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To Renoir the river embodies the forward-push of life, to Fritz Lang it circles the subconscious until insidious desires belly up. The setting is shoestring Victoriana, the sojourn at Republic Pictures further concentrates the perverse analysis—the maid (Dorothy Patrick) washes upstairs, bathtub water goes down throbbing pipes, her boss (Louis Hayward) looks up with a leer. He's the frustrated writer in the gazebo, she's a pair of bare knees ambling down the staircase, the shift from stifled scream to strangulation takes place in a flash. The servant's disappearance worries his wife (Jane Wyatt) and guilt weighs on his brother (Lee Bowman), the novelist on the other hand is energized by the grisly experience. Hoedown, free publicity, a new scenario: "He fancies the whole thing as a great, big melodrama, with himself in the leading role." The bovine carcass that comes and goes with the tide, sludge consumed by moonlight, mental states for the hack with the corpse in the sack. "Write about what you know" is the lesson absorbed by the murderous artist, "imagination is not enough." A severe surrealism throughout, leaping trout is rhymed with hand mirror as curtains turn into grasping hands, lifeless tresses sway like weeds for the benefit of The Night of the Hunter. Fraternal loyalty is a business that can only go so far, elsewhere vengeful gossip curdles a housekeeper's repressed desire. From El to Ensayo de un Crimen, a crucial influence on Buñuel. "Can't you appreciate its quality, apart from its content?" Lang the one-eyed judge, making sure that the justice denied in the courtroom comes crawling out of the swamp. Scattered pages from the manuscript fill the screen at the close (cp. Argento's Tenebrae). With Ann Shoemaker, Jody Gilbert, Howland Chamberlain, Margaret Seddon, Kathleen Freeman, and Will Wright. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |