IMDb meta-data runtime of 1 hour and 31 minutes, rated 6.7 by 923 cinematizens.
Genre: ODH wanna be (that is, Old Dark House).
Verdict: energetic clichés.
In mid-career a much published krimi writer seeks inspiration in a change of scene, and reluctantly moves to Greenwich Village with his vivacious and enthusiastic helpmate who has neither a career nor a mind of her own. Credit Loretta Young’s extraordinary thespian talents to sell such a pretence. He is the droll Brian Aherne who is reluctant because wanted to live by a lake or stream, not a busy street.
While he has published a lot of krimis, to judge from the piles he moves around, none has been a best seller or satisfying.
The apartment (old dark) House has a cast of boarders from the doleful owner, to the snoopy restauranteur, oily art dealer, the terrified ingenue with an over-protective husband, the hysterical cleaning woman…. but no black stereotype for which omission much thanks, though it meant no pay-check for Will Best.
It is a great cast that includes Charlie Chan Tolar as the police officer come to sort out the body in the garden. Spider Woman is also on hand, though underemployed compared to the turtle.
Good scenes include the bed clothes slowly slipping off…. In 1945 that must have been close the censorship line. And it happens twice. And that’s the problem with the whole film: repetition.
The sticking door was amusing the first three or four times but not thereafter, and certainly not at the fifteenth time with musical accompaniment. The door is never explained and does nothing for the plot.
The plot holes were many. It was said that the corpus delicti in the garden was naked; if so why? Where did the clothes go? What was the motive for that murder? Indeed what was the whole blackmail narrative about? How did any of that relate to the cab driver’s opening comment about hauling away two stiffs? Did any of it relate to the missing previous half-owner of the establishment?
Released on 10 December 1942 there is no reference to war. In that month the Australian 7th Division pushed the Japanese from Buna, trailhead for the purgatory of the Kokoda Track. More generally, the Afrika Korps was trapped (by forces that included the Australian 9th Division) in Tunisia, the Germans were encircled in Stalingrad, and the Japanese had lost Guadalcanal where Royal Australian Navy ships served). Hindsight reveals that it was the beginning of the end for them.
Literati note. These books were published late 1942. I have read them all. What’s holding you back?
Le Silence de la mer by Vercors (Jean Bruller) – an idealistic German soldier gradually realises the fake news he had accepted when billeted with a silent French family.
The Moon is Down by John Steinbeck – an austere dialogue about the time to act set in rural Norway. Completely different from his other novels, a roman à clef.
Crazy Horse by Mari Sandoz – a fictional autobiography of a reluctant charismatic leader.
Go Down, Moses by William Faulkner – the grief of the title figure when his wife dies and the actions of those around him the very Deep South.
L’étranger by Albert Camus – Meursault stays ice cold under the blinding Algerian sun.
