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Bravura is what a melodrama on the verge of film noir calls for, the opening delivers and then some: The full moon is rhymed on a bowl of dripping white rubber, a pair of sprawling crane shots survey a humid night at the Malayan plantation and are timed to catch a cockatoo in startled flight as a shot rings out. A passing cloud obscures the lunar spotlight, and there's the impassive visage of the lady of the manor (Bette Davis) who's just unloaded an entire pistol into a fellow's body. Her account of shooting down a rapist is promptly accepted by her husband (Herbert Marshall), nevertheless "in a civilized society, a trial is inevitable." The colonial state according to W. Somerset Maugham, visualized by William Wyler for the heightened anxiety of expiring empires and ardent women. The lawyer (James Stephenson) must deal with a compromising missive, it "places an entirely different complexion on the whole case," his assistant (Victor Sen Yung) plays mediator while masking an oppressed nation's wrath behind an obsequious smile. Rendezvous at the Chinese Quarter, war of the gargantuas—Davis' veil of British decorum versus the gorgonish seething of Gale Sondergaard as the Eurasian widow, a charged tableau of smoke and shadow and wind chimes perfectly punctuated by Willie Fung's chortling in the background. "Be flippant about your crimes if you want to, but don't be flippant about mine." An air of political and emotional upheaval permeates every drawing room, meticulous lacework gives the shape of Wyler's technique. ("Enormous concentration and patience" are recommended.) The finale's dark rhapsody is that of annihilation and consummation, a transgressive heroine unburdened of everything but the call of a gleaming blade in the garden. Duras turns this Singapore opera into an India Song. Cinematography by Tony Gaudio. With Frieda Inescort, Bruce Lester, Elizabeth Inglis, and Cecil Kellaway. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |