what he wanted, to have sex with Guy. Hitchcock even cut different versions of the movie for Britain and the U.S., toning down the implied homosexuality in the American version "” proof positive that he was fully aware of the gay implications in his movies. –(Badman and Hosier)

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Hitchcock’s Rope (1948) is based on the play by Patrick Hamilton Rope's End is perhaps one of the more obvious coded gay films with homosexual subtexts in his canon. Arthur Laurents, who eventually came out of the closet and wrote the screenplay, said during a commentary “What was curious to me was that Rope was obviously about homosexuals. The word was never mentioned. Not by Hitch, not by anyone at Warners. It was referred to as ‘it’. They were going to do a picture about ‘it’, and the actors were ‘it’.” The original British stage play was loosely based on the sensational true crime committed by Chicago students Leopold and Loeb in 1924, who killed a fellow student, just to see if they could get away with a motiveless crime. The script was penned by Arthur Laurents in collaboration with Hume Cronyn and Ben Hecht.

Brandon (John Dall) and Philip (Farley Granger) are entitled, affluent snobs, who are self-aggrandizing psychopaths with a Nietzschean superiority. Hitchcock arranges a taut stage play, around a case of Folie à deux. Brandon and Philip are implied coded lovers, who used the crime of murder to stimulate each other as if it were a sex act. The intellectual discourse they have at the beginning of the picture is overshadowed by the sexual banter that precedes what ultimately will become the act of committing a murder. Rope from the beginning of the picture inaugurates a very feverish sexual undercurrent.

In real life, John Dall was gay but died in 1971 without talking openly about his homosexuality. Farley Granger was bisexual when making the movie and then was in a lifelong gay relationship starting in 1963. Alfred Hitchcock was well aware of the sexual orientations of both actors and was reportedly pleased with what is now called the on-screen "chemistry" between the two.

He coded Brandon and Philip as gay by their "sex scene." It occurs at the very beginning of the movie, which is also the murder scene. Hitchcock is strongly equating murder with sex. The murder-sex occurs behind curtained windows. The death scream corresponds to the orgasm. Now visible, the murderers Brandon and Philip quickly put the body in a cabinet and go into a postcoital exhaustion. Philip doesn't even want the light turned on. In an inspired touch, Hitchcock has Brandon light a cigarette, a standard Hollywood indicator for "we just had sex." – (Badman and Hosier)

The unorthodox murderers throw a dinner party with the victim stuffed inside an antique trunk. The film was initially banned in Chicago and other cities, because of its implied homosexual relationship between the two killers. In 1959, the story was revised as Compulsion directed by Richard Fleischer scripted by Richard Murphy, and based on the novel by Meyer Levin. Compulsion remains closer to the actual true-life crime, and the implicit queer undertones are brought more to the surface, with less of Hitchcock’s cheeky innuendo.

Hitchcock employs many homoerotic symbology and allusions, as the couple reenact the murder, with the director conflating violence and sex. For instance, Brandon gets a bottle of champagne still invigorated by the murder, while Philip the weaker of the murderous pair, is nervous. Brandon fondles the bottle of champagne as the two stands close together very intimately. He grasps the champagne bottle as phallus and flirts with the top of the bottle, yet not releasing the cork. All this is stages as foreplay. Philip finally takes the bottle from Brandon and liberates the cork. They then toast to their victim. Film Critic Robin Wood asserts, in The Murderous Gays: Hitchcock’s Homophobia, that these films could be made as more positive or sensitive to homosexuality rather than “traffic in homophobia” and that it perpetuate the notion that homosexuality leads to violence.

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Psycho (1960)

Psycho works as a warped adult fairytale about getting lost and paying for one’s transgressions. Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) is a Phoenix secretary who embezzles forty thousand dollars from her employer’s client and goes on the run. Marion is also shown to be a fallen woman, a sexual deviant herself with no morals, not only is she a thief but she is also having an affair with a married man Sam Loomis, (John Gavin). Driving in torrential rain, she pulls into the Bates Motel, an eerie, remote motel off the beaten path. The motel is run by a ‘queer’ sort of young man, Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) who lives up in the brooding house on the hill, under the dominant authority of his cruel and elusive mother. As Poole puts it, Norman “remains locked in a disturbed world, and, as the film progresses, becomes murderously mad.”

Norman Bates: “A boy’s best friend is his mother.”

Norman is not a masculine figure, he is a mama’s boy who does his mother’s bidding. He is continually identified with his mother and, according to Freud and his psychological tunnel vision, would probably have evolved into a homosexual because of his Oedipal desires. Hitchcock perverts Freud’s narrow theory, by making sure the narrative shows Norman to be attracted to women, not men. It is when Norman’s arousal by the female body, that he dresses in frumpy dresses to represent his mother, who then takes over and annihilates the object of Norman’s desire. Many viewers assume that Norman is a repressed homosexual because he dressed in women’s clothing when manifesting his mother’s personality. Cross-dressing was stereotypically associated with homosexuality, however, Hitchcock’s film tries to make it clear that Norman is attracted to women from the very beginning with the seductive Marion. The concept of fluid sexuality was not understood in 1960, so conflating cross-dressing with homosexuality was a commonly misleading view.
Another interesting point that Jay Poole (Queering Hitchcock’s Classic) brings out is how the décor of the house is itself, queer. Referring to what he cites Foucault’s theory of ‘We Other Victorians’ which essentially invokes ‘the image of the imperial prude.’ Therefore the Bates house itself with its provincial Victorian style from a queer perspective represents the constraints of Victorian sexual expectations, which is — we do not speak of sex, and any relations are to remain between a heterosexual married couple in the privacy of their own bedroom. Norman is surrounded by this oppressive atmosphere and tries to fight his impulses and his carnal desires. He does this by dwelling in his mother’s house, hoping that she will control the voyeuristic, dirty lustful desire he is having about Marion.

Norman Bates: “People never really run away from anything. The rain didn’t last long, did it? You know what I think? I think that we’re all in our private traps, clamped in them, and none of us can ever get out. We scratch and we claw, but only at the air, only at each other, and for all of it, we never budge an inch.”

Marion Crane: “Sometimes we deliberately step into those traps.”

Norman Bates: “I was born in mine. I don’t mind it anymore.”

Psycho, is the first of Hitchcock’s films to break tradition from his usual cultured mystery/suspense tropes. He decided to present this narrative using a pallet of B&W to set up a different tonality. Without the use of the vivid colors that he often used with cinematographer Robert Burks. Psycho deals with a more graphic, monochromatic, psycho-sexual sickness. A sickness that erupts in unprecedented perversity and violence for the director. Hitchcock also kills off his heroine in the first 20 minutes of the film. Psycho, will forever be known for ‘the shower scene.’

It also brings to the screen one of THE most hauntingly intense scenes that will remain in the collective consciousness, for what it lacks in vivid bloodshed, it possesses an uncomfortable voyeuristic gaze that brings us into Norman’s mind with the twists and turns, it assaults us, because of its deeper brutality, a more queasy feeling of psychic angst and inverts our gaze, as Marion stares back at us with her lifeless eyes.

“It’s not like my mother is a maniac or a raving thing. She just goes a little mad sometimes. We all go a little mad sometimes. Haven’t you?”

In the 1950s into 1960 was a time when Americans were seeking out the American ideal, and cultural conformity. It was also a time when many audiences did not explore alternative sexualities and would have conflated homosexuality with a deviant and dangerous personality. Poole suggests “Hitchcock queers the image of sexual purity but reinforces naturalized heterosexuality as the film progresses… Hitchcock utilizes the Freudian explanation of homosexual development in his explanation of Norman’s development as a psychopathic killer despite Norman’s apparent heterosexual orientation.”

Hitchcock believed he made the perfect choice in casting Anthony Perkins as Norman Bates, the homicidal misfit who put on a dress and wig to embody his cruel mother. Norman became a serial killer with a fixation on his castrating mother because she dominated his life and turned him into a monster. Perkin’s himself soft-spoken, androgynous, even perhaps a slightly effete actor. Alfred Hitchcock envisioned another gay character whose inherent corrupted humanity stems from their conflict of being queer. By queer, it can refer to the process of shattering normalcy and vision from the perspective of a heternormative lens. Psycho takes the audience into a place of dis-ease, where seemingly ordinary people are capable of monstrous acts. If Hitchcock’s film is subverting the value of 1950s America, and the transgressive content of Psycho breaks from societal norms, then it can be read as a ‘queer’ film.

[voiceover in police custody, as Norman is thinking]” It’s sad, when a mother has to speak the words that condemn her own son. But I couldn’t allow them to believe that I would commit murder. They’ll put him away now, as I should have years ago. He was always bad, and in the end he intended to tell them I killed those girls and that man… as if I could do anything but just sit and stare, like one of his stuffed birds. They know I can’t move a finger, and I won’t. I’ll just sit here and be quiet, just in case they do… suspect me. They’re probably watching me. Well, let them. Let them see what kind of a person I am. I’m not even going to swat that fly. I hope they are watching… they’ll see. They’ll see and they’ll know, and they’ll say, “Why, she wouldn’t even harm a fly…”

As ‘Judith Butler’ Gender scholar, and ‘Hall’ speak of gender as performance, Hitchcock was clear in the way he developed Stephano and Bloch’s central characters in Psycho. In the final scene, the murderer is revealed and his inner monologues keep hidden, the source of a disturbed, untroubled ‘victim’ of faulty psychological development.’ The opening montage sets the scene for the dark thing that takes place inside ordinary towns and inside the minds of ordinary people. (source: Poole)

Psycho was a vehicle that queered what the public had come to expect from Hitchcock films, and,much like its real-life inspiration (Ed Gein), it queered the notion that America was a place where ‘normal,’ was defined as a quiet, safe, small town life, free from the darkness that lurds in modest roadside motels… With Psycho, Hitchcock abetted by Stefano’s script, would shock audiences with sexual innuendo, apparent nudity coupled with a sadistic stabbing scene. Perhaps most shocking of all, he would leave audiences wondering what might lie below the surface of family, friends neighbors and themselves.” (Jay Poole)

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Rebecca (1940), was not one of Hitchcock’s favorite films at all. Adapted from the Gothic novel by Daphne du Maurier, the sick soul here is a menacing lesbian. The formidable Mrs. Danvers ( played by the equally formidable Judith Anderson) is the head Matron of Manderley, living in the shadows of the former Mrs. de Winter. She is a lovesick sapphic with an unnourished desire for her dead mistress, Rebecca. Manderley itself is like a hollow mistress that consumes those inside its ominous hallways. ‘Danny’ resents the new Mrs. de Winter and in one revelatory scene taunts her (Joan Fontaine) trying to drive her to suicide through her cruel torments. She parades Rebecca’s lingerie with a lustful smirk on her diabolical face, running her hands under the sheer, delicate fabric as if she were fondling Rebecca herself.

Mrs. Danvers’ jealousy of Maxime de Winters’ new bride is driven by obsession, a lesbian-coded manifestation, one of jealousy and sexual desire. For Joan Fontaine’s character, Danvers reenacts through storytelling, all the attention she used to lavish on her beloved mistress, running her bath, brushing her hair, admiring the finery of her monogrammed pillowcases. Though Rebecca is only seen as the painting of an alluring woman her ghost haunts Manderley and the new Mrs. de Winter.

In Hollywood movies of the 1940s, coded lesbian characters were far less common than coded gay men. Portrayals of lesbians might define them as dangerous and threatening, as is the case with Mrs. Danvers. Mrs. Danvers implies that she had been married. This allowed Hitchcock's deniability against Judith Anderson’s lesbianism But Mrs. Danver’s eventual demise is brought about by her inability to accept Rebecca’s death or allow anyone to replace her love. And so her desire consumes her literally, in fire.

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The Lady Vanishes (1938)

When I first saw Charters (Basil Radford) and Caldicott (Naughton Wayne) in The Lady Vanishes my radar went off like a firehouse siren during the scene where they are both sitting up together in a small bed, one wearing the pajama tops and the other wearing the bottoms, (giving the appearance of both being naked in bed. It was such a marvelous coded moment and I knew they were a loving married gay couple. I found it so refreshing to see the British comedy duo playing a cheeky proper English couple who are cricket fanatics trying to get back to London while the Hitchcockian espionage is happening under their noses.

I enjoyed their farcical vignette about a pair of golfers, the one comedic entry in an otherwise moody collection of ghost stories- Dead of Night (1945) which like The Lady Vanishes, also stars Michael Redgrave.

Hitchcock excelled at getting fine performances from his supporting cast members. They usually are finely honed characterizations portrayed by perfectly cast actors, fascinating and funny, imbued with his dry British humor. Charters and Caldicott are wonderful examples. Played by Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne, two fine stage actors who reprised these characters in subsequent movies and BBC radio programs, Charters and Caldicott follow a long tradition of comedy duos of older men in British Music Hall, vaudeville and stage performances. Most audiences of the time, especially British audiences, would have interpreted their relationship simply as one between eccentric, middle-aged bachelors. (Badman and Hosier)

Though there are so many elements of the duo that is ambiguous, Hitchcock imbues Charters and Caldicott with an affection and closeness that reads like a positively coded gay pairing. The two aren’t played as stereotypically flamboyant or campy. Later in the movie, Charters and Caldicott are heroic in facing down danger, during an onslaught of gunfire by fascist spies.

Charters and Caldicott are stranded at the only hotel in a tiny alpine village. The desk clerk informs them that they must share the maid's room. When they meet the voluptuous Germanic blonde, they glance at each other with an expression that appears to be saying they’re not interested. When they follow the maid to her cramped room, Charter cracks “It’s a pity they couldn’t have given us one each” which could be interpreted as each having their own woman, to have a bit of a romp with. But Charters clarifies himself by saying he meant two rooms. One for the maid and one for them. A mainstream audience could read their conduct as two heterosexual British gentlemen, but if you read between the lines, it is suggested that they have no interest in women. In another scene when the maid enters their shared room without knocking, both men act startled by the intrusion. Caldicott moves in a way that conjures up the role of a protective mate. Once she leaves, Caldicott locks the door.

A master of queering the screen, Hitchcock plays with sexuality using his skillful methods of innuendo and artful suggestiveness "” In an already masterful way of blurring the lines of reality and adeptly flirting with transgression, Hitchcock's milieus are perfect playgrounds for coded gay characters.

Continue reading “Chapter 3 – Queers and Dykes in the Dark: Classic, Noir & Horror Cinema’s Coded Gay Characters:”

Chapter 2 – Queers and Dykes in the Dark: Classic, Noir & Horror Cinema’s Coded Gay Characters:

THE LAND OF MORAL AMBIGUITY: HOLLYWOOD & THE HAYS CODE

"Pictures shall not infer that low forms of sex Relationships are the accepted or common thing…"

Prior to the Production Code, LGBT characters were somewhat prevalent, if heavily stereotyped and exploited, in a number of major films. The 1920s especially were a time of shifting societal norms and expanding artistic experimentation. As women rode the first wave of feminism and prohibition was increasingly challenged, filmmakers began to expand their boundaries and feature more controversial plotlines. – Sophie Cleghorn

Pre-Code was a brief period in the American film industry between the dawn of talking pictures in 1929 and the formal enforcement in 1934 of the Motion Picture Production Code (MPPC) familiarly known as the Hays Code. Pre-Code was a glorious time in the history of cinema. It was during the Depression Era before the cultural politics of Clergy and reformer organizations came in and initiated the need for moral governance over the film industry. Their interference evolved into the Hays Code created to oversee silent and talking pictures.

In the late 1920s before the Hays Code, films began to speak becoming audible and more realistic as Hollywood recognized that many Americans knew all about sex. In the early era of talkies during the gutsy cinema of the Depression era, there was nothing stopping the studios from producing daring films. Hollywood movies weren’t afraid to show gay characters or reference their experiences. Ironically, queers were pretty visible onscreen at this time in American cinema. These characters left an impression on trade papers like Variety which called this phenomenon – “queer flashes.”

Also in the early twenties, there were notorious scandals on and off-screen. Hollywood’s moral ambiguity was literally in the clutches of the Hays Code which the MPPDA used to wage a moral battle against Hollywood that they perceived would eventually lead to cultural ruination. The priggish William Hays was a deacon in the Presbyterian church, a former chair of the Republican party, and postmaster general before he was picked to lead the war on decadence in the movie industry. William Hays was appointed chairman of the Motion Pictures Producers and Distributors Association (MPPDA) from the year it was established in 1922 to 1945, but the Hays Code was not overturned until 1968. Hays and his code regulated film content for nearly forty years. The little worm.

W.C.Fields and Franklin Pangborn- Never Give a Sucker an Even Break (1941)

The Hays Code became a series of self-imposed, perceived-to-be-moral guidelines that told filmmakers and the major studios what was permissible to do in their movies. The Code was established in 1930, and the MPPC set forth censorship guidelines that weren’t yet strictly enforced. And states had their own censorship boards and so their individual standards varied. Hays tried to contain his guidelines without the intrusion of government censorship, so he created his own Production Code that was for all intents and purposes optional for studios.

They felt that the liberal themes of films in the 1920s were contributing to the supposed debauchery infiltrating society. They championed government censorship as the solution to return society to its traditional moral standards (Mondello).

In June 1927, Hays publicized a list of cautionary rules. A construct of ‘Don'ts and Be Carefuls'. The document and empowering legislation spelled out guidelines for propriety on screen in classic Hollywood that became known as the Production Code. It was co-authored in 1929 by Martin J. Quigley, a prominent Catholic layman, editor of the journal Motion Picture Herald, and Reverend Daniel A. Lord, a Jesuit Priest. Their collaboration reflected a ‘Victorianism’ that would tint the freedom of Hollywood’s creative license. “The Production Code was a template for a theological takeover of American cinema.” “No picture should lower the moral standards of those who see it.”

“Just Ten of the Thous Shalt Nots”

Homosexuality

While the Code did not explicitly state that depictions of homosexuality were against the Code, the Code barred the depiction of any kind of sexual perversion or deviance, which homosexuality fell under at the time. -Wikipedia

The convict

"The courts of the land should not be presented as unjust"¦"

Prostitution and fallen women

"Brothels and houses of ill-fame are not proper locations for drama. They suggest to the average person at once sex sin, or they excite an unwholesome and morbid curiosity in the minds of youth"¦"

Bad girls

"Pictures shall not infer that low forms of sex relationship are the accepted or common thing"¦"

Musicals

"Dancing costumes cut to permit indecent actions or movements are wrong"¦ Dances suggesting or representing sexual actions or indecent passion are forbidden"¦"

Adultery and the sanctity of marriage

"Adultery as a subject should be avoided"¦ It is never a fit subject for comedy. Thru comedy of this sort, ridicule is thrown on the essential relationships of home and family and marriage, and illicit relationships are made to seem permissible, and either delightful or daring."

NOT TO MENTION: GOD COMPLEXES-

Boris Karloff is Dr. Henry Frankenstein’s creation. Make-up by Jack Pierce.

By the time the sequel Bride of Frankenstein was released in 1935, enforcement of the code was in full effect and Dr. Henry Frankenstein’s overt God complex was forbidden. In the first picture, however, when the creature was born, his mad scientist creator was free to proclaim “Now I know what it feels like to be a God.”

‘Don’ts’ included “profanity,” “sex hygiene,” “miscegenation,” and "ridicule of the clergy." There was a much longer list of "˜Be carefuls' which indicated it was offensive to “show sympathy for criminals,” “arson,” “surgical operations,” "excessive or lustful kissing” and of course “HOMOSEXUALITY.”

Hays appointed Colonel Jason S. Joy to be in charge of the supervisory agency, the Studio Relations Committee. Once the first talky The Jazz Singer (1927) starring Al Jolson was released a newly fired-up rebel cry was heard from the hoity-toity do-gooders who raised objections against Hollywood’s immorality. What was once suggestive in silent pictures was now committed to sound, with all its risque humor and wicked context.

In 1934 censorship was tightening its stranglehold. Under pressure from the Catholic Church and other religious groups, the Motion Picture Production Code made it so that any marginal gay characters became masked in innuendo, relying on queer symbolism instead. Several grassroots organizations were founded in order to pressure the film industry, the most influential of all was the Catholic Legion of Decency.

So, between the Code and state censorship boards, one might expect that films produced after 1930 would be exemplars of wholesomeness and purity. In practice, the men who enforced the Code on behalf of the MPPDA (Jason Joy and James Wingate) were wholly ineffectual, primarily due to the very small staffs they were allotted to keep up with the work of reviewing scripts, treatments and finished films while battling studios that weren't especially thrilled by the bottleneck caused by the whole operation. The combination of bureaucratic sclerosis and the economic, political and cultural crisis brought about by the Great Depression ushered in a vibrant era of filmmaking and the introduction of many stars whose personas would forever be rooted in their pre-Code films.- Mike Mashon

The Code set in place in 1930 was a turning point in the history of self-regulation. With the strict enforcement of the Production Code, they attempted to influence the discourse in American film without coming out and definitively stating which contexts were strictly forbidden. Instead, they issued phrases like "should be avoided" and "should not suggest." Though a variety of controversial topics weren’t vigorously banned by the Production Code, gay characters WERE strictly prohibited. 

The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934) directed by Alfred Hitchcock- Peter Lorre

When the Hays Code was adopted in 1930, they articulated that, “though regarding motion pictures primarily as entertainment without any explicit purpose of teaching or propaganda, they know that the motion picture within its own field of entertainment may be directly responsible for spiritual or moral progress, for higher types of social life, and for much correct thinking.”

When the MPPDA formally ratified The Code, they demanded that it be followed to the letter but it “lacked an effective enforcement mechanism” – and the studio heads openly defied its frame of mind and its puritanical spirit.

The movie studios had other pressing issues of concern. It was the Great Depression, and studios were barely making it, on the brink of ruin due to low ticket sales. They were quite ready to fight with states over censorship because sex and violence sell. They wanted to draw in audiences that would be titillated by gangsters, vamps, and racy subject matter. Popular musicals could entertain with disparaging racial clichés and glamorous, intoxicating imagery, with hints of queerness. You could also watch languid prostitutes on screen — everyone seems to long for Shanghai Lil, in the film that has it all, Footlight Parade (1933)

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Filmmakers tried to switch around controversial subject matter that would not only push the boundaries but would promote ticket sales, with films that would attract a more sophisticated audience. Breen perceived these films to be less ‘dangerous’ a word he often used. They focused on the ‘gangster’ film with its violent content, and when they put their foot on that genre’s neck, Hollywood rolled out the ‘fallen woman‘ films. They tried very hard to get around the scrutiny and so they delved into making horror pictures, and racy comedies. These fare better as they fell under the heading of being ‘unrealistic’ which rendered them as innocuous material to the censors.

During the Great Depression, movies were an escape for audiences in dire need of distraction. The morally-charged stranglehold that was beginning to challenge filmmakers forced them to experiment with movies that were audacious and candid in different ways. Pre-Code actually challenged audiences to watch real-life issues on screen. Pre-Code cinema offered some titillating truths coming out of the dream factory. Depression-era cinema exhibited gay characters, but generally in small parts and often used for comic purposes that managed to cue audiences in, with roles that were codified and readable as queer. ‘Queerness’ was railed against because it subverted traditional masculinity which was under attack by the new socioeconomic crisis in the country. Yet somehow, Hollywood found it to be a viable trigger for ideological gossip.

These films illustrated narratives that were thought-provoking, worldly, and subversive. Movies dealt frankly or were suggestive of sexual innuendo, sexual relationships between races, mild profanity, drug use, promiscuity, prostitution, infidelity, abortion, intense violence, and of course, homosexuality.

William Wellman’s Safe in Hell (1931) stars Dorothy Mackaill as a call girl in hiding. Prostitution is a no no!

Filmmakers took risks delivering a portrait of America with a punishing realism, and creative freedom to portray taboo themes like crime (gangs and guns, violence), and social dilemmas (drug abuse, poverty, and political unrest). And sexual relationships (adultery, promiscuity, deviance = homosexuality). In the 1930s filmmakers also sought to stir up controversy by screening queer characters, in order to shock audiences and drive up their ticket sales. As a result, movies became more lewd, ruthless, and vicious between 1930 and 1934. And Hollywood was its MOST queer from 1932-1934.

Yet during the silent era to the mid-thirties, gay characters were illustrated as stereotypes showcasing the popular tropes established by conventional hetero-normative gender bias. These archetypes were styled to be gender non-conformists. Queer men were fussy, effeminate, and flamboyant. With high-pitched voices, the air under their feet, and waving hands. Essentially, ‘fairies’ were deployed as comic relief on the periphery of the drama. Real-life queers of the Depression era and later periods were exposed to cinematic images, the vast majority being caricatured in which gays and lesbians were often presented as targets of ridicule and contempt for their divine decadence. ‘Entertainers play with gender ambiguity in Broadway thru a Keyhole (1933).‘ (Lugowski)

Lesbians were at the other end of the spectrum. They were ‘masculine,’ demonstrating deep voices, cross-dressing in male attire, and were installed in male-dominated professions. They were often invalidated by the straight male characters and were either played for the uncomfortable humor or shown as baffling to men. The PCA in its Hollywood’s Movie Commandments specified that there could be no comic characters “introduced into a screenplay pantomiming a pervert.” (Lugowski)

Gender Reversals, Queerness, and a Nation in Crisis.–

In Michael Curtiz’s The Strange Love of Molly Louvain (1932) Suddenly, queer imagery in film, typically in the form of comical representations of gay men, lesbians, and ambiguous sexuality, did not seem so funny any-more, least of all to those charged with applying Hollywood’s Production Code to film content. By “queer” imagery, I am focusing particularly on situations, lines of dialogue, and characters that represent behavior coded, according to widely accepted stereotypes, as cross-gendered in nature. As played by such prominent and well-established supporting comedy character actors as Franklin Pangborn, Edward Everett Horton, Grady Sutton, Erik Rhodes, Eric Blore, and Ernest Truex, queer men tended to appear as one of two types.

The queer in his more subdued form appears as the dithering, asexual “sissy,” sometimes befuddled, incompetent,and, if married, very henpecked (Horton), and sometimes fussy and officious (Pangborn). Pangborn, however, was one of the actors who (along with the unsung likes of Tyrell Davis and Tyler Brooke) also played or suggested the other type, the more outrageous “pansy,” an extremely effeminate boulevardier-type sporting lip-stick, rouge, a trim mustache and hairstyle, and an equally trim suit, incomplete without a boutonniere. Although a number of actors played or were even typecast in such roles, one generally doesn’t find a circle of prominent supporting actresses whose personas seemed designed to connote lesbianism (the closest, perhaps, is Cecil Cunningham) lesbian representation occurs frequently as well, and in perhaps a greater range of gradations. At her most overt, the lesbian was clad in a mannishly tailored suit (often a tuxedo), her hair slicked back or cut in a short bob. She sometimes sported a monocle and cigarette holder (or cigar!) and invariably possessed a deep alto voice and a haughty, aggressive attitude toward men, work, or any business at hand. Objections arose because she seemed to usurp male privilege; perhaps the pansy seemed to give it up. -David M.Lugowski: Queering the (New) Deal-Lesbian and Gay Representation and the Depression-Era Cultural Politics of Hollywood’s Production Code

Filmmakers were encouraged not to promote lifestyles of a ‘morally questionable’ nature, so queers remained as humorous detours away from the central story. It was a subtle defiance that filmmakers were determined to feature queer characters in their films in spite of the ban. Because of the threat of boycotts, this created some maneuvering around the scrutiny. Queer identities were not portrayed with depth or realism, this marginalized group was relegated to one-dimensional stereotypes. They were never shown to be in romantic relationships and filmmakers relied on visual cues to signal the character’s identity.

Censors at the PCA, for example, were very worried about the three female characters in William Dieterle’s Dr. Monica (1934) starring Kay Francis. The film is the story of three women, an alcoholic, a nymphomaniac, and a lesbian. In October 1935, Joseph Breen wrote a letter to RKO’s head B.B. Kahane concerned about Follow the Fleet (1936) starring Fred Astaire who gives a dance lesson to all male sailors. “We are assuming of course that you will exercise your usual good taste in this scene of the sailors learning to dance. There will be no attempt to inject any ‘pansy’ humor into the scene.”

Due to a new, stricter Motion Picture Production Code, gays were being swept under the rug in movies. In the late 1930s and 1940s the only way to circumvent the Code was by painting homosexuals as cold-hearted villains (The Celluloid Closet). Now it appeared that gays were committing terrible crimes because of their sexual orientation, implying that homosexuality leads to insanity. In a society where being homosexual was synonymous with being sinful, it is no surprise that Hollywood made the leap to correlating a homosexual orientation with malicious crimes and wicked urges (Weir).

Alfred Hitchcock is a visual magician who rolls out the answers gradually while deconstructing what is explicit in the narrative. He is one of the most measured auteurs, whose eye for detail links each scene together like a skillful puzzle. He has been studied, tributed, and –in my opinion–unsuccessfully imitated. Rigid to conform, he danced around the Hays Code like a cunning acrobat indulging his vision while deflecting the lax regulations. There are arguments that Hitchcock insinuated homophobic messages in some of his films. The queer characters were all deviants and psychopathic predators, who were the ones responsible for some of the most heinous murders on screen. For example, in his film Rope (1948) the two Nietzschian murderers are intellectual companions who get off on trying to perpetrate the perfect murder. They exhibit a romantic friendship with no sexual contact on the screen. Yet there are cues that they are sexually aroused by each other’s mutual pleasure at killing a young boy. The Hays Code inhibited the depiction of a queer couple so Hitchcock had to subtly suggest their sexual relationship by dropping metaphors and visual clues. Though, it might be interpreted through a homophobic lens, and their homosexuality might be at the core of their cruel and immoral nature.

According to David Greven, Hitchcock’s homophelia ‘was through a larger conflict that Hitchcock’s cinema that filmmakers conducted their investigation of American masculinity, one that focused on fissures and failures. Homosexuality emerged as representative of these and also as potential new direction for American masculinity to take, not without serious risk but also treated with surprising, fascinated interest… Hitchcock’s radical de-centering of heterosexual male dominance, devising contemporary narratives of heterosexual male ambivalence that allowed for, at times depended on, an investment in same-sex desire as well as an awareness of its dangerous, pernicious seductions. Homophobia in both Hitchcock and the New Hollywood’s informed by an attendant fascination with the homoerotic that emerges from scenes of gender crisis and disorganization that are rife in both the Cold War and New Hollywood eras. 

Any illicit sexual behavior on screen considered perverse would be demonized and exploited as immoral. Queers were shown as villainous, dangerous deviants who were fated for ruination and/or death.

There were several broad categories the Code was not vague about. Any movies depicting criminality had to essentially illustrate that there would be consequences. The message was clear, any flagrant criminal behavior is abhorrent and audiences should NOT feel sympathy, primarily through the implicit edict of “compensating moral values.”

Authority figures had to be treated with respect, and the clergy could not be portrayed as comic characters or villains. Under some circumstances, politicians, police officers, and judges could be villains, as long as it was clear that those individuals portrayed as villains were the exceptions to the rule.

Clearly, there were some productive strategies for circumventing the Motion Picture Production Code. They enabled characters that performed behind the veil, under the radar of social acceptability, while dancing a step closer to the fringe. It allowed for ‘queering the screen’. I find it feasible to consider how Alexander Doty points out that ‘queering’ something implies that you are taking a thing that is straight and doing something to it. Rather it should be considered that it’s less about co-opting or subverting films – making things queer, and more about how something might be understood as queer.

It might be easy to read Zasu Pitt’s and Thelma Todd’s relationship, the brilliantly paired comedy twosome, as lovers. While they perform humorous heterosexual man-hunting, they sure seem to be most interested in each other and sure look adorable in their pajamas! I wonder, as Big Daddy says if there’s ‘something missing here’. Below, they are in the film short directed by Hal Roach – On The Loose 1931, with bobbed hair, leaning into each other in bed together, looking awfully intimate.

To be ‘queer’ is also to deconstruct existing norms and ‘destabilize’ them, making it harder to define, so that it is a clear picture of non-normative straight masculinity/femininity.

What was perceptible to those ‘in the life’ were expressions, and gestures, of the term often used by the Hays Code, ‘deviancy.’ One of the things that the Code banned in Clause 6 Section 2 on "Sex" was that "sex perversion or any inference to it is forbidden."

Not that films during the reign of the Code were ripe with queer love stories, of course. There were none to be found beyond the foreign offerings of Oswald’s Different From the Others and Mädchen in Uniform. The most prevalent allusion to being gay was the flamboyant man who was the ambiguous bachelor or fussy asexual husband. If there was anything close to a butch woman, she could be an earthy farmer’s wife, a Marjorie Main or Patsy Kelly type (Both lesbians in real life). A tough-as-nails prison matron, a tyrannical madame, or a risque nightclub owner. Perhaps she’s an embittered heavy drinker or just one of the guys who is a faithful friend to the female lead. Maybe she never gets the guy or hasn’t met the right man. Perhaps she was married to a no-good bum and is off men for good!.. And just sometimes, sometimes it’s because… well some of us would know why!

Thelma Todd joined up with Patsy Kelly in comedy series. Here’s a lobby card for their Babes in the Goods. The two became very good friends during their collaboration.

Patsy Kelly had started in Vaudeville and appeared in Wonder Bar 1931 centered around a Parisian club. Kelly played Elektra Pivonaka and sang two lively songs.

She is known for her ballsy, straight-forward, no-nonsense persona, be it her tough-as-nails nurse Mac in Sam Fuller’s The Naked Kiss (1964) or as Laura-Louise, attending to Rosemary (Mia Farrow) in Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby (1968). Kelly played very non-feminine roles, injecting a bit of her ‘in the life’ energy into the characters in every one of her roles. More often than not she had an unglamorous reputation as a funny spunky, brassy, wise-cracking gal who played a lot of maids. She was outspoken about being an uncloseted lesbian, which hurt her movie career in the 1940s. But she had been a very successful actress on Broadway, returning to the stage in 1971 winning a Tony Award for No, No Nanette and Irene.

In director/screenwriter Sam Fuller’s sensationalist The Naked Kiss (1964), Patsy Kelly plays Mac the nurse, a hard-edged pussy cat. A no-nonsense nurse who lives for helping children with disabilities, but there is no visible sign that she has the slightest interest in men, aside from a smart-alecky comment about Grant bringing her back a man from Europe. Kelly might have wanted her role as an independent woman with a more offbeat way of stating that she is a tough dyke and expected Fuller to write her into the script that way. Knowing Kelly that’s a good assumption. The film is audacious in its scope for dealing with more than one theme, as taboo as prostitution, abortion, and pedophilia.

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The Catholic Legion of Decency used their influence to label gays as ‘sexual deviants’, not be depicted on screen. ‘Deviancy’ was used to refer to any behavior deviating from what was perceived to be normal in terms of romance, sex, and gender. Hays even ordered all ‘Nance’ characters to be removed from screenplays.

The Federation of Women’s Clubs and the Hays Code tried to make symbolic gestures to maintain decency in films. The Legion of Decency was getting pressure from the Catholic Church. So in 1934 came up with A-acceptable B-Morally Objectionable and C-Condemned. Hollywood promised to observe the rules. The various subject matter was restricted to screen-open mouth kissing, lustful embraces, sex perversion, seduction, rape, abortion, prostitution, white slavery, nudity, obscenity, and profanity.

But all this unsolicited attention caused the studios to be watchful of their off-screen personnel, and they also had to be certain that the Los Angeles Police Department received payoffs to keep their mouths shut. Though the lurid and shocking subject matter was no longer tolerated on screen, the studios tried to continue to release their films without the intrusion of the Hays Office, even though from a commercial standpoint, sex sells.

Warner Bros.’ lack of cooperation with the Code until the bitter end and how Paramount, which was cooperative under B. P. Schulberg, decided to be “as daring as possible” under Emmanuel Cohen in 1932 and 1933. At MGM, Irving Thalberg’s resistance only really ended with his heart attack and journey abroad to recover in 1933. As James Wingate, Breen’s SRC predecessor, put things that same year: (Lugowski)

In 1934 Jack Warner ignored Breen’s letter and phone calls about a scene in Wonder Bar (1934) that explicitly demonstrates homoerotic desire. In it, one man cuts in to dance with another man, interrupting a woman who is dancing with her male partner. “May I cut in?”  she responds, “Why certainly,” as the man’s suitor grabs her chaperone to dance instead. The film stars Al Jolson who exclaims, “Boys will be boys!” Breen would later write, “It is quite evident that the gentleman [Warner] is giving me the runaround. He evidently thinks that this is the smart thing to do.” Wonder Bar may have added a flash of queer diversion as part of the entertainment, but it is an incredibly offensive and racist film using a cast who are in Black face.

During the ongoing Depression era, sissy and lesbian characters of the period continued to be screened as effeminate and mannish with one change. They became progressively sexualized between 1933-34. As the Depression moved forward, the Code needed to establish a “suitable” masculinity in film that would satisfy the morality police. They wanted this accepted masculinity to mirror the public art imagery that was now being federally funded by the New Deal in the mid-and late 1930s.

Before 1934 the studios were able to ignore the Code’s denouncement and endeavor to censor the movie industry but Hollywood filmmakers could no longer disregard the regulations issued by the Hays Code. The Legion of Decency forced the MPPDA to assert itself with the Production Code and formed a new agency, the Production Code Administration (PCA). The Hays Code was formed in 1930 but it only began to have a profound impact on Hollywood when the Production Code Administration (PCA) began strictly enforcing it in 1934. The crusade to save America’s purity and squash the filth mongers began a cultural war.

It was a system of moral oversight, conservatives lobbied to enforce, using the PCA to compel the industry to drastically adhere to it. PCA is strongest in explaining how the Code tried to at once repress and enable discourse to appeal to the broadest possible spectrum of viewers and to offend the fewest. (Lugowski)

And in 1937, the Production Code Administration (PCA), handed down Hollywood’s Movie Commandments that decried “No hint of sex perversion may be introduced into a screen story. The characterization of a man as effeminate, or a woman as grossly masculine would be absolutely forbidden for screen portrayal.”

The Code was detailed in two parts that reflected the foundation of Catholic principles. The moral vision and "particular applications a precise listing of forbidden material.”

The code was divided into two parts. The first was a set of “general principles” which prohibited a picture from “lowering the moral standards of those who see it”, so as not to wrongly influence a specific audience of views including, women, children, lower-class, and those of "susceptible" minds, called for depictions of the “correct standards of life”, and lastly forbade a picture to show any sort of ridicule towards a law or “creating sympathy for its violation.

The second part of the Code was a set of “particular applications”, which was an exacting list of items that could not be depicted. Some restrictions, such as the ban on homosexuality or on the use of specific curse words, were never directly mentioned, but were assumed to be understood without clear demarcation. Homosexuals were de facto included under the proscription of sex perversion.” — Wikipedia

The second part of the Code was a ban on homosexuality. Though it was not specifically spelled out, queers were the subject under review of ‘sex perversion.’ Though the Hays office would not stand for "more than a dash of lavender" as long as the representation (especially a non-desirable depiction of homosexuality) was fleeting and incidental. Thus, “Pansy comedy" was tolerable in Pre-Code Hollywood. "Despite the watchful eyes of the Hays Office, the trade paper Variety remarked that Hollywood continued what was called "queer flashes" and “mauve characters" who sashayed through Cavalcade 1933, Our Betters 1932, and Sailor's Luck 1932.

The industry moguls and business offices finally had to follow the rules, clean up the ‘sinful’ screen and adopt a symbol of moral righteousness, that came along with a seal. The Code would be certified by a Code Seal printed on the lobby cards of each Hollywood film. And the seal would be an emblem that would appear on the motion pictures themselves. Any film without a Code Seal would be fined $25,000.

After some revisions, they agreed to the stipulations of the Code. … negotiated cuts from films and there were definite"”albeit loose"”constraints, a significant … against homosexuals, all in clear violation of the Hollywood Production Code.

Any sexual act considered perverted, including any suggestion of same sex relationships, sex, or romance, was ruled out.

Thus, during the Golden Age of Hollywood, the PCA scrutinized and censored, everything coming out of Hollywood and put its seal on each movie released. The Hollywood executives preferred to call it “self-regulation” and feared that censorship by the PCA would be even worse if they tampered with the creative ‘source’ of their product. Because of the studios’ defiance, Roman Catholics formed the National Legion of Decency, which became an influential group that would put Hollywood’s transgressions through the ordeal, of boycotts, picketing theaters, urging Catholics not to patronize these immoral movies or fall “under the pain of sin”, being met by hoards of angry protestors at the gates of the studio. Now religious groups and other moral traditionalists began a warlike campaign for the government to regulate what was shown on the screen.

Mae West: She Done Him Wrong 1933

Also, government officials were bent on making gay people invisible from cinematic narratives and the United States Supreme Court handed down the ruling that filmmakers were not protected by the First Amendment in the matter of free speech. They considered Hollywood to be a powerful mechanism that to exploit ‘sinful’ behavior on the screen and influence American audiences. This laid the groundwork for local governments that could weigh in and ban films from their theaters if they considered them immoral. Hollywood could not afford to lose money at the box office from governmental authorities, by negative publicity, or from the threatening boycotts by rabid church groups.

Motion pictures could be regulated and run out of town by cities, states, and by ominous extension, the federal government.

“After all, censorship had been a fact of creative and commercial life for motion picture producers from the very birth of the medium, when even the modest osculations of the middle-aged lovebirds in Thomas Edison's The Kiss (1896) scandalized cadres of (literally) Victorian ministers, matrons, and other variants of a sour-faced species known as the “bluenose.” By common consent, the artistically vital and culturally disruptive spectacle of the motion picture – an entertainment accessible to all levels of society and degrees of moral temperament, including unassimilated immigrants,impressionable juveniles, and other menacing types – required editorial supervision from more mature, pious, and usually Protestant sensibilities” -from Archives Unbound

Hollywood was in the grip of the Code that saw the ‘dream factory’ movie machine as a Hollywood Babylon. While the powers that be were busy policing the murmuration of taboos, Pre-Code was a brief moment in history, a fruitful period between 1929 to 1934. Hays then appointed someone who could intercede between studio moguls and anti-Hollywood groups, Joseph I. Breen. “The vulgar, the cheap, and the tawdry is out!”

The PCA had been known as the Hays Office but to those in Hollywood, once the oversight became an operation with teeth, it became known as the Breen Office. Breen came in to take over the weak Studio Relations Committee (SRC). The Code consisted of thirty-six rules that informed Hollywood filmmakers to limit the representation of or normalization of subject matter considered by religious groups to be “unsavory or morally corrupt.” The SRC and the PCA were the inner mechanisms within the film industry, shaping the content of the film and heading off any ethical problems the film might encounter before it reached the local censors.

Dorothy Mackaill’s Safe in Hell (1931)

Many scenarios disappeared from the movies by mid-1934: for example, audiences would no longer see women’s navels, couples laying in bed together, murderers going unpunished, an illustration of a bedroom that isn’t merely recognized as a bed chamber. The normalization of drug use, the glamourization of criminal behavior, or not following the law, and of course any overtly revealed gay or lesbian character. After 1934, women would not be sporting short haircuts and tailored suits, confidently smoking cigars. Men toned down the gushy gestures that would be interpreted as flamboyant. Gay men and women were transformed into dowdy spinsters and high-strung bachelors.

What we started to see was an ambiguity, a narrative uncertainty that took the burden of responsibility off of the filmmakers and dropped the perception of the content into the laps of the audience. Since the Code asserted that no picture should lower the moral standards of those who saw it, it was a law that bound Hollywood’s accountability for their plots. Ruth Vasey calls the antithesis of this “the principle of deniability” which refers to the ambiguity of the textual vaguery that shifted the message to the individual spectator. Lugowski cites Lea Jacobs, “Under the Code ‘offensive ideas could survive at the price of an instability of meaning… There was constant negotiation about how explicit films could be and by what means (through the image, sound, language) offensive ideas could find representation.” The studios would have to come up with a structure of ‘representational conventions’, that could be understood by a more sophisticated audience yet would fly over the heads of more inexperienced spectatorship. Though producers felt the sharp sting of the Code as a mechanism of restraint, in terms of ‘queerness’ on screen, film studios could use the leverage of deniability to argue about the interpretation of certain scenes.

Once the limits of explicit “sophistication” had been established, the production industry had to find ways of appealing to both “innocent” and “sophisticated” sensibilities in the same object without transgressing the boundaries of public acceptability. This involved devising systems and codes of representation in which “innocence” was inscribed into the text while “sophisticated” viewers were able to “read into” movies whatever meanings they were pleased to find, so long as producers could use the Production Code to deny that they had put them there. Much of the work of self-regulation lay in the maintenance of this system of conventions, and as such, it operated, however perversely, as an enabling mechanism at the same time that it was a repressive one.-(Documents from the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America, Inc., 1922 – 1939)

… by assuming that the social crisis over cinematic representation in the early 1930s was caused by the content of motion pictures. The institution of censorship in Hollywood was not primarily about controlling the content of movies at the level of forbidden words or actions or inhibiting the freedom of expression of individual producers. Rather, it was about the cultural function of entertainment and the possession of cultural power. (Tino Balio: Grand Design Hollywood as a Modern Business Enterprise 1930-1939)

Geoff Shurlock was appointed as acting director of the Production Code in the 1940s and as permanent director in 1954. Over the years, Shurlock would straddle the conflict, appeasing both movie producers, and morality mongers trying to persuade the Association Board that introducing more liberal thinking could protect the PCA from fading away. There were attempts to ease up on the Code, in 1954 he introduced an amendment that would eliminate various taboos, for instance, miscegenation, liquor, and some profane words, but producers felt that there weren’t enough considerations to the amendment and the Catholic Legion of Decency felt that even that much went too far. Shurlock had a tough time making everyone happy.

The 1950s witnessed a weakening of the Production Code to restrict specific representations such as adultery, prostitution, and miscegenation. By the beginning of the 1960s, the only specific restriction left was homosexuality = “sex perversion.”

In the 1960s, filmmakers pressured the Production Code Administration. In the fall of 1961, two films went into production that would deal with homosexual subject matter. William Wyler, who had initially directed Miriam Hopkins and Merle Oberon in These Three (1936), revealed that he was working on a more faithful treatment of Lillian Hellman’s play The Children’s Hour; that dealt overtly with the love that dare not speak it’s named. Around the same time director Otto Preminger began to adapt Allen Drury’s political novel Advise and Consent 1962, which delves into the lives of Senatorial candidates that uncovers controversial secrets, including Don Murray’s homosexual encounter.

Throughout Preminger’s career, he challenged the restrictions of the Code and eventually influenced their decision to allow homosexuality to be shown on screen. Also fighting to change the stifling rules was Arthur Krim, president of United Artists, who threatened to ignore the Code and release the film without the mandatory “seal of approval” forcing them to amend it’s ideological strangle hold.

On October 3, 1961, the Production Code Administration backed off: “In keeping with the culture, the mores and values of our time, homosexuality and other sexual aberrations may now be treated with care, discretion, and restraint.”

In order to maintain control of the Administration’s power at least in terms of how homosexuals were portrayed on film, they insisted that the subject be infused with medical overtones, to show it as an ‘illness’. Sympathy or illness in psychological terms, were two key factors. The Code’s changed the use of the word “sex perversion” and replaced it with “homosexuality.”

Don Murray –gay bar scene in Advise and Consent 1962

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Another interesting shift was that they owned up to the fact that “mores and values of our time” were changing whether they liked it or not, people were becoming more in touch with the freedom to express their sexuality, society was becoming more permissive, the love generation was upon them and sexual representation was a fearless exploration reflected by a new generation of filmgoers.

Otto Preminger was the only major producer able to successfully release films without the Production Code’s Seal of Approval. He defied the Code (Hadleigh) with movies like Advise and Consent (1961) The Man with Golden Arm (1955) Anatomy of a Murder (1959) Wendell Mayes said “Look at the record–you’ll discover that many of the changes in the Code were a result of Otto Preminger breaking the rules”

Though the Code had been revised in 1961 to open up the door for portrayals of gays on screen, the sissy effete and predatory dyke took on a more sinister role. Because they had been hidden in plain sight using symbology that hinted at either failed masculinity or women performing masculinity. When the MPPA rating system was established in 1968 gays on screen were starting to kick the doors open but what was awaiting them was an even crueler denouement than during the reign of the Code. Queers were now portrayed as suicidal, predatory, or homicidal maniacs. And much like the coded gay characters under the Production Code, things moved very slowly in terms of progress for positive representations of being ‘queer.’

Dirk Bogarde and Dennis Price in Basil Dearden’s brave film Victim (1961)

Between January and June 1962, five films were released that dealt with homosexuality, almost as many as in the previous three decades. One did not receive a seal of approval from the Production Code Administration but was released nonetheless. Even without the seal of approval, British director, Basil Dearden’s Victim (1961) was reviewed in all the publications being considered. The liberal Catholic magazine Commonweal even disagreed with the Production Code Administration’s claim that the film made pleas ‘for social acceptance of the homosexual.’ “63 Still, the consensus among reviewers was that of the Production Code Administration and society at large: films should not and, for the most part, did not condone homosexuality. (Noriega)

This ban applied to all characters attracted to the same gender or characters who differed in their gender presentation or identity. While nudity and violence were quickly reintegrated into film canon following the abandonment of the Production Code, LGBT characters remained taboo. For decades after LGBT characters were allowed to appear in films, their sexuality and gender was shrouded in thinly-veiled innuendos and visual cues. If a character was to be openly same-gender attracted or transgender, they would be gruesomely killed or presented as morally corrupted. (Cleghorn)

Like the Code’s authors, film critics tend to examine the film itself, and not the discursive acts that surround a film and play a sometimes central role shaping its meaning(s). Contemporary gay and lesbian film criticism of Production Code era films operates on the same principle, with the added limitations that historical evidence and homosexual “images” censored. Thus, in order to ensure “the survival of subcultural identity within an oppressive society,” gay and lesbian film critics have employed a wide range of interpretive strategies to recuperate a history of homosexual images from the censored screen. The emphasis, therefore, has been on “subtexting” censored films from a singular presentist perspective. (Sophie Cleghorn)

Sources:

*Mike Mashon & James Bell for Pre-Code Hollywood Before the Censors-BFI  Sight & Sound Magazine (April 2019)

*Archives Unbound (1http://gdc.gale.com/archivesunbound/)

*Sophie Cleghorn: The Hollywood Production Code of 1930 and LGBT Characters.

*Wikipedia-Pre-Code

*David Lugowski-Queering the (New) Deal)

*Chon Noriega

During the period of Pre-Code, queer humor appeared in films such as Just Imagine (1930) and The Warrior’s Husband (1933). The male characters were feminized because of their affinity for writing poetry. This asserted that they must be queer.

The Warrior’s Husband directed by Walter Lang, is a film primarily cast with women. Yet the air of queerness permeates throughout because the women, featuring a butch Queen, are Amazons. Gender is inverted and several other female rulers cross-dress and exude a lesbian vibe. It is inhabited by independent women and swishy men who camped it up as ‘queens’ amusing themselves by flirting with all the good-looking men.

The Warrior’s Husband image courtesy Peplums Blogspot.com

Like so much self deemed culturally aberrant, the homosexual appears with greater frequency and readier acceptance in Pre-Code Hollywood cinema "The thirties was surprisingly full of fruity character comedians and gravel-voice bulldyke character comediennes" film critic Andrew Sarris observed in his touchstone study The American Cinema "but it was always played so straight that when ((character actors) Franklin Pangborn or Cecil Cunningham went into their routines, it was possible to laugh without being too sophisticated." Maybe in the later thirties the homosexual was played straight but in the Pre-Code era, he and she was playing queer. No sophistication was needed to read the same sex orientations as gender disorientations.- Pre-Code Hollywood; Sex, Immorality and Insurrection in American Cinema 1930-1934 by Thomas Doherty.

Miriam Hopkins got the part of free-spirited Gilda in Ernst Lubitsch’s Design for Living 1933. This original Noël Coward play actually featured a Ménage à Trois between the three Bohemian lovebirds in Paris in the decadent thirties. The film also starred Gary Cooper as artist George Cooper and Fredric March as playwright Tom Chambers. The liberated Gilda becomes the girl both men fall in love with. The three make a pact to keep their mutual attractions platonic, but that doesn’t last too long, and they each begin a sexual relationship. When George comes back from a trip to Nice, he finds that Tom has taken up with Gilda. “I can’t believe I loved you both.”

Ben Hecht's screenplay didn’t have a trace of any of Coward’s romantic relationship between George and Tom. Ernst Lubitsch, known for his sophisticated style, directed memorable witty interactions between all four players. Edward Everett Horton as Max Plunkett plays Miriam's bland suitor. Horton is, as usual, a whimsical idiosyncratic delight to watch. And Franklin Pangborn Mr. Douglas, Theatrical Producer is a perfect theatrical queen who is thoroughly annoyed when Gilda approaches him in the restaurant about Tom’s (Fredric March) play “Good Night Bassington”, as she leaves him with this thought, “There, read it, I’m sure you’ll adore it, it’s a woman’s play…”

Al Jolson “Boys will be boys” Wonder Bar (1934)

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Any portrayal of on-screen “sex perversion” or homosexuality, even those connected with various tropes of ‘deviant’ sexual behavior were restricted after the enforcement of the Production Code in 1934.

Lending the Code moral authority even within the limits of pure love, asserted the Code delicately certain facts have been universally regarded by lawmakers as outside the limits of safe presentation Father Lord and Mr. Quigley saw no need to defile the document by typesetting long lists of "pointed profanity" or "vulgar expressions" Likewise, the prohibition against homosexuality dared not speak the name, but it didn't need to spell it out. "Impure Love" the love which society has always regarded as wrong and which has been named by divine law"¦ must not be presented as attractive or beautiful."-Pre-Code Hollywood; Sex, Immorality and Insurrection in American Cinema 1930-1934 by Thomas Doherty.

Different From the Others (1919) Conrad Veidt and Fritz Schulz two musicians in love — during the period of Pre-Code.

But, outside of the United States, films were a little more adventurous. Austrian director Richard Oswald’s film bravely shows two men in love. The “third sex” was eventually mocked. One of the earliest films to feature two men in love was the 1919 silent film from Germany,  Different From the Others. Director Richard Oswald's story of two male musicians in love had a typical unhappy ending, but it depicted gay people in a positive light. The film condemned the German law known as Paragraph 175, which outlawed gay behavior. Different Than the Others was censored soon after it was released. Starring Conrad Veidt it is considered the first pro-gay film.

Joseph Breen viewed any meaningful treatment of queer cinema as perverted. Conrad Veidt also gave an emotionally evocative role in The Man Who Laughs 1928, playing a violinist who falls for his student and is then blackmailed for it. The rising Nazi party in Germany attempted to erase these films from the screen, and this made Oswald flee to America.

But, the Hays Code made certain that no films of this type would be seen in the United States. Even books and plays with gay, lesbian, or bisexual narratives were reworked and any content related to the subject was erased in order to meet the social code of the time.

Other non-American films included Dreyer’s Michael (1924) and Mädchen in Uniform (1931) directed by Leontine Sagan and again in (1958) with Lilli Palmer as Fräulein Elisabeth von Bernburg and Romy Schneider as Manuela von Meinhardis. And Viktor Und Viktoria (1933) directed by Reinhold Schünzel.

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Mädchen in Uniform (1931) was directed by Leotine Sagan, and starred Dorothea Wieck and Hertha Thiele.

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William Dieterle’s Pre-Code German film Sex in Chains (1928) stars the director as Franz Sommer a man sent to prison for manslaughter who, though longing for his wife, develops a close relationship with his cellmate. A fellow inmate informs Franz that he’s “lived to see someone unman himself, just so he could finally sleep.”

In 1927, during the Pre-Code period, director William Wellman’s Wings won an Academy Award for Best Picture, and it also depicted the first gay kiss between two men in American cinema.

Wings follows two Air Force pilots in World War I, Jack (Charles ‘Buddy’ Rogers and Dave (Richard Arlen) who at first rivals for the affections of the beautiful Mary (Clara Bow) before they discover the underlying love they begin to feel for each other. During a boxing match at training camp gets too rough and Jack knocks Dave bloody and silly. Dave gazes up at Jack with an epiphany and the two walk off arm and arm as close ‘buddies’. The relationship is referred to as friendship, but the film paints a picture of two men falling in love.

Dave is mortally wounded in combat at the end of the picture, Jack embraces his dying ‘friend’ with a tender yet impassioned kiss while Mary looks on, framed with her on the outside looking in. Wellman humanizes the men's close relationship in this scene when Jack leans into Dave to embrace him as he dies. He lets him know that nothing has meant more to him than their relationship. The moment feels sympathetic instead of exploitative, yet he mourns Dave’s death. And though it is tinged with homoerotic elements, the case can always be made that it is a story about war, which brought two men closer together.

The Knocking Knees dance. Horton’s homosexuality – comedic, subtle, and acceptable in The Gay Divorcee (1934)

In The Gay Divorcee (1934) crossing the threshold is the archetypal ‘Sissy’, Edward Everett Horton. Marginalized audiences were looking to the movies for any indication of the familiar, any little crumbs left as a trail to be picked up. For instance, there is a moment in Johnny Guitar, the fiercely burning with sensual brawn, Joan Crawford. Bigger than life up on that screen, androgynous in her black cowboy shirt, strides down the stairs, gun in her holster waiting to confront coded dyke, Mercedes McCambridge. Many women’s chests, mine included, heaved a little with delight. That flutter of excitement hit us again when Doris Day sings the sentimental “Secret Love” in Calamity Jane (1953).

In Myrt and Marge (1934) Ray Hedges plays the flaming stagehand Clarence Tiffingtuffer he’s told “Here put this in the trunk and don’t wear it” speaking about one of the show girls costumes. In his boldly effete manner “If we got the runs on the show, the way the girls got in their stockings, I could put the 2nd down payment on my Kimono.”

Clara Bow, Willard Robertson, and Estelle Taylor in Call Her Savage (1932)

From Call Her Savage 1932 purportedly the first on-screen gay bar.

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In director William Wyler’s These Three (1936) the relationship between Miriam Hopkin’s Martha and Merle Oberon’s Karen was delicately subtle and though to mainstream audiences might be seemingly obvious to interpret as two women attracted to the male lead, Joel McCrea. It revised Hellman’s play that centered around Martha’s love that dare not speak its name, for Karen. Sam Goldwyn bought the rights to Lillian Hellman’s play The Children’s Hour, a story depicting the supposed ‘carryings-on’ of two female teachers at a private school for girls. Though, These Three on its face is the story of a love triangle between two women and a man, it could read as Martha being more uncomfortable with the presence of Dr. Cardin (McCrea) because he is intruding on her closed relationship with Karen. The later screenplay adapted into the film, The Children’s Hour (1961) directed by William Wyler, was boldly more explicit and revealed the true nature of Martha’s predicament and her struggle with her love for Karen.

These Three (1936) Merle Oberon and Miriam Hopkins.

The Children’s Hour (1961) Shirley MacLaine and Audrey Hepburn.

Coded characters in the film were on the screen relaying messages and signaling to those of us who understand and who are “in the life: that movies can reflect the existence of a queer reality. These representations were not necessarily positive, but films showed evidence that we exist. You would see it in a revealing gesture, or an air of difference about them, though it would be inconspicuous to audiences that were unaware of the cues.

Continue reading “Chapter 2 – Queers and Dykes in the Dark: Classic, Noir & Horror Cinema’s Coded Gay Characters:”

70s Cinema: Runaway Trains, Racing toward oblivion, Psycho-sexual machinations, and ‘the self loathing whore’ Part 1


The early seventies witnessed a fertile moment in film-making that reflected a uniquely framed vision of sexual exploration and an ever-changing measurement of morality. The studios too were taking more risks with their films conveying realism. What developed on screen was an explosion of symbolic portrayals featuring sex and violence and explicit imagery for American audiences to process. With the arrival of the women’s movement during the mid-sixties through the seventies, until it was killed off in the eighties by Reagenism, these films did not push forward an evolved perspective or positive representation of women. Often the suggestion of women’s sexual freedom was portrayed as demeaning and counter-productive to women’s empowerment. As feminist theorist and critic Molly Haskell writes “The ten years from 1963 to 1973 have been the most disheartening in screen history.”

Conversely, men were portrayed as rogue outsiders and anti-heroes, not unlike noir figures but pushing the envelope with a hyper-violent masculinity often without the usual fatalistic culmination of judgment and universal law that bound their destiny. When they die, it is their decision, they are in a dance with death, and it is not an unmitigated penalty for breaking the rules. In particular, these themes are seen within the suspense-thriller.

The seventies offered a gritty, stylized world that enhanced and synthesized focus on the dark underbelly of society, cultural unrest, paranoia, masochism, neurosis, and psycho-sexual wiles. From American Cinema of the 1970s: Themes and Variations — Movies and the Exploitation of Excess by Mia Mask, “Women Take Center Stage: Klute and McCabe & Mrs. Miller- “For feminist critics and scholars, Alan J. Pakula’s Klute perfectly exemplifies this period’s ambivalence toward women, particularly in regard to its prostitute-heroine Bree Daniels (Jane Fonda). The film recasts and updates conventions of classic film noir by centralizing the investigatory/confessional pattern while making sexuality figure more obviously in the narrative.”

Klute (1971)

One man is missing. Two girls lie dead. …and someone breathing on the other end of the phone.

You’d never take her for a call girl. You’d never take him for a cop.

“There are little corners of everyone that are better left alone.”

Klute (1971) directed by Alan J. Pakula (The Parallax View 1974, All the President’s Men 1976, producer To Kill a Mockingbird 1962, Love with the Proper Stranger, Up the Down Staircase and director of Sophie’s Choice 1982) written by brothers Andy Lewis and Dave Lewis who mainly wrote for television drama series. Cinematography by Gordon Willis nicknamed The Prince of Darkness (The Landlord 1970, The Godfather 1972, The Godfather II 1974, The Paper Chase 1973, Annie Hall 1977).

