Harrison's Reports (1948)

58 HARRISON'S REPORTS April 10, 1948 "Berlin Express" with Merle Oberon, Robert Ryan and Paul Lukas (RKO, no release date set; time, 86 mm.) A good spy thriller. Although the story is on the farfetched side, it is superior to most pictures of this type because of the effective semi-documentary treatment and of the realism given to it by the actual backgrounds of Paris, Berlin, and Frankfurt, where the action takes place. Moreover, it has imagination in script, staging, and acting. Revolving around a manhunt for a German statesman who is kidnapped by the Nazi underground to prevent his working with the Allies, the plot stresses intrigue and undercover violence in a way that keeps audience interest at a high pitch. Many of the exciting scenes have the stuff of which first-rate melodramas are made. Those who carry on the manhunt arc representatives of different nations, and the story, with moderate success, attempts to put over the message that, if individuals of different nations can learn to work together, the nations should be able to do the same: — Through the interception of a code message, Allied authorities in Paris suspect that an attempt will be made on the life of Paul Lukas, a German statesman working on a plan to unify his country. Despite the precautions taken on a train taking Lukas to Berlin, a bomb is planted in his compartment killing an Allied agent who had been placed there to impersonate him. Lukas, posing as a business man, permits his fellow passengers to believe that he had been killed. After being interrogated at American military headquarters in Frankfurt, the passengers, including Robert Ryan, an American agricultural expert; Robert Coote, a British educator; Roman Toporow, a Russian lieutenant; Charles Korvin, a French importer; and Merle Oberon, Lukas' secretary, are permitted to continue their journey to Berlin. Through a clever ruse, however, the Nazis succeed in kidnapping Lukas at the railway station. Frantic, Merle appeals to her fellow-travelers for help, revealing to them who Lukas really is. All begin a thorough search of the war-devastated city, with Merle and Ryan finding a clue at a black-market cabaret. But the clever Nazis lure them to a hideout in an abandoned brewery, where they held Lukas captive. Aided by an American agent posing as a Nazi, Ryan attempts to escape. He is hurled into a huge beer vat and left for dead. The agent escapes, however, and summons military police. They arrive in time to capture the Nazis and to save Lukas, Merle, and Ryan. On the way to Berlin, Ryan suggests to the others that each take turns guarding Lukas. Korvin manages to take the first watch but through a slip of the tongue causes Ryan to suspect his motive. Ryan catches him in the act of strangling Lukas and exposes him as a leader of the underground Nazis. Korvin is shot and killed as he attempts to escape. Bert Granet produced it and Jacques Tourneur directed it from a screen play by Harold Med ford, based on a story by Curt Siodmak. The cast includes Reinhold Schunzel, Fritz Kortner and others. Unobjectionable morally. "Hatter's Castle" with Robert Newton, James Mason and Deborah Kerr (Paramount, June 18; time, 99 min.) An unpleasant, depressing British-made drama, which Paramount has kept on the shelf since 1941, and which it has obviously decided to release now because of the presence in the cast of Deborah Kerr and James Mason, who appear in supporting roles. The leading role, that of a brutal tyrant who makes life miserable for everyone, including his own family, is played by Robert Newton, who does a magnificent job in a most unsympathetic role. The picture, however, can hardly be classed as an entertainment, for it is far too depressing and the atmosphere throughout is gloomy. Moreover, it is peopled with unprincipled characters, for whose victims one feels pity rather than sympathy. At times the action is loathsome, such as the situation where Newton brings home his mistress, thus hastening the death of his ill and grieving wife. Another such situation is where Newton's conniving clerk, employed in his hat store, takes advantage of Miss Kerr, Newton's daughter, and seduces her. There is nothing in the picture that can be called entertaining, for when it is not cruel it is ugly. Briefly, Newton is shown as an arrogant, brutal owner of a hat shop in a small Scottish town, whose two driving ambitions were to make a castle of his home and to make a genius of his young son, a sickly boy, whom he denied a normal life. He treats his daughter 6ternly and denies to his sickly wife badly needed medical attention, which she receives 6ecretly from Mason, a local physician, who was in love with Deborah. When he learns of the seduction of his daughter by the clerk, whom he finds in the arms of his mistress, Newton chases the young man out of town and drives his daughter out of the house. The scandal, coupled with the fact that Newton brings his mistress home, ostensibly as a housekeeper, hastens the end of his sickly wife. He takes to drink and becomes bankrupt, resulting in the mistress' leaving him. With everything else lost, his one great passion remaining is to have his son win a scholarship. But even this is not realized when the boy, expelled from school for cheating, commits suicide. Newton goes berserk and, cursing his home as a symbol of his pride, ambition, and frustrations, sets fire to the place, making it a funeral pyre for himself and his son. I. Goldsmith produced it and Lance Comfort directed it from a screen play by Paul Merzbach and R. Bernaur, based on a novel by A. J. Cronin. Strictly adult fare. "Winter Meeting" with Bette Davis, James Davis and Janis Paige (Warner Bros., April 24; time, 104 min.) It is doubtful if even Bette Davis' popularity will be enough to save this tedious, slow-moving, confusing romantic drama. From start to finish the characters do nothing but talk, talk, talk, and what is even worse is that most of the time the spectator does not know what they are talking about. The story is a bewildering mixture of romance, fixations, and soul-searching, full of vague dialogue and about as explosive as a pop gun. The characters do not act as flcsh-and-blood people would and, since one cannot comprehend what makes them tick, one feels no sympathy for them. As a New England spinster who is somewhat neurotic, Miss Davis is cast in, the type of role that is well suited to her talents, while a newcomer, James Davis, as a disillusioned war hero with whom she falls in love, makes a good impression, but their efforts are in vain, for no matter how hard they try the picture achieves nothing better than pretentiousness. Not much can be said for the direction, which is stagey: — Bette, a poetess, meets Davis at a dinner party arranged by John Hoyt, a friend, who brings along his flashy secretary (Janis Paige) as a companion for Davis. Davis, however, finds Bette more to his liking and, at the end of the party, escorts her home. At her apartment, they find themselves at sword's points because of their different philosophies, but they fall in love before the evening is over. On the following day they take Bette's car for a drive to her Connecticut farmhouse, which she was reluctant to visit. In the friendliness of the house they pour out their hearts to each other. Bette tells him that she had kept away from the house because her father had committed suicide there, the result of an unfaithful wife, her mother, whom she hated. Davis berates her for her uncompromising attitude towards her mother but this outburst does not affect their love. Later, Bette finds him in a disturbed mood and, upon questioning him, learns that he had planned to become a priest but had given it up because he felt himself indirectly responsible for the death of several sailors in a war emergency. He now felt himself unfit for the priesthood because of a troubled conscience. For reasons that are not made very clear, Bette and Davis part, but, after an incident involving Janis and Davis, they come together again and he asks her to marry him. After some puzzling soul-searching on the part of both, it ends with Davis deciding to join the church and with Bette assuming a more tolerant attitude towards her mother, from whom she had received a pitiful letter requesting help. Henry Blanke produced it and Bretaigne Windust directed it from a screen play by Catherine Turney, based on a novel by Ethel Vance. Adult entertainment.