“The trouble with you, Easton, is you have no principles.”
—George Sanders to James Mason

A Touch of Larceny is an extremely—extremely—obscure little film. This 1959 confection of droll British humor demonstrates, above all, the comic skills of the usually villainous James Mason. He is supported in this delightful soufflé by both the lovely Vera Miles, twenty years his junior—never a credibility problem—and the nasty George Sanders in a typically unsympathetic role. Mason steals the show, dominating the screen with an engaging performance. He is so good, so relaxed, so comfortable with his character that this may be his finest comedy.

He triumphs, too, in another area rarely regarded as his territory, that of a romantic lead. There is a playful chemistry between Mason and Miles, as, for starters, when she’s on his little sailboat and he outlines a money-making scheme. They’ve already been talking in casual double-entendre, the sea weather vis-à-vis their relationship, and when she says, “Is that a squall coming out way?,” he smiles impishly and says, “I shouldn’t be a bit surprised.”

The admirable cast of familiar British supporting players includes Harry Andrews (Captain Graham), Percy Herbert (Bert a port warden) and Duncan Lamont (an investigator ), plus Oliver Johnston, William Kendall and Robert Flemyng.

While a leisurely pace can be fatal to a film, especially in a comedy, the master of leisure, Guy Hamilton, directs up a storm . . . well, at least stirs a pleasant breeze, which provides just enough momentum to keep things interesting. The more accelerated tempo of, say, a screwball or slapstick comedy would be fatal here; the additional time is required to savor the acting and, depending on the scene, the either biting or clever dialogue. Hamilton is best remembered for his James Bond films, including Goldfinger and Diamonds Are Forever, where he does up the tempo.

The decade of the ’50s was James Mason’s most productive period. He was at the height of his popularity and made some of his best films. These movies are as good a testimony as any to his range as an actor. His Rommel in The Desert Fox emerges as a decent man, the victim of circumstances and an evil regime, even likeable despite being on the wrong side. In the same period—that same WWII!—he’s the urbane spy Ulysses Diello in Five Fingers. Hard and cool, he thinks he has covered all the contingencies—until the last scene. It is one of the great surprise endings in filmdom, Diello laughing on that balcony in Rio de Janeiro, casting into the wind those assiduously acquired British pound notes—all master forgeries.

Although in The Prisoner of Zenda Mason is saddled with a scene-by-scene remake of the much better 1937 original, his Rupert is every bit as dastardly as Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.’s in the earlier version. Mason’s villainy is of a different, higher sort in Julius Caesar. In one of Brutus’ best soliloquies, he ponders, “Therefore think him as a serpent’s egg/Which, hatch’d, would, as his kind, grow mischievous,/And kill him in the shell.”

As the maleficent Captain Nemo of the “Nautilus” in Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues under the Sea, he moves about his submarine assured and resolute. “I have done with society,” he says, ”therefore I do not obey its laws.” In many ways—for its intellectual approach and dynamic intensity—this performance is greatly underestimated and neglected. He dominates the other actors (Kirk Douglas, Paul Lukas and Peter Lorre) much as he does in Larceny.

In his next film A Star is Born, made the same year (1954) as Leagues, his character is not so assured. Far from it. As Norman Maine, an alcoholic actor on the way down, he plays opposite Judy Garland as Esther Blodgett, a young actress on her way up. For this role Mason received his first and only Best Actor Oscar nomination, losing to Marlon Brando in On the Waterfront.

His ability to play the suave villain who never soils his hands or his clothes culminates in Philip Vandamm in Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest. Always dressed in a dark suit and moving as though he were in a drawing room (as sometimes he is), he has his two henchmen do his dirty work, injecting an occasional good line among Cary Grant’s many. At the art auction, after Roger Thornhill (Grant) has implied that only his playing dead will satisfy Vandamm, Mason intones, “Your very next role. You’ll be quite convincing, I assure you.”

Back to a Verne story in 1959. Journey to the Center of the Earth has several things going for it—not, though, the cardboard and plaster sets—among them the lovely Arlene Dahl and Bernard Herrmann’s subterranean score, perfect support for an expedition into the bowels of the earth. Mason’s lightly played Oliver Lindenbrook spends much of the time exasperated by the demands of a strong woman (Dahl). There’s also in tow Pat Boone, Icelandic actor Peter Ronson, Thayer David as the requisite villain and, of course—not to be forgotten—Gertrude. A second actress? No . . . a duck!

From the Lindenbrook character, the actor moved effortlessly, even naturally, to another light role in his next film, A Touch of Larceny, his last of the ’50s.

Following that decade, Mason was nominated in 1966 for Best Supporting Actor for Georgy Girl as the middle-aged James Leamington who desires Georgy (Lynn Redgrave) as his mistress. His only other nomination, in the same category, came in 1982 toward the end of his career as a defense lawyer challenging Paul Newman in The Verdict.

In Larceny, Mason is Commander Max “Rammer” Easton, a WWII submarine hero who, along with his newspaper- and pocketbook-reading staff, idles away time at the Admiralty. Reserving the squash court makes for a hard day! In the film’s opening scene, the wily, philandering commander’s love-making is interrupted by the arrival of the woman’s husband. “You didn’t tell me you were married!”

Then Easton meets Virginia (Miles) when diplomat Charles Holland (Sanders) gives him a lift in his chauffeured car. Demurely beautiful, she sits in the back seat, not in the least taken with the commander, who oozes charm and immediately hits on her. When Holland introduces her as Mrs. Killain, Easton declares he once knew a man named Killain—in Baltimore, “a most charming man”—and wonders if he could be her husband. Speak of a pathetic line! Holland interjects that she is a widow, and Virginia, as aware as the audience of the absurd ruse, remarks that it is an understandable mistake, since “Killain” isn’t a common name!

Before being dropped off at his flat, Easton, far from perturbed, steals one of her gloves from the seat between them. The next day he calls her and innocently asks if she had, by chance, lost a glove. “As a matter of fact,” she responds, “I have.” She’s still wise to him.

Having insisted on bringing the glove by her flat, he says how impressed he is by “old Charles” (for knowing a dish like Virginia), but that Charles is a typical diplomat—“tall, elegant, highly respectable—and rather dull.” As he sips his drink, Virginia announces that she and Charles are engaged. Gulp!

An American couple arrive and, in deciding on a good restaurant, Easton suggests a former cellar built by Napoleonic prisoners, but he feigns that it’s hard to find and finagles an invitation from the elderly couple. The restaurant, he says, is called The Sly Old Fox. What’s blatantly obvious is that Easton, lounging against the fireplace mantel, drink in hand, looking debonair and unruffled by any glare Virginia can throw his way, could just as easily be “the sly old fox.”

During Charles’ ten-day absence, Easton convinces Virginia to have lunch on his ship. As they zip along in his little sports car, she wonders if his “ship” will be a battleship, a cruiser or maybe—no, no, surely not!—a submarine. No, he promises her, not a submarine. And he’s humming all the time. When they arrive at the dock, his “ship” turns out to be . . . a little sailboat!

While they jointly navigate the skip, Easton hatches, on the spot, a theoretical scheme to acquire as much money as her fiancé, since she is apparently marrying for money, and, as “incentive” as Easton calls it, win the hand of Virginia in the bargain. He will hide a top secret file behind a filing cabinet, then disappear while on leave. He will sink his sailboat and maroon himself on a little island off of Scotland.

The press, he tells her, will assume the file has been stolen and, along with the incriminating, though circumstantial evidence he plans to leave behind, the newspapers will soon publish libelous statements about him. Per the plan, after his rescue it will be revealed that his disappearance was all innocent coincidences, and he will sue the newspapers for libel, make a fortune and marry the waiting Virginia.

Returning in the sports car, Easton informs her that their date isn’t over. In a most romantic scene in a nightclub, they dance to “The Nearness of You” by Hoagy Carmichael and Ned Washington. Cinematographer John Wilcox (Young Frankenstein, 1978, The Eagle Has Landed, 1976, etc.) employs numerous tight close-ups as the pair come close to kissing. There is no dialogue until she says, “Take me home, Max.”

Composer Philip Green is perhaps best known for The League of Gentlemen (1963), but his score here, although fluffy and appropriate to the film, is not particularly outstanding. When Easton drops Virginia at her flat and asks her to marry him, the music becomes tender, with hushed, almost wraithlike string harmonies, but it is impressive, once again, because of the setting of the Carmichael tune. She turns down his proposal, but it’s obvious she has enjoyed their time together.

Still undeterred, Easton launches his scheme. He plants an incriminating note and other red herrings and performs a delightful charade at the Russian Embassy. He searches the crowd of foreign dignitaries until he finds a Russian who doesn’t understand English and proceeds to discuss the banana, a most unusual fruit he says, gesturing about its length and slightly curved shape, presumably to imply for onlookers that he’s describing a submarine or missile. The Russian even explains his paper money, the two passing the currency back and forth.

Easton later pretends to be drunk, even executing a deft fouetté, perhaps to attract attention, for being seen is essential to his ploy. As soon as he is out in a hall, out of sight of the crowd, he drops his stagger, brushes back his tousled hair and smiles smugly. It is reminiscent of The Maltese Falcon after Humphrey Bogart’s tough act in Sydney Greenstreet’s hotel room.

The commander makes other “incriminating” moves and sets sail. As expected, the plan works! Easton has overstayed his leave and is reported missing. Headlines proclaim he has been seen boarding the “Karl Marx” and been spotted in Warsaw. Virginia, aware of Easton’s scheme and that his rescue is necessary, deposits a bottle with a note for an unsuspecting boy to find.

Easton is rescued from the island—well and good—but there’s a problem. He’s caught off guard when an investigator (Lamont), already suspicious of the newly retrieved Robinson Crusoe, asks him a disquieting question:

If, indeed, he set adrift the bottle, then he’d know the kind of bottle and the wording of the note.

Easton is at a loss—he knows he used no bottles and is mystified that one was found in the first place. Fortunately, a brief distraction in the room gives him time to think. The investigator turns back to Easton. “Well, commander?—” He figures he’s got his man.

Easton casts his eyes at the ceiling—prayerfully, perhaps. “I’m afraid I have absolutely no idea.” He’s calm and once again in control of the situation. He adds that he doesn’t know which bottle was picked up! Why, he must have cast adrift countless bottles—with different messages, of course. Even Captain Graham supports him, suggesting that the investigator shouldn’t imagine Easton would rely on only one bottle.

It is perhaps the finest moment in the film.

Besides the ramifications of Virginia’s complicity in Easton’s scheme, Charles threatens to sue the commander for fraud. But, no, there’s a final twist to things—all right, besides the expected happy ending. Easton has decided to sell his “true” story. Virginia assumes he’s still going with Plan A. “No, darling,” he corrects, “how I miraculously survived without food or water after that terrible shipwreck.” Hum, he’ll make more money than if he sued the newspapers!

By all means, see A Touch of Larceny.

Unavailable on DVD or VHS (VH what?), the film probably exists, fleetingly, on TCM or another movie channel. Well worth the search, this light-hearted romantic comedy is never saccharine, with just the right ingredients of sweets (Miles) and spice (Sanders), and leavened with good portions of charm and rascality (Mason).

Heather G. from East Point, Georgia
Eric N. from Troy, NY

Thanks everyone for playing and even if you didn’t win – go buy the movie! The last DVD release was pretty darn good and this one should be light years better! And Amazon has a great price right now, especially for the bluray!

If in doubt we will have a more detailed look at the release later on.

The first person to answer correctly via email to orson will win.  Please include your complete name and mailing address so we can ship to you!  The winner will be announced the following night in each instance.

The first one will be easy – tomorrow’s will be a bit more challenging…here it is….

For the first DVD set:  Which actor was so insistent that he would play Roger Thornhill that Hitchcock had to delay production on North by Northwest until the actor was safely involved in the production of another feature?

Just for fun:  Double points if you can name the “other” picture as well.

Good Luck!

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Never armed, always knitting, forever listening; subdued, philosophically homespun and, yes, dowdy . . .

Acorn Media/ITV Global Entertainment has released, on four DVDs, Series 4 of Miss Marple mysteries, Agatha Christie’s elderly spinster sleuth. The first three sets in the series feature Geraldine McEwan in the role. She retired after her twelfth Miss Marple, Ordeal by Innocence, in 2007. Julia McKenzie immediately assumed the role and made four TV episodes which comprise Series 4: A Pocket Full of Rye, They Do It with Mirrors, Why Didn’t They Ask Evans? and Murder Is Easy.

The last two are not actual Marple mysteries, nor are they adapted from Poirot originals, as has often occurred in some supposed “Marple” entries. Dame Christie had her own thoughts on this flippant crossbreeding: “I get an unregenerate pleasure when I think they’re not being a success.” In both Evans and Easy, other individuals do the sleuthing with Miss Marple in a subservient role, often as little more than an eavesdropper, like a “stuck in” bonus character, at the worst as an afterthought.

The DVD box propaganda boasts of four “gripping” mysteries. Hum-m-m-m—— The pace is usually so slow, the suspects so numerous, the murders so plentiful at times, that a less excitable description is more apt—“entertaining,” maybe “diverting.” What is true from among the box superlatives is the “picturesque English scenery, grand estates . . . and lavish post-World War II period detail.” It’s something of a treat to see the vintage cars of the time and to know that the country homes used in the filming are much as they were in the ’30s and ’40s. And the ladies’ fashions of this time, although there are occasional ridiculous exceptions, represent to many the height of modern women’s apparel and hair styles.

Part of the “fun”—a word also used on the back of the box—is recognizing a favorite star, more often than not in a minor role. The more familiar names include Prunella Scales from Faulty Towers, Joan Collins from Dynasty and Sylvia Syms from Doctor Who. But there are also Jemma Redgrave, niece of Vanessa and granddaughter of Sir Michael; Matthew Macfadyen, from Frost/Nixon; Helen Baxendale, the sitcom Friends and the British serial Cold Feet; Rupert Graves, A Room with A View and The Madness of King George; David Haig, who is hard to forget as the sexually exhausted newlywed in Four Weddings and a Funeral; and Ian Ogilvy, from a multitude of American TV shows—Melrose Place, JAG, Murphy Brown and Murder, She Wrote.

Acorn Media has other McKenzie/Marple entries in the works. The Secret of Chimneys is in post-production, and The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side is currently being filmed. Chimneys is not a Jane Marple mystery, and it will be interesting to see how the script writers integrate Miss Marple—at the expense of Superintendent Battle of Scotland Yard, who handles the case in the novel, or with the lady sleuth as an add-on eavesdropper of sorts.

Miss Jane Marple made her mystery novel début in Murder at the Vicarage in 1930. Since then, any number of ladies of stage and screen have played Christie’s elderly detective. From the obscure, there is Barbara Mullen, who appeared in a 1949 British theatrical version of Vicarage, and Gabrielle Hamilton, who made a TV movie of Sleeping Murder in 1987. From among the more familiar Marples, in movies and TV, there are Joan Hickson, Margaret Rutherford, Helen Hayes, Angela Lansbury, Geraldine McEwan and now Julia McKenzie.

Hickson, the dowdiest of all, complete with tweed suits and hair in a bun, once held the record for the number of Marple appearances—twelve British TV episodes between 1984 and 1992. With her unassuming appearance and nonchalant yet convincing deductions—and able to remain consistent and keep alive her portrayal through all the installments—Hickson might well have earned first place among her peers. Inoffensive yet endearing, at ease in making friends yet with that touch of British civility, she could be for any number of people a favorite grandmother or aunt.

The most animated Miss Marple was the rotund Rutherford, who never had time for knitting but was testing suspected poisons in her kitchen, climbing over walls, mounting horses or saber dueling with the villain—this last, especially, something Christie’s Marple would never do. The four British M-G-M Marple movies Rutherford made in the ’60s strayed dangerously from the Christie text, and the actress’s little resemblance to the character, in figure or demeanor, prompted Christie to observe that Rutherford “always looked like a bloodhound.” Dame Christie consistently maintained a low regard for most of the film adaptations of her mysteries.[See the separate review of Rutherford's films at The Miss Marple Mystery Comedy Films.]

Lansbury, perhaps the most affable and deductively insightful of the lot, though too young at the time, at 55, to approximate Marple’s age, was surrounded by Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson, Tony Curtis and Kim Novak in her 1980 appearance in The Mirror Crack’d, leisurely directed—too leisurely!—by Guy Hamilton. Critics have justly commented that the little movie-within-a-movie was the highlight of the film. The citizenry of St. Mary Mead has gathered to watch a film, Murder at Midnight, made in 1931 with Aileen Pringle, Hal Hamilton and Alice White, when, just as the inspector is to identify the murderer, the film breaks.

For Lansbury, the middling movie led to better things. Her Miss Marple, with little change, became Jessica Fletcher—and twelve seasons of TV sleuthing in Murder, She Wrote. Judging by Jessica’s endless investigating, her home of Cabot Cove, Maine, had the highest murder rate in the country, much like Miss Marple’s fictional English village!

With those twinkling eyes, which must have helped clinch her Best Supporting Actress Oscar for Airport in 1970, Hayes reprised the character in two Warner Brothers TV movies, Murder with Mirrors and A Caribbean Mystery. Again, middling movies and big disappointments for Hayes fans, as well as for Christie herself. Hayes did appear in Murder Is Easy, not as the lady in question but as Lavinia Fullerton, who ended up murdered.

As for McEwan, she was Miss Marple in twelve episodes for ITV/PBS/WGBH Boston. At least six of the Hickson entries were remade, including At Bertram’s Hotel, Nemesis and A Murder Is Announced. With a distinguished career ranging from the Royal Shakespeare Company to TV and movies—her best known role, perhaps, is Mortianna in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves—McEwan retired after Ordeal by Innocence. (No, Ordeal is not originally a Marple mystery, either!)

Who would fill the void? Almost immediately, the next year, Julia McKenzie made her Marple début in A Pocket Full of Rye, which Hickson had filmed in 1985. At 67, McKenzie is perhaps on the young side for that Marple lady, but she probably has enough years to grow into the role and to make twelve episodes of her own, if she likes. Already she has an in-character willowy countenance, the gray hair a symbolic halo of deceptive calm, the bright eyes showing keen observation. She never runs, nor makes any threatening movements—she is never hostile, not even verbally—no hint that she is a criminal’s worst enemy.

The following discussions of the four Acorn Media mysteries are based on the filmed results, which often differ, sometimes unrecognizably, from the Christie originals:

A Pocket Full of Rye

As in Ten Little Indians, Dame Christie uses a nursery rhyme to provide the clues—both crucial and red herrings—for Miss Marple to uncover. It seems Rex Fortescue has been poisoned, and grains of rye are found in one of his pockets. A maid is innocently manipulated into killing dear Rex, and then the murderer—a member, of course, of the wealthy household—has to eliminate the maid. In accordance with the rhyme, she dies “ . . . in the garden,/Hanging out the clothes.” By happenstance the maid had left Miss Marple’s service for better things; coincidences are as abundant in Christie as in Charles Dickens!

At final count, there are three deaths. Inspector Neele is on the job, but during Miss Marple’s explanation of the solution to the murders—equivalent to a Poirot dénouement—the man looks a bit perplexed. Perhaps he has as much trouble as the viewer wading through the convoluted plot and myriad characters. As Marple says, “It’s all camouflage—to make it look like the rhyme was the inspiration. And that’s very significant, don’t you think?”

And the “blackbird” connection to the nursery rhyme? No, nothing to do with birds or black or clotheslines, for that matter. “Camouflage,” indeed. Miss Marple, if you would, explain——

Murder Is Easy (aka Easy to Kill)

This is the first of the two non-Marple episodes in the box set, with Jane penciled in, so to speak, as Luke Fitzwilliam’s investigative assistant. As in so many Christie mysteries, scenes in a small medieval church are almost required, complete with benevolent clergy (or so is assumed). There’s brass rubbing—not a clue—a fascinating hobby for locals and tourists alike. Some viewers might wonder exactly what the young lady is doing, there on the floor of the church, and might appreciate more details about the process, the marvel of charcoal or a wax crayon and a piece of paper.

There are no less than six murders—two by being pushed, the others by various kinds of poison, Dame Christie’s favorite method of dispatch. As Doris Day says in Calamity Jane (1953), it’s a regular “mas-sa-cre-e-e-e-e.”

These episodes are turned out too quickly for many intricate camera shots or much detailed storyboarding, but the final shot in Murder Is Easy is arresting, if a bit conspicuously arty: Miss Marple walks away, carrying two suitcases, and in the immediate foreground, out of focus and occupying half the screen, are the finials of a wrought iron fence. An excess of this kind of photography can easily become annoying; the worst example is possibly The Mystery of the Blue Train (2005), with David Suchet as Poirot.

Miss Marple, understandably, has a smaller part than in Rye. She does manage, however, one of her homilies: “As one gets older one gets wiser.” As the crux of the plot, what, by the way, was the connection between the killer and the attractive young lady, the brass rubber, who drives off at the end, leaving Fitzwilliam with a blank post card of the Empire State Building?

They Do It with Mirrors (aka Murder with Mirrors)

Back in her own story with this episode, Miss Marple encounters the usual Christie clichés and gimmicks—an ancestral mansion, a dark and stormy night, a train ride, lights going out (remember A Murder Is Announced and Ten Little Indians?), a play within a play, a missing piece of paper and—yes, of course, poisonings. The first victim, however, is killed with a U.S. Army knife in the back.

When someone reproves Miss Marple for always believing the worst, she replies, “The worst is so often true.” And the lady sleuth has really stepped in it this time. On the estate, friend Carrie Serrocold houses criminals she good-heartedly believes can be reformed. The goings-on inside the mansion seem no safer, with Edgar Larson, for one, wandering around believing he is Winston Churchill’s son or some other important personage.

Inspector Curry of Scotland Yard and his note-taking assistant are on hand, but it’s Miss Marple to the rescue—or, rather, to the solution. And about that first murder, what did Miss Marple see on the dead man’s desk that the Inspector didn’t?

Why Didn’t They Ask Evans? (aka The Boomerang Clue)

Another non-Marple, this mystery begins with the opening tones of J.S. Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, BWV565, a time-worn cliché to suggest, as here, the sinister. Young Bobby Attfield is the organist, and as the soundtrack segues to the orchestra, he finds a dying man on the ledge of a seacoast cliff. The man’s last words are—you guessed it: “Why didn’t they ask Evans?” (Why does this writer always want to substitute “Alice”?)

Attfield meets an old girlfriend, Frankie Derwent, on a train. The two follow their intuitions to Castle Savage where clues abound, as well as the usual assortment of strange characters—including Tom, who collects mice and snakes, a psychiatrist with the bedside manner of George Zucco, an often gossamer-clad Sylvia, lady of the household, and the aforementioned Evans, an eccentric horticulturist. No more “eccentric,” that is, than the murderer, who poisons Evans with the blossoms of a deadly orchid crammed into his mouth. . . . No, too late to consider Evans as a suspect!

Having been slipped into the script as a family friend arriving early on at Attfield’s house, Miss Marple is on hand at Castle Savage to help Bobby and Frankie. When Frankie veers on the wrong track, the grand old lady warns her, “You have a very sharp mind, but you must be aware of distractions.”

Despite the deceptive “light” touch of Roger Bassington’s singing and his piano-playing of “What’ll I Do?,” and though the murder count is below Christie extremes, the climax is exceptionally macabre—and much more implausible than usual. What murderers—there’re two here—after spending years devising a revenge killing, would stop in midstream to allow Miss Marple to prattle on about how they planned it (they should know!) and where they went wrong?

And who, by the way, was John Carstairs?

“Murder at the Vicarage was published in 1930,” Agatha Christie wrote in her autobiography, “but I cannot remember where, when or how I wrote it . . . or even what suggested to me that I should select a new character—Miss Marple—to act as the sleuth in the story.” Well, Agatha, whatever the reasons, we’re grateful for the lady’s creation.

Followers of the detective should welcome Julia McKenzie and maybe even ask: Is she the finest Miss Marple since Joan Hickson?

There is nothing in the dark that isn’t there in the light. Except fear.

Why was a remake thought necessary?

Cape Fear is not among Martin Scorsese’s better films. Watching the 1991 remake gives the persistent impression of being crucially unnecessary—unnecessarily violent and unnecessarily depressing, and full of unattractive people. Bernard Herrmann’s score, lifted essentially in tact from the 1962 original, is a saving grace.

Here I am, crabby old me, prepared to make the case that the remake was, indeed, unnecessary. I’ve come, now, in a self-imposed debate with myself—a predictable win, you suspect?—that here is further evidence that the old movies of the ’30s and ’40 and, yes, even into the ’50s, maybe a smidgen from the ’60s, are superior, on the average, to those made during the ’70s through the present time.

J. Lee Thompson, perhaps best remembered for The Guns of Navarone (1961), directed the original Cape Fear with Gregory Peck, Robert Mitchum, Polly Bergen, Lori Martin, Martin Balsam, Jack Kruschen and Telly Savalas. Scorsese, deservedly more famous for GoodFellas and Taxi Driver, filled the same or stand-in roles with Nick Nolte, Robert De Niro, Jessica Lange, Juliette Lewis, Fred Dalton Thompson and Joe Don Baker.

The source material is The Executioners by John D. MacDonald, who also created detective Travis McGee in a series of crime novels. There’re other “MacDonald” mystery and crime writers with whom John shouldn’t be confused: Ross, the American who created gumshoe Lew Archer in another series; Phillip, a Brit, who penned a personal favorite, The List of Adrian Messenger, one in a series about that author’s detective creation, Anthony Gethryn; and another American, Patricia, the only one living of these four, who ties family dramas to her crimes stories.

In the Cape Fear remake, Nolte (Peck in the original) is Sam Bowden, the lawyer sought out by Max Cady (De Niro/Mitchum) for sending him to prison some years earlier. Jessica Lange, who immediately emits an earthy sexuality, is a sharp contrast to Bergen’s pure wife reaction to Cady’s embrace. Lange even makes an impromptu speech, somehow unconvincing, about how she is attracted to Cady, an effort to spare her daughter.

Nancy, the 15-year-old daughter, an innocent child of the ‘60s as played by Martin, now becomes Danielle (Lewis), a nearly unmanageable teenager of the ‘90s. She at first doesn’t believe all the bad things said about Cady. She is fascinated by his voice on the phone. Later, in an over-long scene in which he poses as a drama teacher, she lets him kiss her and insert his thumb in her mouth—not once but twice—an obvious phallic symbol of the rape he has in mind for her.

The obvious difference between the two versions of Cape Fear, as some critics have noted, is that, as already suggested, the victimized family in 1991 is no longer nicey-nice and all-American, but spoiled, tainted and rich. Sam and his wife have been in therapy over what is a sometimes violent marriage. The two come to blows—both physical and verbal—over his infidelities. As a lawyer, Sam is guilty of withholding critical evidence in Cady’s long ago case.

Scorsese retains many of the scenes and ideas of the original, including the poisoning of the family dog, the lawyer’s attempt to pay off his harasser, later setting three thugs on Cady and, in the climax, a deceptive airplane departure. Sam hopes the stalker will attack his presumably unprotected wife and daughter at the houseboat on the Cape Fear River, North Carolina. In the remake, the private detective (Joe Don Baker) is murdered by Cady, who penetrates the tight security of the house disguised as the housekeeper, an idea at least as old as the Sherlock Holmes movie, The Scarlet Claw of 1944.

The new Sam Bowden’s sexual indiscretions provides Scorsese with a “wonderful” opportunity for more gore and violence—the horrific disfigurement of Sam’s on-the-side girlfriend (Illeana Douglas), who refuses to bring charges and leaves town, having been informed by Cady that this treatment is only a “sample.”

Mitchum’s occasional quoting of scripture is expanded for De Niro, who takes the fanaticism further: his arms and torso are tattooed with Biblical symbols and quotes. In the final analysis, the obvious has to be asked: Despite De Niro’s tattoos and his extroverted, violent, over-the-top performance, isn’t Robert Mitchum, because of his hulking stature, indolent voice and under acting, the more menacing?

In addition to typically giving family members minor roles, Scorsese assigns cameo parts to some of the 1962 alumni—Peck (in his last appearance in a theatrical film), Mitchum and Martin Balsam who played a police chief.

The film’s climax of unrelenting terror goes beyond the necessary in gore, blood and violence.. De Niro puts the daughter in the hold of the houseboat just long enough for her to hide a squeeze-bottle of lighter fluid under her blouse. A little later when Nolte is sufficiently unconscious and De Niro has the two women before him, he lights a cigar, whereupon Lewis squirts the lighter fluid at him. Head and shoulders in flames, he staggers blindly about the boat and falls overboard.

End of story? Nice if it would have been; it would have done the picture a favor and reduced extending the pain of an already overblown endeavor. But, no, in the worst cliché of the Night on Elm Street slasher movies, De Niro climbs back on board by way of the dangling anchor cable, which he had cut earlier, and the violence and terror resume for what seems like ten more minutes. This devotion to violence, after an end of sorts had already been reached, is the film’s most conspicuous weakness.

What is missing, in a word, is restraint. Subtlety, a toning down of the film’s extremes, obviously wasn’t Scorsese’s inclination, or, perhaps, in his nature. There could have been, say, a gradual darkening of the screen, an increase in tempo as the terror grows, the way Alfred Hitchcock might have done, but there are no variances, no crescendo, only an insistent, unrelenting fortissimo. (Or perhaps Scorsese should be respected for not copying Hitch.)

There is, however, an Hitchcockian touch at the beginning of the film—thunder clouds hover as De Niro leaves prison—that recalls Hitch’s Shadow of a Doubt and the train smoke that blackens sky and screen as Joseph Cotton arrives in Santa Rosa. The symbolism in both films is obvious: evil is at hand.

Not to worry. There’s still Herrmann’s magnificent, totally appropriate and compelling music. The most redeeming feature in this remake is the score. No mere “score,” this! The credits indicate “adapted, arranged and conducted by Elmer Bernstein,” with “orchestrations by” Bernstein’s daughter, Emilie. Huh? Why would Herrmann’s music, of all film composers’, need an orchestrator? Herrmann did his own. Perhaps, more accurately, Emilie’s actual job was as a reconstructor of the score, if, say, no physical manuscripts existed. In any case, the music remains convincingly vintage Herrmann.

Author insert a music with WS Audio Player
Download (Cape Fear Suite).

When Herrmann’s music leaps—or creeps, as the case may be—it energizes the film, making it, somehow, better than it is. To the so-called “quiet” moments, the music adds a menacing undertow, and to the violent ones—and there are plenty—a full-fledged terror. After the music of the main title—accompanied by superb visuals—has moaned and groaned, more often snarled and raged, mostly in the brass and with typical Herrmannian two- and four-note motifs, all that follows from the actors, photographer Freddie Francis and director Scorsese is anticlimactic.

Like an enduring overture to a long-forgotten opera, the main title encapsulates the drama of the 1991 Cape Fear and becomes, along with the music to follow, the best part of a damaged whole. For a more rewarding experience, watch the 1962 original, or, if you accidentally, unavoidably stumble upon the remake, stay with it—if only to hear it!

And, to be honest, as far as films go, none of the six included in this collection (with release dates from 1945-1953) are examples of classic cinema at its finest.  In fact, at least one is downright bad.  However the beauty of these films isn’t in their plots or character development or the other standard prerequisites for excellence.

Rather, all the usual acoutrements serve only as a vehicle for Ms. Williams.   And when taken from this perspective and coupled with the state of the world in the immediate post war era, these films are masterful visions.  The plots are all rather pedestrian if not ludicrous and, although in all cases she has talented co-stars (Van Johnson, Mary Astor, Howard Keel, Victor Mature, and Walter Pidgeon) they serve only to provide support for her.  Here’s a little teaser…

These aquamusicals as they were termed in the day were a full-fledged genre that MGM created for their star.  As an accomplished swimmer all the films in this collection feature extensive sequences filmed in the most liquid of elements.

As a deprived Olympian (Williams most certainly would have competed in both the 1940 and 1944 Games had World War II not caused their cancellation.) she was instead discovered by MGM and first appeared in 1942’s Andy Hardy’s Double Life. Her extensively choreographed aquatic routines founded the sport currently known as synchronized swimming.

After the demise of the fabled aquamusical in the early 50s Williams tried her hand at more serious roles but failed miserably.  She’s a swimmer, not an actress.  Given the acquired taste element that the six films included here have, one is thankful that these lesser vehicles haven’t been included.

However, the quality of the film itself aside, Warners has done a superior job in releasing these films to DVD – some of which never appeared on VHS.  To varying degrees all the transfers are crisp and quite good.  And given the niche quality these films hold we are even treated to a fairly deep selection of added features.  One wishes all releases included such.

All six discs (there is one feature per disc and all are nicely executed picture discs) have a good complement of features including the original trailer and vintage shorts and classic cartoons.  The trailers as a means of comparison are a quick and dirty way to see that at least some cleaning and restoration appears to have been done to their feature films.

Of the six, three (Thrill of a Romance, This Time for Keeps, Pagan Love Song) include additional musical outtakes and Million Dollar Mermaid includes a vintage radio program.  Nice of Warners to include these additional features for the fans of these films.

The color and registration is outstanding in almost all cases – remember these films were intended to be visually breathtaking and they still are.  All six films are in glorious technicolor.

In summary it is good to see in these challenging times any classic film releases given their somewhat limited potential (except for the “biggies” like The Wizard of Oz). Kudos to Warners as well for not releasing these titles as part of the BOD Warner Archives  program.  Although we like much with their Archives plan, it is always nice to get pressed discs with scene selections and added features.

This set is recommended for those who are already fans of the genre or want simply to revel in the visual experience of films like this which will never be made again. The six films includeded are Thrill of a Romance, Fiesta, This Time for Keeps, Pagan Love Song, Million Dollar Mermaid, and Easy to Love.

Well, perhaps they could be remade if the water suddenly swelled into a typhoon and Ms. Williams had at some point been featured in a highly successful series of comic books.  Or perhaps if some toilet humor could be worked in.

Maybe “Baby Ruth?” (fans of Caddyshack will get it.)

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It surely cannot be the restoration or mastering process, since the whole idea behind the Archives collection is to do a simple transfer of the film without remastering, fancy menus, or even scene selections. We just get the standard preset chapter breaks at every ten minutes of run time.

That being said, Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark (1973) and Bad Ronald (1974) are not so bad for the genre, but again, the genre is what holds them back. The transfers are as expected, roughly what you could gather from an older TV airing. Yet true to form you will have a hard time finding these titles outside the world of the Warners Archive.

Bad Ronald sounds rather pedestrian but in reality it has a nice twist. New homeowners discover the have an unknown roommate in Ronald as he slowly terrorizes them. Evidently he’s been hiding in a secret room since killing a neighbor years prior.

In a somewhat simliar storyline, newlyweds who’ve just inherited an old mansion decide to…..you guessed it, open a secret room. Needless to say all hell breaks loose shortly thereafter.

Oz has been released several times before on DVD, so one’s first inclination is to slap the proverbial hands over at Warner Brothers for what, in some instances, is another repackaging of the same product.  But yet that isn’t quite the case either.   (Remember, this is the studio releasing the Warner Archives dvds.)

It’s a bit hard to decipher, but of the three releases, only one is a newly remastered video transfer.  This is the blu-ray release, which be all accounts should present the film in all it’s technicolor glory at a level never before imagined, much less seen.  The two standard DVD releases (both the 2-Disc Special Edition and the 4-Disc Ultimate Collector’s Edition) have the same remastered transfer used in the previous 2005 release.  However, all releases do sport a new 5.1 sound mix which is a definite upgrade- in addition to a karaoke style sing-a-long feature.

The sing-a-long feature is a nice thought I suppose but not much of a change from simply watching the songs during the film with the subtitles on.  But perhaps for the kids, you know.   The two-dvd set provided for review was sharp in all areas, the sound mix especially being noteworthy.  Strangely the audio mix has quite a bit of depth to it without destroying the integrity of the original mix (which is also available if you prefer) and making it sound overly digital.

If you are already a big fan of the film, you most likely already have a copy of one of the previous releases and hence the 2 DVD release provides extremely paltry new material (just the audio mix and the sing-a-long).  However, it has a great variety of special features which, although all previously available, are really well done.

A personal favorite from all these older restored films is the feature on the restoration process itself.  Here you can really see the impact of the restoration which is nothing less than superb.

The two Ultimate Collector’s Editions (both standard DVD and blu-ray) are where the real eye candy begins for the serious fan.  Here we get some seriously deep features, including a few newly produced ones, including one about famed director Victor Fleming.  In addition we get additional dramatizations of the story, including some from the silent era.  Although more casual fans won’t need – or want – this level of detail, it is a true fans nirvana.

At the end of the day, if you already have a version on DVD and are just a casual fan of the Oz saga, you probably need not worry about these new releases.  However, if you are a avid fan of either the film itself or the era in which it was made the two Ultimate Collector’s Editions are must haves – doubtless if this applies you’ve already pre-ordered in any case.  And if you’ve never owned it, this is a good time to grab the new “entry-level” two disc set.  You won’t be disappointed.

Plus, check out the official Warner Brothers site, where you can check out the wide array of official merchandise (including the dvd releases).

The Official Warner Brothers Wizard of Oz Site

Although we usually dive a bit deeper into the story of the films we talk about, this seems like one where unless you’ve been under a rock (perhaps literally) you already know the story.

“Compose a piece yourself, my dear, and see how it sounds to you after listening to Beethoven.”
—Claude Rains to Bette Davis

No, not the 2008 erotic, B-movie starring Hugh Jackman and Michelle Williams, which has little creativity or originality for the intelligent viewer, nor the 1993 mystery of the same name with Liam Neeson and Addie MacDowell. The 1946 Deception is a quite different flick, a crossbreed of genres—an often over-the-top drama through the theatrics of its three stars; a film noir, because of Ernest Haller’s chiaroscuro cinematography and Anton Grot’s angular art direction; a slippery soap opera, sometimes dignified as “a woman’s picture”; and, were it not so slowly paced and its single murder coming at the end, a thriller.

Since the three major stars, the director (Irving Rapper) and the studio (Warner Bros.) are identical in Now, Voyager, made five years earlier, perhaps a comparison between it and Deception would be an appropriate starting point in understanding the nature of the film, its strong points and its failings. In sum and despite all, Deception is a fascinating study, and for those with certain musical proclivities, a “must see” experience.

In Now, Voyager, Bette Davis’ salvation is Paul Henreid, whose presence and comfort make her life worthwhile. Davis’ new lease on life is due to her psychiatrist, Claude Rains, who transforms her from a mother-dominated, unattractive spinster to an independent, sophisticated woman. This film, by the way, contains one of Hollywood’s great lines: “Don’t ask for the moon,” Davis tells Henreid as they share a cigarette. “We have the stars.”

By contrast, in Deception, pianist Christine Radcliffe (Davis), already an attractive woman in the film—that’s not a problem here—keeps from Karel Novak (Henreid) the secret of her long-running affair with composer Alexander Hollenius (Rains), even after their marriage, until the last moments of the film when it’s too late. Now less a redeemer and protector, Henreid is an irresolute, suspicious cellist, near a nervous breakdown after his World War II experiences.

Deception is a remake of the 1929 Jealousy, starring Fredric March and Jeanne Eagels and based on a French play by Louis Vemeuil. There are subtle as well as major differences between the two films. In Jealousy, the husband, who is an artist, kills his wife’s former lover; in Deception, presumably to afford Davis a greater acting range, the wife kills her former lover. And everyone is a musician.

Which now justifies a study of what makes the film “fascinating” to viewers with a penchant for music, specifically classical music, classical music and more classical music. The works of J. S. Bach, Haydn, Schubert and Beethoven are interspersed throughout the movie. This assembly of such profoundly Teutonic voices, probably no coincidence, adds a sympathetic underpinning to the often ponderous histrionics of the characters.

The late George Korngold, one of two sons of Erich Wolfgang Korngold, called Deception “the only film about musicians that makes artistic sense.” Music is central to the plot and is often discussed in technical terms, and the film exposes the enormous egos and insecurities common to many musicians’ personalities.

The next quote is pertinent because it is about music and, more specifically, about Richard Strauss, who is mentioned in the film—and was alive in 1946. In Men of Music, Wallace Brockway and Herbert Weinstock denigrate Strauss’ 45-minute tone poem Ein Heldenleben as “constantly collapsing and falling over on its side like a backboneless leviathan. In the passing years, the little dead areas have spread until they now blotch the work like a devitalizing fungus.” Pretty verbose, eh? And picturesque——

Much like film critic Ted Sennett in a 1971 review: “Deception was even more ludicrous [than Davis’ A Stolen Life, also 1946], as she carried on operatically with Claude Rains and Paul Henreid to the loudest musical score Erich Wolfgang Korngold could devise. An unintentionally risible story of romantic discord among New York musicians, it featured hysterical quarrels in an apartment at least as large as Rhode Island, yards of high-toned dialogue about music and much ‘pseudo-classical’ (and dreadful) music, ostensibly written by that great composer Alexander Hollenius (Rains).” Rhode Island, indeed! And, by the way, there are two apartments, though, agreed, equally large.

Maybe not the best way to introduce Korngold to these proceedings. Deception was his last original film score—and, as background music per se, contains the least amount of music he ever wrote for a movie. The theme of the majestic main title (just below), with emphatic use of the tubular bells, appears throughout the film and exists two-dimensionally, both as murky background score and as resolute source music for the cello, whether played on that instrument or on the piano.  The music behind dialogue is recorded at so low a volume as to approach inaudibility, hardly Korngold’s “loudest musical score.”

Author insert a music with WS Audio Player
Download (Deception Main Title).

In the film, the cello concerto is the work of Hollenius, who, as Karel observes when queried by a student journalist, “combines the rhythm of today with the melody of yesterday.” Forget that the actual composer, a pure romantic like Korngold, is trying to sound modern (“modern” in ferocity, perhaps, not so in tonality), supposedly as Hollenius would sound; forget that, as such, the music seems tame alongside what Schoenberg, Webern and Berg had done long before 1946. In its own right, the concerto is strikingly original.

If the wall-to-wall dialogue isn’t formidable enough, the centerpiece of the film—no disrespect to the three stars—is the ever-looming concerto. The instrument—its sound, its use, its discussion—dominates, distorts and demoralizes the lives of those who come in contact with it. In the opening of the film, the cello is already a competing “player” when Davis enters a concert hall. The tones of Haydn’s D-Major Concerto are heard before Davis utters her first word.

Much has been said—and most of it warranted—that Bette Davis commands center attention in all the films she made. This is clearly true in All About Eve, Jezebel, The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex, The Little Foxes and The Letter, to name the most obvious. But in Deception, despite what has been said about her dominance over her male stars, she is up against Claude Rains, who clearly steals the show. He received a Best Supporting Actor nomination that year, not for Deception but for another negative-titled film, Alfred Hitchcock’s Notorious. He should have won, in deference to Harold Russell for The Best Years of Our Lives.

In at least three scenes, Rains presides supreme: his crashing of Davis and Henreid’s wedding party, the should-be-famous restaurant tour de force and the bedroom showdown with Davis, he in bed reading the Sunday comics. In the party scene belongs the cryptic lines, “Sooner or later you’ll come back to your old teacher. You’ll realize that nothing really matters but music. Everything passes but music—and me.”

Talking on the telephone in the movies has always been a dramatic occasion, a chance for women, especially, to act their hearts out. There’s Barbara Stanwyck in Sorry, Wrong Number (1948), Peter Sellers in Dr. Strangelove (1964), Robert Walker in Strangers on a Train (1951), the mute Dorothy McGuire in The Spiral Staircase (1946) and Ross Martin in Experiment in Terror (1962). The list is endless. Ingrid Bergman appeared in a 1967 TV production of Jean Cocteau’s The Human Voice (La voix humaine, 1930), and Francis Poulenc, in 1959, wrote a 50-minute mini-opera based on the same source.

Before Hollenius first appears at the wedding party, Christine receives a telephone call from him; his half of the conversation is not heard. During what is, in effect, a monologue, she calls him “Alex” until Karel comes home, when she illogically says “Hollenius”—not too smart a move for a woman trying to keep the ex-lover a secret, but, of course, the script required that Karel learn that she knows him.

In their first meeting after the party, Christine enters Hollenius’ extravagant hotel suite—perhaps only a parcel of Rhode Island!—as he’s ending a piece on the piano (dubbed by Korngold). “So you remember the concerto I started last winter,” he says. “Well, I finished it.” After he indicates he still can’t live without her, married or not, and she explains Karel’s unexpected return and unstable mental state, Hollenius seems to soften. “He’s something of a genius, you tell me—if the term can be applied to a performer.” (Much as the great Artur Rubinstein resented the application of the word “genius” to himself as a pianist.)

A few hours later Karel visits Hollenius, who falsely denies he phoned Christine a second time the night before and, lying further, says his previous visitor had been “masculine, my dear fellow, masculine.” The composer plays an old, pre-war recording of Karel’s and suggests, that if he plays this well, he, Hollenius, has a certain piece that might interest him.

Returning from practicing the cello part with Hollenius, in another extended scene (they’re all “extended”!), Karel shares with Christine his experience, both condemning and praising the egomaniacal composer. He says Hollenius has given him the concerto to study and, later, to perform publicly. His self-confidence seems restored.

Man and wife converse against a wall of picture windows, common in Manhattan penthouses at the time, it would seem, or at least in the movies of the ’40s, i.e., The Fountainhead (1949) and Rope, made in 1948 by Hitchcock. Rain running down the great window adds to the dreariness of the moment and underlines Christine’s still kept secret. Despite the Hollywood symbolism of water as a moral or physical cleansing, nothing is resolved or rectified.

Before the dress rehearsal, Hollenius hosts a dinner at a posh restaurant, ordering and reordering the meal in an attempt to unnerve his cellist. “Oh,” he says with mock sincerity, “I do hope the great haste with which we’re assembling this slapdash repast is not going to affect me internally and render me incapable of appreciating good music.” Hollenius is annoyed that Karel started his study of the concerto at the beginning and not with the fugato—“fugato,” another musical term thrown out as nonchalantly as any other dialogue. The punch line of the episode is delivered by Hollenius. After having finally settled, presumably, on a woodcock and establishing its accouterments—“Now, with a woodcock, with a woodcock . . . ,”—as they leave the restaurant, he muses, “Maybe we should’ve had the woodcock.”

With Karel at the rehearsal, Christine is alone in her penthouse. Pacing and going to the phone without making a call, she turns off the radio, just after it emits a commercial jingle typical of the time, about double magic Drawrof. The announcer boasts, “Remember, folks, when you spell ‘Drawrof’ backwards it reads ‘forward.’ ” Interrupting her pacing, Christine, with one finger, idly picks out a tune on the piano: it is the main theme from the cello concerto. Is she thinking of the rehearsal or of Hollenius?

Suspicious of Hollenius’ generosity in offering the solo cello part to her husband, Christine returns to the composer’s hotel suite. Hollenius, weary of her paranoia barrages, insists that her behavior is nothing new. “My dear, if you knew how many daggers I’ve had flourished before me by hysterical ladies of the opera—an earlier period of my life.” (For those viewers who look for continuity flubs, in one camera shot Rains puts down the Sunday comics and an instant later, in the next cut, he’s still holding the newspaper.) At any rate, Hollenius promises Christine he won’t withdraw Karel’s right to premiere the concerto.

The scripted arguments between Christine and Hollenius are so muddled that the viewer is never totally sure whether or not he plans to seek revenge against her by demoralizing Karel, or if the notion is confined to Christine’s own paranoid suspicions, or if the composer, not malevolent in the beginning, is given such an idea by her fears, or if——

The dress rehearsal begins calmly enough until Hollenius stops the orchestra. “The flute is ahead,” he says. “Have you no feeling for rhythm?” The passage is repeated. When Hollenius stops the orchestra again for the same infraction, Karel indignantly continues to play. A whack of the baton silences the cello. “I was under the impression,” Karel fumes, “this was a dress rehearsal. After all, this is a cello concerto, not a flute concerto.” Whereupon Hollenius asks him to leave the stage and replaces him with the first chair cellist, appropriately named Bertram Gribble (John Abbott), who provides, here and later, some welcomed comic relief. Christine, observing from a theater seat, is anxious for Karel, but when Hollenius comments, “We mustn’t exhaust the delicate creature for this evening’s performance,” she is relieved—for the moment.

An interesting footnote: Like any non-musician, Rains was coached in the proper gestures and baton use of a conductor, as was Charlton Heston for a similar role in Counterpoint (1968), not, by any means, a “film about musicians that makes artistic sense.” Rains is quite credible, with graceful arm sweeps and the characteristic grimaces and emoting of most real conductors; by contrast, Heston’s arm movements are painfully unmusical, his face expressionless.

Bette Davis, a trained pianist, wanted to play the Beethoven “Appassionata” Sonata at the wedding party, but, in the end, the concert pianist Shura Cherkassky laid down the track.

As for the ruse engineered for Henreid to “play” in close-ups, with his arms tied behind his back, two real cellists crouched behind him. One man’s left arm went through the left coat sleeve to simulate finger board action, the other’s right arm filled the right sleeve to handle the bow. The cello heard on screen is that of first cellist of the Warner Bros. orchestra, Eleanor Aller Slatkin, who gave the world premiere of the work in its final, revised form with the Los Angeles Philharmonic in late December, 1946.

It could justifiably be said that, in the acting awards, Rains is also the winner in his final appearance with Davis, even though he’s subdued and philosophical much of the time, spouting the best line in the film: “Compose a piece yourself, my dear, and see how it sounds to you after listening to Beethoven.” Pretty good, this “high-toned dialogue”! Dressed in black as she was in the opening scene, Christine now has a pistol: her fear that Hollenius will divulge her illicit secret has driven her to a final, terrible solution.

In the film’s last scene, Christine arrives late to hear Karel perform the concerto, just as she was late to the film’s opening concert. After all the lies and even now, at the eleventh hour, Christine cannot tell her husband about that great deception of the film’s title—at least at first.. For a while, she concocts more lies. Finally, though, she reveals her affair—and that she has killed Hollenius. Karel is shocked at first—“How could you?”—then, perhaps as proof of his love for her, which conceivably is greater than hers for him, he suggests that going to the police might be a recourse.

The concerto and Karel’s playing were successes and it’s implied he’ll be re-engaged. As they leave the hall amid congratulations from the crowd, a woman gushes, “You must be the happiest woman in the world.”

On a final note, here is the original trailer from 1946.