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It opens in the darkness of a tunnel and closes under the sun of a crossroads, with the couple in question strangers to each other as much as when they first met. Joan Fontaine to clinch the Rebecca link, the well-off mouse is a general's daughter, Daddy's august portrait is one of two key paintings. (The other is a bit of cubism to confound the young detective and point up the importance of perspective.) Prince Charming in this Cinderella story turns out to be a strapped wastrel, Cary Grant modulating immaculately from polish to menace and back, the perfect performer for Alfred Hitchcock's art. Dissolve from church portal to windswept hilltop, somewhere between assault and kiss: "Now what did you think I was going to do, kill you?" They waltz out of the ballroom and into a whirlwind marriage, the honeymoon ends with the realization that hubby is waist-deep in debt. Doubt spreads, darkens. "I never knew you were such a murder story fan." "Neither did I until recently." The conjugal state, spidery shadows and all. From laughing fit to death rattle in the blink of an eye, so discovers the hearty chum (Nigel Bruce) with his forbidden glass of brandy. Child psychology makes for fine reading on a train, the snapping purse shows the hand of Lubitsch's screenwriter. Visit to the novelist (Auriol Lee), whose brother reveals his autopsy experience by delicately bisecting the game hen on his plate. "My villain? My hero, you mean. I always think of my murderers as my heroes." The mind that wanders at Scrabble comes to focus on the poisonous glow of a glass of milk, a mise en scène keyed to the audience's necessity to interpret signs and our desire to believe the worst, as unresolved as needed. Ray revises the ending in In a Lonely Place. Cinematography by Harry Stradling. With Sir Cedric Hardwicke, Dame May Whitty, Isabel Jeans, Heather Angel, Reginald Sheffield, and Leo G. Carroll. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |