Harrison's Reports (1945)

November 3, 1945 HARRISON'S REPORTS 175 Richmond, a private detective, to protect him. Later, when Adele and Fraser visit her husband to ask him for a divorce, they find him shot dead. A suicide note beside the body asks Fraser to see to it that Adele collects the $100,000 insurance money he carried on his life. When Fraser points out that a suicide clause in the policy invalidated the claim, Adele induces him to burn the note so that her husband's death would look like murder. Testimony offered by Adele at the coroner's inquest convinces the police that her husband was murdered and enables her to collect the in' surance money. But Richmond, unconvinced, be comes suspicious and starts an investigation of his own. Through clever strategy, he drives Fraser to the verge of a voluntary confession to the police, but Adele, to stop the confession, murders him, making it appear as if he had committed suicide to atone for killing her husband. Richmond, however, discovers a clue indicating that Adele was responsible for both murders. Lacking conclusive evidence, he makes love to Adele and tricks her into a confession that is overheard by the police. George Carelton Brown wrote the screen play, Dorrell and Stuart E. McGowen produced it, and Philip Ford directed it. The cast includes Perry Stewart, Cy Kendall, Beverly Loyd, Gregory Gay and others. Not suitable for children. "Crimson Canary" with Noah Beery, Jr. and Lois Collier (Universal, T^jov. 9; time, 64 min.) Murder mystery and "hot swing" music have been blended effectively in this program melodrama; the combination should please both the mystery fans and those who enjoy popular music. Although the murderer's identity is not disclosed until the finish, one does not find it too difficult to guess who he is early in the proceedings; nevertheless, the story holds one's interest fairly well. The musical portions of the picture are very entertaining, often more enjoyable than the story itself. On the whole, the picture represents a good effort at something different in program type pictures : — Claudia Drake, singer in Steve Geray's Los Angeles night-club, is murdered mysteriously under circumstances that point suspicion on both Noah Beery, Jr. and Danny Morton, members of a "swing" band, whose other members included Steve Brodie, Jimmie Dodd, and Johnny Kellogg. Claudia, a disreputable flirt, had been warned by Beery to stay away from Morton, who had taken to drink because she had jilted him. The boys leave town before Claudia's body is discovered, each agreeing to go to a different city so that the police could not trace them. Detective John Litel, a "hot" music fan, is assigned to the case and, through a recording made by the boys at the club, he is enabled to find Beery in San Francisco, where he played the trumpet in a local cafe; Litel recognized the tone of the trumpet. Although Litel does not arrest him, hoping that he will lead him to the other boys, Beery becomes aware that he was being watched. He confides his troubles to Lois Collier, his fiancee, who urges him to surrender. When Beery refuses, they quarrel. Believing that he could prove conclusively through one of his recordings that he and the others were on the bandstand at the time of the murder, Beery rounds up his friends and returns to Geray's club. Litel joins them, but their alibi is destroyed when the recording in question falls to floor and breaks. Meanwhile Lois, who had come to Los Angeles, had been carrying on an investigation of her own, and through Claudia's roommate she uncovers important clues that unmask Geray as the killer. Henry Blankfort and Peggy Phillips wrote the screen play, Mr. Blankfort produced it, and John Hoffman directed it. The cast includes the Esquire Ail-American Band Winners, Coleman Hawkins, Oscar Pettiford, Josh White and others. Unobjectionable morally. "Spellbound" with Ingrid Bergman and Gregory Peck (United Artists; no release date set; time, 110 min.) Very Good! Blending psychoanalysis, psychiatry, murder-mystery, and appealing romance, David O. Selznick has fashioned a powerful drama for adults, endowing it with superb production values, and Alfred Hitchcock, in keeping with his reputation for building up thrilling situations that hold one in tense suspense, has applied his directorial skill in a masterful way. Although the picture's appeal may be directed more to class audiences than to the masses, since it employs psychiatry and psychoanalysis for the background, basis, and solution of the story, and since it resorts at times to much technical scientific dialogue, it will probably draw to the box-office also the masses, not only because of the stars' popularity, but also because it has been handled in a manner that enables • the average person to understand fully the gist of the story even though the complexities of its Freudian theme may remain hazy. Briefly, the story revolves around Gregory Peck, as an amnesia victim, who is suspected of murdering a famous psychiatrist, his doctor, whom he attempts to impersonate as head of an institution for the mentally unbalanced. Ingrid Bergman, as a woman psychiatrist on the staff of the institution, falls in love with him and, despite his belief that he may have committed the crime, since he had no recollection of his past, tries desperately to shield him from the police and to save him from punishment because, she was blindly-sure that he was innocent. Risking her life, because of the danger that Peck might become berserk momentarily, Ingrid probes his mind to learn the cause of his psychosis and amnesia and, through an analysis of one of his dreams, succeeds in establishing his identity, as well as past events in his life. Then, through applied psychoanalysis, she proves to him that he was innocent of the crime, thus restoring his sanity. Circumstantial evidence, however, points to Peck as the killer, and the police jail him for the crime. But Ingrid, undaunted, sets forth in pursuit of the real murderer and, in a final sequence that builds steadily to an absorbing climax, pins the guilt on Leo G. Carroll, former head of the institution, whom the murdered man was to replace. The performances of the entire cast are superior, and throughout the action an overtone of suspense and terror, tinged with touches of deep human interest and appealing romance, is sustained. A weird dream sequence designed by Salvador Dali, the Spanish artist, the sets of which supposedly depict the dream life of Peck's disordered mind, is highly fantastic but most interesting. Ben Hecht wrote the screen play from the novel, "The House of Dr. Edwardcs." The cast includes John Emory, Steven Geray, Wallace Ford, Michael Chekhov and many others.