Barbara Stanwyck Blogathon: Witness to Murder, 1954

**Me humble contribution to the Barbara Stanwyck Blogathon (July 16-22) hosted by that effervescent nut Aubyn Eli at The Girl With The White Parasol.**

 My first thought watching Roy Rowland's 1954 thriller noir Witness to Murder was that it toted a proto-feminist message of the trials and tribulations that befall a smart, capable woman who is slapped down by a patriarchal society for insisting on expressing herself. In the case of Barbara Stanwyck's interior decorator turned amateur sleuth Cheryl Draper, expressing that the murder she saw actually happened and not in her dream leads to a whole heap of humiliation and isolation.

My father acknowledged this theme, then pointed out another: Witness to Murder is an allegory of the period after WWI and before WWII when no one took the threat of rising Nazism seriously. The exploits of the Kaiser had been so grossly exaggerated by the propaganda machine that complacent Americans were hesitant to take Hitler seriously as a threat until they had to.

Witness to Murder is both these things, allegory of war ignorance and feminine oppression. But what it isn't is particularly great.

The cinematography bathes the beginning in the noirest shades of noir; first the outline of the branches over Stanwyck's fitfully sleeping face, and then plunging George Sanders's oily rat "ex"-Nazi Albert Richter in blackness as he waits with bated breath for an elevator to reach his level, possibly carrying policemen--which would be unfortunate, since he's dragging down the hall the body of the woman that Stanwyck saw him murder from across the street in her apartment, in the dead of night.

My dad is disdainful that George couldn't bother to carry the body.

The film keeps up this heart-pounding noir rhythm, and it mixes well with some of the more leisurely paced scenes. I've become so used to break-neck camera cuts in recent movies that it was rather a sigh of relief when Rowland would take time to show Cheryl enter her home, walk across to her room, pick up the phone, and dial. Little scenes like that do much to make us feel at home with a character.

Of course, that's not hard with an actress like Stanwyck. Her Cheryl Draper is a thankfully unromantic creation, free of soft focus dewyness or even that much sex appeal (one of the most unflattering hair-dos I've ever seen on an actress doesn't hurt). She and Sanders are, unsurprisingly, the principal reason to see this movie. Sanders is at his most perfectly Sandersish here, not even trying for a hint of sympathy. And Cheryl is his match, at least in force of personality.

He explicitly acknowledges this in one of the climactic scenes, trudging out the age-old "we are not so different, you and I; in a different life, we could have even been friends" villain/hero exchange. What's refreshing is that the heroic half is not some Harrison Ford or James Bond or Captain Kirk or Phillip Marlowe gumshoe, but a worn-out, prickly, beaten but not beat woman bordering on middle age. 

Rowland and screenwriter Chester Erskine (with uncredited work from Nunnally Johnson) go to great lengths to demonstrate how, well, single Cheryl is. The next we see of her after the beginning sequence when she witnesses the murder is her mailbox from the policemen's point of view:

The "miss" is scrawled on in someone's (presumably Cheryl's) hand, sticking out largely from the typed out names surrounding her. She wears her single status and her age like a scarlet letter that spells out "Anything She Says Must Be Filtered Through Crazy Spinster Speak." And it's this unfortunate label that keeps her from being similar to Sanders's Richter in ways that would be to her advantage in the story.

Once she calls the police, Gary Merrill as Detective Larry Mathews and Jesse White as his wisecracking rabbity partner Eddie enter the scene. A slower pair of policemen you'll seldom meet again, and Merrill is the male lead, for crying out loud. If you go by the war ignorance angle, Merrill is the stand-in for the Perfect American: willing at first to give the baddie the benefit of the doubt without evidence to back up Cheryl's claim, but is at last the one to step in and realize what's up.

From a feminist standpoint, he's...problematic. At best.

"You just dreamed it," he coos right away to Cheryl after a cursory sweep of suave Richter's apartment reveals nothing--and Larry himself didn't even glance around at all. He takes away Cheryl's power by downsizing the problem from something that actually happened to something just inside her head. But beyond any contextual study of his character, he's just not a very good judge of people. He thinks Richter is an all right guy (how casually he mentions Richter's an ex-Nazi!), he dismisses the murder victim as the "wrong kind of girl", and he's surprised that casually mentioning that Cheryl's fiance was killed in an air raid "still hurts." He means well in the end, but plenty of well-meaning lunks have said and done terrible, terrible things. 

His relationship with Cheryl is ill-defined. Their characters have zero romantic chemistry, yet she's obviously his primary concern throughout, even if to point out that she's hysterical and wrong. Sometimes I wonder if they're even supposed to be romantic interests--maybe, just maybe, he's able to chip away through his sexist blind spots and simply find her interesting--a good friend. I doubt a movie even as ahead of its time in a lot of ways as this one would go that outrageously far, but who knows.

Cheryl seems swayed at first by his dream line, but quickly smells bullshit. She knows, deep down, what she saw.

Like Richter, she's a quick thinker and crafty liar, up to a point. She manipulates her way into his apartment (what kind of landlord does Richter have? I'm sorry, that can't be legal), snoops around subtly, and unwisely swipes a piece of jewelry she figures must belong to the victim. 

And here's where her similarity to Richter ends: they are both dangerously impetuous, but whereas Richter has the uncanny ability to wear the mask, and create an affable persona to trick the world, Cheryl is incapable of lying about herself, about what kind of person she is. And this combined with her powerless position as a woman gives Richter the upper hand through most of the movie.

He is able to convince the head of the L.A. police department she's insane, helped by the fact he's smooth and collected and she's unable to convince those assembled she believes Richter innocent, because of course she doesn't. Once she realizes her freedom is at stake she loses all composure, disbelieving that an innocent person trying to do right would be the one taken away. Her hurried "I realize now you're not guilty I'm sorry" is delivered too quickly, too desperately, and she comes across as the perfect image of the hysterical older woman not able to separate fantasy from reality.

The scene in the sanitarium is an interesting glance into the world of downtrodden femmes driven mad by their own labels. Claire Carleton as May is particularly effective as a seemingly "hey, sister, listen here" moll type, until slowly the camera reveals the crazed desperation in her eyes, and she speaks about all the men in love with her, including the doctor keeping her prisoner here. Juanita Moore (credited as "Negress" here, stay classy, 1950s Hollywood) also makes an impression as the patient who finally pushes May too far singing bitterly of love lost.

While there's realism a-plenty in this scene, I can't say there's a lot of human sympathy, particularly when Cheryl shudders thinking about her companions a few days later when she's freed: "It was ghastly...you should have seen the ones I've been living with the past two days." There's much more sympathy for Cheryl's plight (after all, despite everything, she is not the "wrong kind of girl"). The scene before she's released when she has an interview with the clinically detached sanitarium doctor is the most realistic, chilling, and somehow heart-rending scene.

The spacious, sterile room the doctor meets her in is filmed with her entering from far away; she's isolated from the doctor, from this world she finds herself in. The bars outside the window are silhouetted over the chair meant for her.

Again Rowland wisely takes his time with this scene, though nothing of great shock or import occurs. Still our hearts are a little bit in our throats for Cheryl. She presents herself better here than in the police station, but you see the paralyzed nerves in her face and awkward stance as she looks for a reaction, any kind of reaction from the cold and emotionless doctor (well played by Lewis Martin). He simply recites his questions at a rapid-fire, probing pace, never making eye contact.

What's so unnerving is the sense that there must have been some real research (or even real experience) packed into this scene; it's so lacking in any physical drama that this sort of visceral suspense must have happened on a regular basis to mental patients under review--probably still happens.

The entire sanitarium sequence is a strange interlude, interrupting the action but heightening our sympathy and rage on Cheryl's behalf. The sequence also illustrates what it must have been like for mentally unstable people trying to get back on their feet, and how that process is even more psychologically grueling than any initial breakdown.

Unfortunately, once Cheryl returns the movie devolves straight into a cliche thriller melodrama. The climax is idiotic, with this heretofore intelligent heroine sacrificing what we know about her character for the ludicrous machinations of the plot--leaving the safety of a policewoman escort when Richter tries to throw her out her window and running instead...to the top of a construction site, with Richter right behind her (followed by an old-timey mob of befuddled townfolk! "Some crazy dame's tryin' to kill herself!").

However, this grab bag of camp and noir is perfect for Sanders to really sink his tiger fangs into. He's Hannibal Lecter without the cannibalism--classy, into the finer things, digs murder and thinks it's great, and totally cuckoo. The most ridiculous yet soul-satisfying scene, and one where Sanders is at his finest playing his stock villain type, is when Cheryl confronts him in his apartment. He knows she can't harm him now that she has a recorded history of mental illness with an established "idee fixe" on him. So he revels in telling her that, yes, he killed the Stewart woman because she was probably mucking up his marriage plans to a rich widow and because, y'know, as a fascist he likes killing inferior specimens. 

As his rambling monologue rapidly uncovers the depths of his insanity, the camera approaches him from a low angle, emphasizing Sanders's looming height and crazy eyes. He at last breaks into German and kisses Cheryl, in love with the "hate" in her eyes.

