At the beginning of this Alfred Hitchcock film Marlene Dietrich’s character, a glamorous stage actress, tells Richard Todd to close the curtain as she enters a room with him. Later, a heavy stage curtain falls on him and kills him, after he’s revealed to be a killer fleeing a detective (Michael Wilding) and the police. But we spend much of the film not knowing he’s the culprit, because Hitchcock pulls a fast one which some contemporary critics did not like.
Hitchcock starts the film by having Todd’s character on the run after the killing of Dietrich’s husband. But he proclaims his innocence to a girl friend (Jane Wyman). The first section of the film is his narration and flashback, which like Wyman’s character we take at face value as the truth. Only it’s not the truth. When he does turn out to be guilty later, we’ve been misled. I suppose this makes sense because most killers wouldn’t tell the truth, and it would help to dupe an impressionable friend to help facilitate a plan to hide from the authorities.
However, Hitchcock and his cinematographer (Wilkie Cooper) might have done something different with the camera or the lighting during the false flashback to imply the feeling something’s off. Another thing regarding the flashback, these events are told to Wyman; but in the flashback there is a passage of time, and Todd recounts some events to Dietrich within the flashback. It’s as if Hitchcock and his writers got a little too clever for their own good and then couldn’t quite keep it all linear.
The original story upon which the screenplay is based has another lesser character as the murderer. My guess is Todd’s character was made the bad guy, so that it would be easier for Wyman to wind up with Wilding at the end. I do think Todd is excellent at playing emotionally troubled men; and I like how Dietrich supposedly goaded him into the killing, which makes her an accomplice and not in the clear.
Some parts of the story are strangely humorous. Dietrich overplays her role and is so busy vamping for the viewers that she almost verges on self-parody. Supposedly Hitchcock wanted Tallulah Bankhead for the role, whom he’d previously directed in LIFEOBAT, but Warners insisted on Dietrich. If Bankhead had been in it, then undoubtedly the camp value would have increased even more.
In addition to Dietrich’s posturing, we have some slight overplaying by Alastair Sim as Wyman’s father, a not quite reformed rascal. His heart’s in the right place where his daughter is concerned, which I think is meant to mirror Hitchcock’s own relationship with his daughter Patricia who is cast in a minor role as a friend of Wyman’s.
Wyman is truly the best thing in the movie. Unlike Dietrich who is amping up every conceivable human action (including breathing), Wyman wisely underplays her role yet stays alert and focused throughout. Wyman received top billing by the studio after her recent Oscar win for JOHNNY BELINDA, and this is truly deserved. She has a wonderful way of using her eyes to register different emotions. Whenever Hitchcock cuts to her for a reaction shot, we are given a plethora of registered responses pertaining to the action at hand. She judges and balances the whole movie.
One thing I want to add is that this story was a way for Hitchcock to delve into what actors do, how they take on certain roles and perpetuate an inordinate amount of nonsense and falsehood in order to put something across. You almost need a scorecard to keep track of what each person really knows about the other. Ironically, this gives the film some richer meanings, though untangling it all probably requires multiple viewings.
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