Harrison's Reports (1951)

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January 27, 1951 15 HARRISON’S REPORTS “The 13th Letter” with Linda Darnell, Charles Eoyer, Michael Rennie and Constance Smith (20th Century-Fox, February ; time, 85 min.) A tense out-of-the-ordmary mystery drama, revolving around a mysterious poison pen letter writer who terrorizes an entire French Canadian community in Quebec. It is by no means a cheerful story, but its mood of brooding terror and cumulative suspense, coupled with the fact that the guilty person's identity is not disclosed until the finish, holds one taut throughout. It should go over with all classes of audiences, except perhaps children, who may find the proceedings too deep. The performances of the entire cast are uniformly good, with outstanding characterizations turned in by Michael Rennie, as a young doctor who is the principal target of the letters, and by Charles Boyer, as an elderly bearded doctor, a benign man on the surface but with a twisted mentality because of a tragic jealousy of his young and pretty wife. Filmed entirely in Canada, the authentic backgrounds are picturesque and give the picture a realistic atmosphere. The story casts Rennie as the town’s new doctor, who is subtly pursued by Constance Smith, the elderly Boyer’s pretty young wife. Rennie, however, does not fall for her charms. Shortly thereafter, a number of individuals, including Rennie and Constance, start receiving poison pen letters. The messages accuse Rennie of having a secret affair with Constance, and each is designed to influence the recipient to help force Rennie out of town. One letter, in which the town’s young war hero, Rennie’s patient, is falsely informed that he has an incurable cancer, has a tragic result when the young man commits suicide. When Rennie tells Boyer of the letters, the elderly doctor dismisses them as the work of a crackpot and assures Rennie that he does not believe their contents. But the situation becomes serious as a result of the young hero's suicide, and an official investigation is started. Boyer himself takes a leading part in the investigation, and of the numerous suspects the chief ones appear to be Linda Darnell, a crippled girl who had fallen in love with Rennie, and Judith Evelyn, Constance's sister, a nurse who had been engaged to Boyer only to lose him to the flirtatious Constance. After many complications, Rennie unwittingly discovers that the person responsible for the letters is none other than Boyer who, fearing that he would lose Constance to a younger man, had imposed his will on her weak mind and had compelled her to pen the letters. But before action can be taken against Boyer, he is killed by Froncoise Rosay, brooding mother of the dead war hero. It was produced and directed by Otto Preminger, from a screen play by Howard Koch, based on a story by Louis Chavance. Adult fare. “Cause for Alarm” with Loretta Young and Barry Sullivan (MGM, February; time, 74 min.) A gripping drama that holds one taut from start to finish. It should go over well with most audiences because of the sustained suspense and the general tenseness of the story. Outstanding about the picture is the exceptionally fine performance given by Loretta Young, as a distraught young wife who is victimized by a suspicious, psychopathic husband. Miss Young’s acting is so realistic that one feels the terror she experiences when her husband dies and she realizes that he had arranged matters to make it appear as if she had murdered him. Her efforts to recover a letter that falsely accuses her of “murder” hold the spectator tense, particularly because she bungles matters and draws suspicion to herself unnecessarily. The direction is fine: — Bruce Dowling, a doctor in a naval hospital, is in love with Loretta Young, his secretary, but his hope to make her his wife is lost when she meets and falls in love with Barry Sullivan, an Air Force pilot and Dowling's close pal. She marries Sullivan at the close of the war and, after five years, he is confined to his bed with a heart ailment, a psychopath who wrongly believes that Loretta is in love with Dowling, who had remained a family friend, and that both planned to kill him. To beat her at her own game, Sullivan plans to murder Loretta, but first writes a lengthy letter to the dis* net attorney stating his suspicions; he hoped to get away with the killing by a plea of self defense. The unsuspecting Loretta, believing it to be a business letter, hands it to the postman. Sullivan then prepares to shoot her, but first explains about the letter. Before he can accomplish the deed, however, he falls dead of a heart attack. Panicky, Loretta decides to say nothing about his death until she recovers the letter. She chases after the postman, but he refuses to return the letter because of regulations. She then hurries to the post office, where her appeal to the postmaster is to no avail when she learns that her husband must sign an application for the letter s return. She returns home completely beaten, and later, when Dowling arrives to visit Sullivan, she tells him the whole story. Realizing that she had bungled matters, Dowling tries to figure out ways and means to help her as well as himself, but the situation resolves itself when the postman appears at the door and returns the letter for insufficient postage. It was produced by Tom Lewis and directed by Tay Garnett from a screen play by Mel Dinelli and Mr. Lewis, based on a story by Larry Marcus. Unobjectionable morally. “The Enforcer” with Humphrey Bogart (Warner Bros., Feb. 24; time, 87 min.) A grim but highly exciting crime melodrama, revolving around the efforts of a fighting assistant district attorney to break up a gang of murderers, whose operations as depicted are not unlike those of the real-life Murder, Inc. It is not a pleasant picture, nor is it one for the squeamish, for its display of violence is brutal and gory, but those who do not mind meaty entertainment should find it to be one of the best pictures of its kind. The story, which makes expert use of the flashbackswithin-flashbacks technique, is packed with suspense from start to finish. Briefly, it opens with Humphrey Bogart, as an assistant district attorney in charge of homicide, all set to bring to a conclusion a case against Everett Sloane, secret head of the gang, whose organization committed murder for anyone willing to pay the price. After four years of work on the case, Bogart had succeeded in taking into custody Ted De Corsia, Sloane’s lieutenant, the sole living witness to a murder Sloane had comitted himself. De Corsia, in return for clemency, had agreed to take the witness stand against Sloane. But on the eve of the trial, De Corsia, fearing that the gang will somehow kill him before he can testify, tries to escape from the police and dies in the attempt. Having lost his only witness, Bogart’s case appears to have collapsed, but with only a few hours left before the trial begins he decides to review the records of the case in the hope that he might find some clue that will prove Sloane’s guilt. As Bogart reviews the record, the flashback technique is brought into play, showing how he first got wind of the gang’s operations after a half-crazed hoodlum had voluntarily confessed that the gang had forced him to murder his sweetheart. The information he receives from the hoodlum sets Bogart on a gory trail and, as he sifts the different clues and catches up with the different key men in the gang, the whole lurid story of their wholesale murder operations unfolds and eventually leads to Sloane's capture. As he finishes reviewing the record, Bogart comes across a meagre clue by which he discovers that one witness, a young girl believed by the gang to have been murdered, was still alive and could furnish testimony that could send Sloane to the chair. How he manages to get to her before Sloane's henchmen on the outside can “rub her out," makes for an exciting finale. A brief synopsis cannot do justice to the many intriguing twists in the plot, or to the tension that is built up by the intensive rundown of the many clues. Humphrey Bogart, as the indefatigable assistant district attorney, is highly effective, and first-rate performances are turned in by Roy Roberts, as a police captain aiding Bogart, and by Ted De Corsia, as Sloane's vicious aide. Zero Mostel, Don Beddoe, Jack Lambert and Lawrence Tolan, who are among the assorted hoodlums in the gang, are uniformly impressive. It was produced by Milton Sperling and directed by Bretaigne Windust from a screen play by Martin Rackin. Strictly adult fare.