Sanders relishes this trash, and makes the whole nonsense come alive in the most deliciously hammy way conceivable.

His and Stanwyck's teamwork, along with the surprisingly progressive messages hidden here and there, makes Witness to Murder definitely worth seeing. That the movie shifts away from a psychoanalytical take on the Rear Window plot and nosedives into standard action mode, and that some of these progressive themes are either ham-handed or made null by the poor execution or lack of real sympathy, keeps it from being a truly memorable or good movie.

But just take a look at George Sanders's crazy eyes and tell me you don't want to see this movie. You can't, can you? I knew it.

*****

Thanks for this opportunity to yak about Babs and weird film noir, Aubyn! I have a packed rest of this week ahead of me, but come the weekend, I hope to sit down, read the rest of the surely wonderful posts about Missy, and comment away.

Great What-Ifs: Far From The Madding Crowd starring Vivien Leigh

Shame-faced at calling myself an English Major after failing to read certain classics, I made it a priority this summer to at least read some great literature I hadn't before, in between job hunting. And as always, I was more successful on that front than in actually securing something that could make me money. Feh. But anyways! Stop being bitter, you guys.

One of the books I absolutely fell in love with was Thomas Hardy's Far From The Madding Crowd, which is well known for being one of his only cheerful books--as in, cheerful for a Thomas Hardy novel. There's still death, destruction, and heartache, but you actually don't feel like your soul has been sucked out by some sci-fi leech/vacuum hybrid by story's end. A quick, inadequate summary: pretty girl named Bathsheba. Turns down nice guy Gabriel. She inherits a farm. She's a kickass womyn, not taking no guff. Except she isn't that kickass; she can't run the farm without Gabriel. Hires him, he's head shepherd. Bathsheba drives Mr. Boldwood, elegant next-door neighbor, mad with the love-crazies. She herself is driven love-crazy by dashing man-whore Sgt. Frank Troy. Oh, it's in Wessex, the fictional English county in pretty much all of Thomas Hardy's books. Lots of colorful commentary from farm workers. There's sweeping romance and bloated sheep having to be poked in the tummies to breathe.

It's great! But I have as yet to see a filmed version that's really blown me away. The 1967 film was a huge disappointment, except for Peter Finch's bang-up job as Boldwood (and poor, nuttier-than-a-can-of-cashews Boldwood is my favorite part of Crowd, so his performance did go a long way toward redeeming the movie for me). The 1997 BBC version was okay, but the casting was iffy. Like I hear with Dark Shadows, however, little rumors tell me there will be a new cinematic version out sometime in the nearish future. I've toyed with the idea of casting that one in my head, a fond hobby of mine, and you'll probably see it often here. But because I love classic movies and vintage stars so much, I figured, hey! Why not cast a version with the actors from yesteryear, by golly? The production values back then and the more overt acting styles would better fit the epic, romantic mood Hardy establishes. I'm helped in this noble endeavor by something I read on a message board once: Vivien Leigh was once signed on to play Bathsheba in a version that was dropped for unknown reasons. Well. That sucks. I would have loved, adored, and eaten up with a spoon any version with Vivien Leigh in it. True, she'd basically just be playing an English country-girl version of Scarlett, but who freaking cares? It's Vivien. In Far From The Madding Crowd. I'm sold!

So, let's cast this imaginary movie filmed sometime in the forties, and...why don't we just cast the five principal leads, since it would take a whole plethora of old-timey character actors to portray all the local color in the thing? Here we go, gang! C'mon, Scoob!

Vivien Leigh as Bathsheba Everdene

There's no way this is not perfect. Now, I admit that I'm more than a little biased when it comes to Vivien. She's just my favorite actress, is all. I like to put on my fancy film buff pants and go, "I knew she was the greatest actress ever from the moment I saw her in A Streetcar Named Desire when I was only a little kid," thus sticking it to folks who know her primarily as Scarlett O'Hara. But while that's all very true, I didn't really become actively addicted to her until middle school, when I, like many privileged, white, ignorant brats before me, became simultaneously addicted to Gone With The Wind. But I do still maintain that her Blanche is probably the greatest performance I've ever seen. I'll probably post more on that some other time. HOWEVER: why's she perfect for Bathsheba in particular?

Well, like I said, it's a no-brainer. Beautiful? Check. The ability to play a petulant brat who means well, but is mired down by her ambitions and vanity? Double check. Dark-haired?! YES, CHECK. Sorry, but that's what really pissed me off with the '67 flick: Julie Christie, aka Blondie McBlonderson, as Bathsheba? No no no. Look, I'm not one of those book traditionalists who flies off the handle if a character's physiology deviates slightly; after all, Vivien's eyes are blue, while Bathsheba's should be brown. But Bathsheba's hair color is a freakin' plot point in one scene, for cryin' out loud. Christie was so miserably miscast.