Pakula on Willis and setting up the framing of the cinematography- “From the visual point of view, I wanted Klute to be a vertical film. And with Gordon Willis, the director of photography, I tried to go against the horizontal format of Panavision, by seeking out verticals. Horizontals open out, create a pastoral feeling, and I wanted tension. Bree’s apartment should have been seen as if at the end of a long tunnel. I framed a lot of shots with the back of another character in front, to mask a part of the screen, or made use of other sombre surfaces as masks, in order to create this feeling of claustrophobia which reflects the life of this girl.” – from 1972

The evocative score adds to the illusory tension and arresting mood of the film. The music is written by Michael Small (The Stepford Wives 1975, Night Moves 1975, Marathon Man 1976, Audrey Rose 1977, The Postman Always Rings Twice 1981, Black Widow 1987). Small’s haunting lullaby blankets the film in a pensive swaddle, with the uneasy tinkling of a piano like a childlike music box and vocalizations. The score awakens a voyeuristic ambiance as if someone is watching, which they are– throughout the entire film.

“New York City as a site of, and metaphor for, the extremes of urban existence.

It places them in film history, New York City history, and U.S. urban history more generally, finding that they offer an update on earlier century narratives of the connections between urban areas and deviant sexuality. In this modern version, it is not just a moral tale but also an economic one, where, because of the historical decline of the U.S.city and of New York in particular,sex work becomes a plausible, if unsettling means of support.These films find both narrative and spatial terms for advancing the contemporary anti-urban narrative, envisioning New York as an impinging vertical space and seeing possible redemption only in the protagonists leaving the city.” From Stanley Corkin’s Sex and the City in Decline: Midnight Cowboy (1969) and Klute (1971)-Journal of Urban History

The film stars Jane Fonda (who was coming off playing ingenues in Barefoot in the Park and Barbarella when she had her breakthrough performance in Sidney Pollack’s They Shoot Horses Don’t They? 1969) as call-girl Bree Daniels with complex inner life, Donald Sutherland as the quiet spectator detective John Klute, Charles Cioffi as psycho Peter Cable, Roy Scheider as pimp Frank Ligourin, Dorothy Tristan as Arlyn Page, Rita Gam as Trina Gruneman, Vivian Nathan as the psychotherapist, Morris Strassberg as Mr. Goldfarb, the nice old Jewish john who works in the garment district, and Shirley Stoler (The Honeymoon Killers 1969) as Mama Reese. With appearances by Jean Stapleton as Mr. Goldfarb’s secretary, Richard Jordan as the young man who kisses Jane Fonda in the bar scene, porn star Harry Reems at the Discothèque, and Candy Darling. 

The film brings into play various traditions of film noir as it lays out the search for the missing Gruneman and emphasizes the relationship between the cop and the call girl.

Klute was nominated for two academy awards, best actress and best screenplay, with Jane Fonda winning the Oscar.

From Mark Harris “menace seems to choke every frame, contains almost no violence at all”

The use of tape recorders as visually recurring iconography “finally deployed as a monstrous psychological weapon at the film’s climax.”

“When Alan J. Pakula began preparing for the production of Klute (1971), he screened a lot of Alfred Hitchcock films…{…} instead he came away dispirited at the thought that he was about to make might contradict one of Hitchcock’s central principles: “You don’t try to do a character study in a melodrama” Pakula said. “Klute, of course, is a violation of that.”

Klute features Donald Sutherland as the film’s protagonist John Klute, a Tuscarora Pennsylvania private investigator hired to locate a friend Tom Gruneman who has vanished in New York City and may be living a double life. Obscene letters to an NYC prostitute have been uncovered in his desk at work “written by a very disturbed man”. Gruneman went missing six months prior and John Klute offers to leave his suburban shelter to investigate in the big bad city. The trail leads Klute to a complicated and seductive New York call girl Bree Daniels an “emotionally introspective” prostitute (skillfully brought out by Jane Fonda). Bree is an unwitting connection to a brutal murder and Klute becomes her paternalistic protector/lover. Bree is shut off from her feelings, driven by her instincts of suspicion, ambivalence, and low-self esteem. “I wish I was faceless and body-less and be left alone.”

Bree is a complex character who seeks to emotionally remove herself from society through the flawed principle that she is in control of her life and her body. Frequenting a psychotherapist, going on modeling cattle-calls, (similarly, she is peddling her flesh, though legally and publicly) studying acting, smoking grass, and reading books like Linda Goodman’s Sun Signs, a primer of the seventies metaphysical movement. Living in her own private world of her Manhattan apartment with her calico cat, Bree surrounds herself with the only space that truly insulates and isolates her from the vicious and people-eating world. A world of sin, glitter, and wickedness. A world of voyeurs.

Klute watches as well as listens to Bree’s conversations recording equipment to tap her phone from his little dank room as one of her voyeurs. She tells him “Go get those tapes and we’ll have a party.”

“Men would pay $200 for me, and here you are turning down a freebie. You could get a perfectly good dishwasher for that.”

She also admits to him that she’s in the midst of paranoia “I’m afraid of the dark, it’s just nerves I’m a nervous broad.” But this is not paranoia, the fear is real… everyone is watching everyone else.

He watches her when she visits the old Jewish widow where Bree dresses like a cabaret singer, regaling the gentle Mr. Goldfarb of her nights in Cannes with a sophisticated older man not unlike himself. She tells Klute he never lays a hand on her. Klute’s silent, morally superior, unemotional manner seems to provoke Bree’s animosity toward family-type men and uptight provincial.

“What’s your bag, Klute? What do you like? Are you a talker? A button freak? Maybe you like to get your chest walked around with high-heeled shoes. Or make ’em watch you tinkle. Or maybe you get off wearing women’s clothes. Goddamned hypocrite squares!” When he asks her about the john who tried to kill her and beat her up, “he wasn’t kidding, usually it’s a fake out.”

She shrugs Klute off, “Look, will you please just try to get it from my side? A year ago I was in the life full time. I was living on Park Avenue. It was a very nice apartment, leather furniture… and then the cops dropped on me, they caged me. They started asking me about a guy, some guy, that I’m supposed to have seen a year before that. Two years ago! He could be in Yemen. Gruneman… what does that mean? It’s a name! I don’t know him! And they start showing me these pictures, and they don’t mean anything to me. And then they started asking me if I’ve been getting letters from some guy out in Cabbageville.”

After Bree comes down to Klute’s little room in her pajamas and they have sex, she mocks him “Don’t feel bad about losing your virtue. I sort of knew you would. Everybody always does.” Once Bree starts to feel some kind of emotion toward Klute, she feels the need to destroy it, she had more control over her tricks.

During her various appointments with her shrink, Bree asks her “Why do I still want to trick?” Her therapist becomes more forceful explaining that she can’t just fix Bree, telling her she has “no magic potion.”  “Cause when you’re a call girl you can control it. They want a woman and I know I’m good… And for an hour… for an hour, I’m the best actress in the world and the best fuck in the world.” “Why do you say you’re the best actress in the world.” “Well, because it’s an act.”

There is a bit of not only a slight intrusion of a laugh, in the midst of all the darkness when Bree is in bed with a john and she’s doing an acting job as if he’s turning her on while he’s on top of her, she coos for him- “Oh my angel! Oh my angel!” looking over his shoulder at her watch… It’s telling of how Bree can cut herself off from being a sex worker and the men she is with, how she aspires to be an actress, and basically how many women may feel while they are having sex they feel nothing. Bree is great at role-playing believes there is nothing wrong with it morally and doesn’t enjoy it physically.

Bree- “You don’t have to feel anything, care for anybody, just lead them by the ring in their nose. In the direction that they think they want to go in. Get a lot of money out of them in as short of period of time as possible. And you control it, and you call the shots, and I always feel just great afterwards.”

Therapist- “And you enjoyed it?” 

Bree- “No”

Therapist- “Why not? You said there’s nothing wrong with it. Why not?”

Bree- “Well there’s a difference. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it morally, I didn’t enjoy it physically. I came to enjoy it because it made me feel good. It made me feel like I wasn’t alone. It made me feel like I had some control over myself that I had some control over my life. That I could determine things for myself.”

We learn about Bree’s impressions of the world, her motivations, and hints at past trauma through the scenes involving sessions with her therapist (Vivian Nathan). As a neo-noir film, it follows that the heroine experiences alienation and is punished for her female sexuality and excesses. Even as the film opens depicting a scene at a ‘family’ dinner, the intrusion of Bree’s lifestyle shows the downfall and breakdown of the American family. Invading the bourgeois landscape, we see the tableau of desperate junkies, disco dives, and the pimp’s flat, — all decadent and corrupt secret underworlds of the city, damned for their self-indulgence, materialism, and perverted gratifications.

In some ways, there are certain divergences from the noir traditions of the 1940s. There is a linear movement in the narrative with the hero retaining control of the events, in contrast to the revolving story, reversals, and breaks in the plot. In terms of the investigation and the heroine’s sexuality, Bree’s place is different within the story, she is not the catalyst of Tom Gruneman’s fate she is the signpost to discovering his outcome. Therefore the relationship between John Klute and Bree is very different from what is usually the case in classic film noir. In this way, Pakula explores the potential of the genre through a contemporary lens. “The metaphoric power of noir conventions is brought into more conscious play” (Gledhill)

Another consideration of Pakula’s film depicting a feminist backlash is how the women are positioned as ‘objects’ and physical products, emblematic not only by the scenes where Bree is selling her body but where she sits in a line-up with other beautiful women waiting to be chosen for a modeling job. The agency executives’ heads are cut off in the scene which accentuates the human disconnection and impersonal enterprise of being picked for profitability and worth. Each one is scanned and then dismissed because of their perceived faults, both models and prostitutes symbolize the fetishization of desirability and society’s measurement of a woman’s value. If dissecting the film’s symbology more closely there are carefully placed clues as suggested by Judith Gustafson who observes the images behind the model’s impersonal scrutiny and the wall photos behind them of a face dotted in silver-like ‘bullet holes’ on either side depicted by the identical image yet in negative that makes the female face appear as an ‘alien being.’

“Has anybody talked to you about the financial arrangements? Well that depends naturally on how long you want me for, and what you want to do. I know you, it will be very nice. Well I’d like to spend the evening with you if its, if you’d like that. Have you ever done it with a woman before, paying her? Do you like it? I mean I have the feeling that that turns you on very particularly. What turns me on is because I have a good imagination, and I like pleasing. Do you mind if I take my sweater off. Well I think in the confines of one’s house one should be free of clothing and inhibitions. Oh inhibitions are nice, cause its always to nice to overcome. Don’t be afraid, I’m not. As long as you don’t hurt me, more than I like to be hurt. I will do anything you ask. You should never be ashamed of things like that. I mean you mustn’t be. You know there’s nothing wrong. Nothing. Nothing is wrong. I think the only way that any of us can ever be happy is to, is to let it all hang out ya know. Do it all and fuck it!”

