A Melodramatic Noir Ghost Story
The Amazing Mr. X, directed by Bernard Vorhaus, drew my attention before seeing it because of the presence of Lynn Bari in the cast. A dark-haired beauty with prominent cheekbones and a sultry low- to medium-range voice, I watch her films whenever I get the chance. She's not famous, like Jennifer Jones (whom she resembles), nor is she a great actress, but in China Girl from 1942 she does a scene with George Montgomery that counts as one of the sexiest performances I've ever seen, the two of them flirting with each other in a hotel bar, then going to his room for an obvious follow-up. That one scene illustrates my own particular taste for specific moments (sexy or not) in old Hollywood films; how I enjoy certain scenes but find the frequent "happy ending" solutions to be off-putting in terms of realism.
The happy ending following a dramatic premise can be termed "melodrama." An uneasy dramatic situation, twists and turns, a climactic confrontation, a reconciliation in which the world is put to order, sometimes with a degree of sadness thrown in, as in The Amazing Mr. X from 1948, the story of a rich widow, Christine (Lynn Bari), haunted by memories of her dead pianist husband. Walking along the beach, she thinks she hears him calling her name, the sound apparently coming out of the crashing waves.
Her boyfriend (Richard Carlson) finds himself competing with her dead husband, and with the attentions shown to her by a weird medium, Alexis (Turhan Bey), whose business card shows just the name, Alexis, and an address. Customers, all of them women, go to see him to ask the kinds of questions one asks a psychic. His home is dark and full of hidden rooms and passages. He has a trained crow--this is the second post I've written in a row with a trained crow; I didn't plan that.
Having first encountered Alexis and his crow on the beach the night she believes she heard her dead husband Paul calling her name, it seems possible from early on that she's being manipulated by a fake medium. Martin, Christine's boyfriend, certainly believes that to be the case, hiring a private detective (who happens to be a magician and is definitely an asshole) to look into the matter. Martin also enlists the aid of Christine's younger sister, Janet (Cathy O'Donnell), to pose as one of the medium's customers.
Both women find Alexis charming, making frequent visits, participating in a seance in one scene replete with good 1948 visual effects. The film's sound and visuals are quite striking. There's a chiaroscuro effect in many scenes--the cigarette smoke and incense of Alexis's house; the fog. The movie's spookiness, with a supernatural thematic effect in the first half, and then, once a certain mystery gets exposed, a different and creepier (from a natural human condition standpoint) theme, is reflected by lighting, sound, and weird situations. Another effective element is the limited space of the locations. There's the big house on a cliff above the ocean where Christine lives with her sister and some servants; there's the private detective's office in just one scene; there's the beach enclosed by large rock formations below Christine's house; there's Alexis's dark house and that's it. A film about a woman haunted by memories of her dead husband, all of it carried out in a narrow space of locations, squeezing the action as if it's being carried out on a stage.
Turhan Bey is good as the medium; smooth and graceful, a practiced illusionist. Lynn Bari is gorgeous, but she doesn't get to do much except be confused and sometimes freaked out. Cathy O'Donnell, who didn't make enough movies, is good as the sister; naive and bubbly. Her performance in her next film, Nicholas Ray's masterpiece, They Live By Night, gave her the chance to portray one of the most heartbreaking characters I've ever seen. She was a great actress who should've been in more films, although she was in The Best Years of Our Lives, and that's nothing to dismiss.
Vic Neptune
The Amazing Mr. X, directed by Bernard Vorhaus, drew my attention before seeing it because of the presence of Lynn Bari in the cast. A dark-haired beauty with prominent cheekbones and a sultry low- to medium-range voice, I watch her films whenever I get the chance. She's not famous, like Jennifer Jones (whom she resembles), nor is she a great actress, but in China Girl from 1942 she does a scene with George Montgomery that counts as one of the sexiest performances I've ever seen, the two of them flirting with each other in a hotel bar, then going to his room for an obvious follow-up. That one scene illustrates my own particular taste for specific moments (sexy or not) in old Hollywood films; how I enjoy certain scenes but find the frequent "happy ending" solutions to be off-putting in terms of realism.
The happy ending following a dramatic premise can be termed "melodrama." An uneasy dramatic situation, twists and turns, a climactic confrontation, a reconciliation in which the world is put to order, sometimes with a degree of sadness thrown in, as in The Amazing Mr. X from 1948, the story of a rich widow, Christine (Lynn Bari), haunted by memories of her dead pianist husband. Walking along the beach, she thinks she hears him calling her name, the sound apparently coming out of the crashing waves.
Her boyfriend (Richard Carlson) finds himself competing with her dead husband, and with the attentions shown to her by a weird medium, Alexis (Turhan Bey), whose business card shows just the name, Alexis, and an address. Customers, all of them women, go to see him to ask the kinds of questions one asks a psychic. His home is dark and full of hidden rooms and passages. He has a trained crow--this is the second post I've written in a row with a trained crow; I didn't plan that.
Having first encountered Alexis and his crow on the beach the night she believes she heard her dead husband Paul calling her name, it seems possible from early on that she's being manipulated by a fake medium. Martin, Christine's boyfriend, certainly believes that to be the case, hiring a private detective (who happens to be a magician and is definitely an asshole) to look into the matter. Martin also enlists the aid of Christine's younger sister, Janet (Cathy O'Donnell), to pose as one of the medium's customers.
Both women find Alexis charming, making frequent visits, participating in a seance in one scene replete with good 1948 visual effects. The film's sound and visuals are quite striking. There's a chiaroscuro effect in many scenes--the cigarette smoke and incense of Alexis's house; the fog. The movie's spookiness, with a supernatural thematic effect in the first half, and then, once a certain mystery gets exposed, a different and creepier (from a natural human condition standpoint) theme, is reflected by lighting, sound, and weird situations. Another effective element is the limited space of the locations. There's the big house on a cliff above the ocean where Christine lives with her sister and some servants; there's the private detective's office in just one scene; there's the beach enclosed by large rock formations below Christine's house; there's Alexis's dark house and that's it. A film about a woman haunted by memories of her dead husband, all of it carried out in a narrow space of locations, squeezing the action as if it's being carried out on a stage.
Turhan Bey is good as the medium; smooth and graceful, a practiced illusionist. Lynn Bari is gorgeous, but she doesn't get to do much except be confused and sometimes freaked out. Cathy O'Donnell, who didn't make enough movies, is good as the sister; naive and bubbly. Her performance in her next film, Nicholas Ray's masterpiece, They Live By Night, gave her the chance to portray one of the most heartbreaking characters I've ever seen. She was a great actress who should've been in more films, although she was in The Best Years of Our Lives, and that's nothing to dismiss.
Vic Neptune
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