Even though I compared the idea of Vivien's Bathsheba to an English version of Scarlett, I actually look at her performance in That Hamilton Woman as definitive proof that she would, no doubt, own the role of Bathsheba. In that film she starts out as a giddy little social climber, motivated in equal parts by misplaced love for an unseen rich git and a desire to lead a finer life than that of a chorus girl. Later, after earnestly falling in love and realizing what a shallow lie her life is, she becomes more jaded and wise, more melancholy. And she plays both these facets of Lady Hamilton's character flawlessly--I'd even venture to say it's a technically better performance than Scarlett, though few portrayals can ever touch the fiery charm she achieved in Gone With the Wind. But her ability to play both young/frisky and staid/wise is vital to playing Bathsheba accurately, since Bathsheba has far more of a conscience than Scarlett ever did, though she makes similar mistakes.

Robert Mitchum as Gabriel Oak

"His height and breadth would have been sufficient to make his presence imposing, had they been exhibited with due consideration....He was at the brightest period of masculine growth, for his intellect and his emotions were clearly separated...."

           --Thomas Hardy on Farmer Oak

Ol' Bobby Mitchum is another of my favorites. He was wildly versatile. He could chill you to the bones in Cape Fear and The Night of the Hunter, but it's his gentler, subtler, and more stoically rustic work in The Sundowners and Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison that convinces me he would be the ideal Gabriel, maybe the book's one truly morally conscientious character. I couldn't help myself: he's who I pictured almost immediately I started reading, and there he stayed in me head. He's stoic, physically imposing, good looking but not conventionally gorgeous, and just watch the way he looks at Deborah Kerr in Mr. Allison: without making a big fuss, his eyes register painful, frustrated, steadfast adoration, combined with determination to help his lady out no matter what the cost. But nooooo, stupid Kerr had to be a stupid nun, ruining everything! Dumb bint.

Only qualm I have is his ability to pull off an English accent. How'd he handle an Irish brogue, people who have seen Ryan's Daughter?

George Sanders or Claude Rains as Mr. Boldwood

I know in my first post I cast my vote solely in Sanders' favor for this role, but that's simply because he's my current cinematic fixation, thanks to my wee brain's tendency toward perseveration. However, Claude Rains was my initial choice when reading the book (y'see, I hadn't yet watched Village of the Damned, the film that really sparked my Sanders mania). Why? Well, first, watch Notorious. Then watch the 1943 Phantom of the Opera. Then read Hardy's description of Boldwood here: "If an emotion possessed him at all, it ruled him; a feeling not mastering him was entirely latent. Stagnant or rapid, it was never slow.  He was always hit mortally, or he was missed." Now apply that to a portrait of a refined, middle-aged, elegant bachelor whose frigid indifference to women is turned upside-down into a consuming obsession by a flighty girl's practical joke, and you have the ideal role for Claude Rains, what-ho.

But Sanders shouldn't be discounted yet. He's not as obvious a choice as Rains, no, but don't let his caddish ways mislead you. Actually, he could take that ruthless, careless front of his and use it to his performance's advantage, illustrating just how deeply Bathsheba uproots Boldwood's life. Sanders is refined and elegant, and he can play obsessive. Don't believe me? Watch a strange little flick called Summer Storm. He does exactly this; plays a thoughtless but respectable cad until Linda Darnell shoots seductive glances at him through sooty lashes and YOWZA. Brother gets it bad. I feel like a louse saying this, but even in the midst of my admiration for the man, I had no idea he could act so damn well. I was mostly infatuated with his attitude, his man-about-town, rakish persona. But this movie schooled me. Schooled me good. There's a particularly unsettling scene where he drowns his sorrows in a pub/cafe/cabaret type thing after Darnell gives him the cold shoulder, and he gets so sloshed George Sanders actually lets loose! Only in a really demonic, scary way! Someone begins singing some sentimental twaddle that starts hitting too close to home, and his eyes blaze and he shakes in his seat. So he abruptly stands and fumbles his way to the stage, trying to rouse everyone into a more chipper chorus. Then he stops short, staring at his reflection in a large mirror, where he sees, cruelly, what a mook he's become. He's fallen so far from the dignified dandy he was at the start of the picture that his fury just builds and explodes, and he hurls his drink at the glass, shattering it.

That's Boldwood-type manic behavior right there. Trust me.

(I'd also direct you to 1952's Ivanhoe as further proof that Sanders could play unrequited, desperate love well, but nobody should have to sit through that turd. No actor came out well in that, save maybe Liz Taylor. And I forgive no movie that makes our Sanders parade around in baby blue tights and wear a bright auburn wig and mustache. Yeah, we get it, it's technicolor! We've seen it before, don't blind us! And don't get me started on that idiotic helmet with the weird bird tacked on it that he wears in the jousting scene. Nonsense.)

But if you really can't get away from the cad thing, there is another role he and some guy named Archie Leech could contend for....

George Sanders or Cary Grant as Sgt. Frank Troy

Why do I believe Sanders has the ability to play both the proper, repressed Boldwood and the n'er-do-well ladykiller Troy? Because Sanders has always reminded me in equal parts, both physically and in his manner, of a tiger and a penguin, that's why. And he can play both the ferocious predator and tuxedoed bird interchangeably. He'd make a very slick Sgt. Troy, and his age in the 1940s might have been a wee bit more appropriate for Troy than for Boldwood. While Boldwood is only supposed to be forty, an older actor--say, fiftyish?--might better capture the age gap between he and Bathsheba on film (besides, in this my little fantastical version filmed in the '40s, Vivien would already be in her late 20s/early 30s. You might need an older actor to play her Boldwood). However, a part of me can't help but think that Troy is too predictable a role for Sanders, and he might be sorely tempted to fall back on tricks he's played before.

That's why I prefer Grant. He was chiseled out of his bad guy role in Suspicion, and while he played a similar role in 1932's Madame Butterfly (above), I don't think he ever tackled an all-out cad once he became uber-famous. And because Grant is so innately likable, Troy's few soft moments would be more believable, and keep his character from traveling too far into one-dimensional, dumbass jock territory. Just as Sanders often played the Sanders role, so did Grant play the Grant role: a happy-go-lucky hottie who casually gets the girl while ultimately doing no harm. A character like Troy who's mostly a dick but has a few surprisingly redeeming qualities would give Grant an opportunity to flex his skills outside of his usual type. Would he be capable of playing not only a despicable scum-bag, but also a poor schlub sobbing while trying weakly to plant flowers on the grave of a certain character? Maybe we could have gotten a good taste of just how far Grant's range as an actor extended. Plus, he's handsome and jaunty, and just as pretty as Vivien. They'd make a good onscreen match.

Joan Fontaine as Fanny Robin

Remember I mentioned Troy's soft spots? Dear, pathetic Fanny Robin is one of them, though the softness she inspires in him is fickle and rather faint. She's a housemaid at Bathsheba's farm who loves Troy despite the fact he's Troy, and tries eloping with him in the beginning. Under hilariously lame circumstances, that's stalled, and before they can try again....

Joan Fontaine is an actress familiar to anyone who reads the fabulous Self-Styled Siren, where Fontaine is a frequent favorite. I doubt producers in the '40s would have been keen for Fontaine to jeopardize her prim, delicate English rose image by playing a working-class, uneducated, fallen girl like Fanny, though by far Fanny is the most innocent and delicate character in the novel. That's precisely why I think Fontaine would be so effective in the role. She was so enchanting as the shy second Mrs. DeWinter in Rebecca that I honestly believe her performance there could be the most touching display of timidity I've ever seen on screen. This gift of hers, playing fragile girls realistically and adorably, would make Fanny's plight all the more poignant. Can you imagine that sweet, nameless girl from Rebecca half dead on the rural streets of the English countryside, struggling down endless roads in the rain to get to a hospital, helped only by clutching the coat of a passing dog? If that image wouldn't strike straight to the hearts of indulgent housewives in '40s movie theaters, I don't know what would.

 Like I said, there are a menagerie of other roughneck extras hanging out in the book, and it would take stronger powers than even my majestic ability to babble on and on to cast each one. However, we're talking about the Golden Age of Hollywood, and in the Golden Age of Hollywood, when you need a likable character actor to play a blustering farm hand, you'd most likely get in touch with this guy:

 Thomas Mitchell as Jan Coggan

You like sprawling epics, the kind you'd only see in full, corny, wonderful detail way back when, in the tradition of William Wyler's Wuthering Heights and that one movie about the Old South that chick Leigh was in? Then I'd recommend reading Far From the Madding Crowd. It's about as close as you can get to that sweepy feeling in classic novel format.

And after you've read it, you can answer the question nagging me now, and will keep me sleeping only fitfully tonight:

Who the heck could have played Liddy Smallbury in those days?