When Klute meets Bree she toys with him, flaunting her independence and manifesting a casual attitude about his investigation. Her self-aligned liberation dictates contempt for convention and criticism. Hard-edged Bree enjoys her freedom though she is seduced by the need to pick up the phone and maintain her high-class status as a pimp-free call girl. Roy Scheider plays her old predatory pimp Frank Ligourin who flashes his Italian silk shirts and his Mephistophelean smile. Ligourin and call-girl Janie McKenna who was jealous of Bree are the ones responsible for sending Bree to the psycho John who beat her up. “put the freak onto Bree.”

Though it’s not what drives the story, in the darkened halls of the film is the sadistic degenerate Peter Cable (first-time actor Charles Cioffi), affluent businessman and friend and associate of the missing Tom Gruneman (Robert Milli), and detective John Klute.

Cable is a psychopathic misogynist who obsessively listens to the secret recordings of his exploits with Bree. He begins stalking her, suspecting that she may reveal his identity as the perverted John who beat her up and murdered her friend Janie and eventually kills another prostitute, a strung-out junkie Arlyn Page (Dorothy Tristan).

“Make a man think that he’s accepted. It’s all a great big game to you. I mean, you’re all obviously too lazy and too warped to do anything meaningful with your lives so you prey upon the sexual fantasies of others. I’m sure it comes as no great surprise to you when I say that there are little corners in everyone which were better off left alone; sicknesses, weaknesses, which-which should never be exposed. But… that’s your stock in trade, isn’t it – a man’s weakness? And I was never really fully aware of mine… until you brought them out.”

Pretty much into the beginning of the picture, we know who the killer is. The plotline is more focused on the journey and relationship/character study of silent John Klute and turbulent Bree Daniels, and drawing the killer out into the open. It is the examination of the darker side of human nature, collective disorder, and the undercurrent of psycho-sexual machinations as one of the central points of the film.

According to Joan Mellen not only is Klute a study in female sexuality, villain Peter Cable is the “projection of Bree’s self-contempt — a materialization of her fear of the dark.” Though the film presents an atmosphere of paranoia the threat is very real. Cable “He also represents what she believes she deserves, the all-destroying punisher who will make her pay for having bartered herself so cheaply.”

Jane Fonda’s Bree Daniels is shown in her room as Willis’ camera pulls back it informs us that she is afraid of the phone ringing and the menacing breather on the other end. This is when John Klute first shows up. There is an interesting correlation between the two men, the cop, and the killer. 

The idea that this film is feminist in nature because of the sexual freedom of it’s central character is best challenged by feminist scholar Christine Gledhill. “The ideological project surrounding this version of the independent woman stereotype is the same as when it emerged in the 1890s under the guise of the New Woman… However fascinating, different, admirable the would-be-emancipated woman, struggling to assert her own identity in a male world, and professing a new, nonrepressive sexual morality, in the end she is really neurotic, fragile, lonely and unhappy.”

Critic Pauline Kael had a much different experience of the film upon its initial release, she called Bree Daniels “one of the strongest feminine characters to reach the screen” Though Fonda’s brilliant performance creates a complexity worthy of analysis, in the end, she is still an object of male fantasy.

While the film’s critics focus mainly on feminist shortcomings there is also the understanding by some that it also shines a lens on masculinity. Klute “lacks dynamism” “sexless” and “out of place” perhaps or virtual psychopaths, and castrated males. Perhaps a commentary on men’s sweeping fear of the women’s movement and the transformations of femininity and masculinity. Also, an interesting observation by Mia Mask is how the protagonist John Klute and psychopath Peter Cable though essentially an antithesis of each other’s persona there is an element of a ‘doppelgänger motif’. Diane Giddis points at the threat of Cable, Bree’s potential killer can be seen as the incarnation of the emotional danger she feels threatened by with the emergence of John Klute. From the beginning of the film, “the two men are almost always shown in juxtaposition.” The morning after Bree gets the eerie ‘breather’ phone call from her stalker, Klute appears at her door.

“Like Cable, Klute appears uninvited at her door. He, too, spies on her through windows and from archways. He, too, violates the privacy of her telephone by secretly recording her calls, just as Cable secretly records his session with her. The film even emphasized these parallels by showing the men in similar shots…{…} Ultimately Klute and Cable are two sides of the same male personality. One side punishes women for their sexuality and power plays; the other neutralizes the threat by inviting child-like dependence.” –Judith Gustafson from Cineaste (1981) The Whore with the Heart of Gold

At the time of Klute’s release, it gave the appearance of not only a straight suspense story but a radical film, filled with contradictions between what feminist critics would say is artifice and what represents women in real situations. Within this ‘new American cinema’ the film purports to be about a ‘liberated’ heroine inhabiting the structure of a thriller with an homage to the femme fatales of film noir. The contradictory implications lie between the film’s ‘modernity’, psychotherapy, and the problem of women places it within a humanist realist tradition of European art cinema’ (Gledhill). Yet it also bares the stylistic qualities –a highly detailed visual polish and ‘baroque stereotypes’ in noir thrillers, an atmosphere predominately summoned by American films of the seventies. “The real world and fictional production” Gledhill asserts that stems from the Women’s Movement rather than studies in film theory. The idea of realism and genre are in total opposition to each other. Klute presents as an independent heroine yet each frame reveals the attack on Bree’s free will.

“While realism embraces such cultural values as ‘real life’, truth or credibility, genre production holds negative connotations such as ‘illusion’, ‘myth’, ‘conventionality’, ‘stereotypes’. The Hollywood genres represent the fictional elaboration of a patriarchal culture which produces macho heroes and a subordinate, demeaning and objectified place for women.”

And beyond the constructs of film noir, seventies thriller genre and criticism by feminist theorists of Pakula’s Klute, Bree Daniel’s conflicts are a universal struggle for women’s assertion of love vs the affirmation of self-determination. Bree’s uneasy self-reflection makes the perspective of a movie prostitute a breakthrough characterization. She isn’t a tragic figure nor is she weak or contemptible. Bree explores her compulsion and potential self-destructive behavior as a sex worker as an externalized symptom stemming from past mental and internalized physical injury and she strives to uncover the answers in her own way.

Pakula re-invents some of the noir traditions and places them within an examination of the modern world. With his masterful film, he strives not only for visual ecstasy, the dramatic flourish of the thriller genre, and though there has been acute dissection of his film, he seeks to divulge a truth that becomes a revelation of acting by Jane Fonda.

In a 2019 interview with Jane Fonda conducted by Illeana Douglas, Fonda refers to Alan J. Pakula whom she worked in subsequent films, Comes a Horseman and Rollover, as a “still director.” “He allowed time for things to happen.” Jane Fonda explains that she loves films from the seventies because there was time left for things to happen. “more silence, than words.”

During the rehearsal for Klute Jane Fonda in order to prepare for her role as Bree Daniels, arranged to spend a lot of time with call-girls, streetwalkers and madams. Prostitutes on the bottom rung, strung out from the underbelly of the city and very wealthy madams, whom Fonda said made it clear the more money the client the weirder the sexual appetites and fantasies. She also talked about her decade living in France where she got to know the legendary Madam Claude, famous for taking beautiful women and molding them into high price call girls. Jane Fonda got to know many of them. Many she met were tough, often sexually aggressive she she said, and also sexually confident. She had learned that often they were the survivors of sexual abuse. What she referred having their ‘agency taken away’. These women inspired Fonda to model Bree after them. This is why Fonda’s performance pivots so well from self-confidence to vulnerability.

Illeana Douglas compliments Fonda by telling her that there’s “something going on in your eyes” which made Fonda recall that acting instructor Lee Strasberg had told her the very same thing in his class, that something was going on in her eyes that made him think that more is going on.

Fonda also had what she calls a ‘hair epiphany’. She had just come off filming cult sensation directed by husband, Roger Vadim’s Barbarella where she had all those blonde waves. Her friend hairdresser Paul MacGregor who lived in the village worked on what is now her iconic hair style from Klute.

Jane Fonda worried that as a white privileged middle class actress couldn’t possibly bring to life a prostitute and make it believable. She insisted to her director Alan J. Pakula that he hire Faye Dunaway instead. Pakula burst out laughing.

Jane Fonda was allowed to add a lot of her own insight into the character of Bree, little details and director Pakula often took them as excellent suggestions that worked well with the story. For instance, it was Fonda’s idea to live in the apartment for weeks. She lay there at night as if she were Bree trying to get inside Bree’s head and summon up the things she would do within her private time. We don’t know the backstory behind Bree Daniels many permutations. We are only to privy to hints of the damage.

Jane Fonda conceptualized many of the set’s subtleties. What would Bree read, what would adorn her little space. She thought of having a cat, because cats symbolize independence and Fonda imagined that Bree’s persona wanted a companion that would be more like herself. In many ways, Jane Fonda dressed the set with these little introspective details. The film became a very personal experience for her. And one that initiated her feminist transformation. Even when she was smoking the spliff in her apartment, it wasn’t in the script but she spontaneously began to sing that little hymn, it was very natural and emphasized how real her character was. Fonda tells of how this was a very spontaneous improvisation as a plot detail that was not in the script but struck her at the moment.

Illeana Douglas also astutely pointed out that there was a lot of glamour to the film. There were moments where Klute was framed with close ups of Bree. Even with the evocative Cymbalon melody – the Klezmer (traditional Eastern European Jewish music) movement that guides the scene it reminds of the languid strut of Marlene Dietrich, the allure of Greta Garbo and had the flavor of night club singers in Paris and Germany. When I watched the incredibly thoughtful and in-depth interview it hit me how much that was true. I saw it as clear as day, that Jane Fonda’s aura did truly give off that mystique that essence of glamour of the great actresses’ personae. Superb fashion and costume designer Ann Roth chose the alluring dress that Bree wears when she visits the old man, Mr. Goldfarb. 

Jane Fonda also points out that Bree could have been a great actress but within her craft something would have triggered her to return to selling her body, which is a violation to the soul, and it’s very different than acting, as it comes from a deep place of trauma and the need to control and not open up her heart.

[voiceover] “I have no idea what’s going to happen. I… I just can’t stay in this city, you know? Maybe I’ll come back. You’ll probably see me next week.”

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 This is your EverLovin Joey saying see you on the tracks! Part 2 coming up!

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