Noir and Gothic

8 Noir City Sentinel Oct/Nov 2008 later blackmailed and murdered. At first one Todd senses that she is under a thrilling but Beyond the Fedora, Part One would never have suspected that Todd was so fatal spell, and we see her (in a scene mid- envious, so passionate to get what she thinks way through the film) suddenly become sick is coming to her, so ruthless in exploiting with herself and make a futile attempt to Fitzgerald’s obvious weaknesses. But it’s as escape. Instead, however, she goes through if Milland has slipped her a magic potion, with the murderous plan, and our sympathies stoking her eyes with an odd fire that justi- shift to Fitzgerald, who ends up framed for NOIR and the fies, even exalts in, the path of deception and her husband’s death. murder. It is remarkable how easily Todd is In the spectacular, cathartic ending, it corrupted and eventually procures the poi- is as if Todd finally decides to kill her own sonous, fatal drink. corruption and be redeemed. The fourth, piv- GOTHIC Seldom outside of Macbeth has there otal protagonist in the film is Leo G. Carroll been such a vicious couple, so corrupt in as Jarvis. At first we don’t realize who he is; By Marc Svetov their emotions, so vile in their actions . we only see him watching Milland, and later Special to the Sentinel and, of course, so doomed. So Evil My Love Todd, as they go about their various doings. recalls Double Indemnity (1944) and its Eventually we learn he is a private detective he “Gothic noir” is an interesting (especially Todd) were once capable of being depiction of the corruption of the soul. Both who had been hired by the prospective mur- variant on the genre: set in the better people, but their love is a trap, leading films begin with two people falling into der victim—a class-conscious, aristocratic past, usually in Victorian them to do evil. The visual style of the film is some kind of love. One thinks, as well, of prig who is better off dead (although that is England or America, in the not especially noirish; there are no deep Claire Trevor and Lawrence Tierney’s venal only implied). The detective’s character sym- American Civil War (The Tall shadows, no expressionistic lighting and “hopscotch love” in Born to Kill (1947). But bolizes human conscience but he is no senti- TTarget [1951]), or even in revolutionary camera effects. The characters and the there is a vital difference: Milland is no mental fool. He has seen the depths to which France (Reign of Terror [1949]). There are doomed situation, however, are definitely scheming psychopath like Tierney, nor is human beings can sink. He tells Todd how overlaps in cameramen (John Alton, Lucien noir. Ann Todd a coldly scheming co-conspirator much he’d wanted to see the face of the real Ballard) and directors (Robert Siodmak, The viewer realizes quite early on that like Barbara Stanwyck. perpetrator—she who almost got away with Edgar G. Ulmer, Anthony Mann), but there is things cannot go right between Milland and murder and would have let another woman hang for the deed. a certain divergence in casting. One rarely Todd and that, tragically, Todd’s corruption Seldom outside of sees the likes of George Brent, Charles is too bright, almost giddy, to lead to any- A character personifying the watchful Boyer, Joan Fontaine, or Boris Karloff in thing other than doom. As the story begins Macbeth has there been yet passive conscience is a familiar device what we usually consider the “classic” noirs she is on a ship sailing back to England, such a vicious couple, so from Victorian fiction, where an ounce of of the same era. recently widowed, circa 1890. She meets corrupt in their emotions, posthumous revenge seemingly outweighs a The settings of these films also pull Milland, a painter who refuses to forge art- pound of interventionist prevention. them out of the typical noir ambience: the works for monetary gain but is otherwise a so vile in their actions . Characters from modern noirs who serve a modern (1940s–50s) city and its gallery of “charming criminal,” a con man and a mur- and, of course, similar function include Edward G. city characters. The Gothic film noirs bear a derer sought by the police. He taps into so doomed. Robinson, investigator and moral compass, great similarity to the modern noirs in light- something evil within her. in Double Indemnity and Walter Slezak, ing, camerawork (though not every Gothic The two schemers bring evil to others philosophically resigned detective, in Born noir is set and shot in an Expressionist man- in the name of their love as it unfolds in all Our two lovers in So Evil My Love are to Kill. The Gothic undercurrent in these ner), direction, audience, and audience its murderous glory. Todd’s web-spinning simply two extremely cold people, and yet— films might be understood as a remnant of expectations, but the art direction is more machinations entangle Geraldine Fitzgerald here is the paradox, the swirling motion of the Victorian age playing itself out in mod- ornate, and the dangerous situations are more —an unhappy, benumbed, alcoholic kept noir at work—they both seem forgivable at ern, mid-1940s dress. It would soon disap- extreme. Murderers in such films (The wife who becomes Todd’s bosom friend as times, appearing in fleeting fits and starts to pear into a starker and more radically rela- Lodger [1944], The Suspect [1944], Gaslight well as her employer. Fitzgerald’s husband is want to pull away from what they are doing. tivistic mental landscape. [1944], Hangover Square [1945], Experiment Perilous [1944], Bluebeard [1944], The Body Snatcher [1945], The Spiral Staircase [1945], Bedlam [1946], Ivy [1947]) are far more likely to be psychopaths or serial killers. The Gothic noir commenced with Among the Living (1941). Dark Waters (1944) continued it, beautifully, in a modern setting that is still unmistakably Gothic. The majority of these period films were tightly clustered around 1944–48—so much so that the genre’s reappearance in 1955 with Night of the Hunter was greeted with bewilder- ment. By the 1950s, Gothic had become virtually interchangeable with horror—a linkage it temporarily escaped in 1940, when Alfred Hitchcock brought the “old dark house” out into the light of day in Rebecca. But are the Gothic films, largely con- temporaneous with the classics of “dark cin- ema,” actually film noir? Is noir defined by its visuals? Or by its themes, characters, and the insurmountable dilemmas those characters face? There are no clear rules. To draw a dividing line between menace and murder doesn’t help much: Dead bodies proliferate on-screen and, in the 1940s, did not even guarantee that the film in question was a dark drama. The “woman in distress” is likewise too vague a qualifier. Peril is not unique to noir. A more actively engaged female protagonist, one seeking some kind of agency or control (even in a manner that is not exactly straightforward), would be more in keeping with noir as we commonly define it. The Gothic film So Evil My Love (1948), directed by Lewis Allen and starring Ray Milland, Ann Todd, Geraldine Fitzgerald, and Leo G. Ray Milland as Mark Bellis and Ann Todd as Olivia Harwood in So Evil, My Love (1948), a Paramount production directed by Carroll, seems to fit the mold. From the Lewis Allen, based on the novel by Joseph Shearing, who also wrote The Crime of Laura Saurelle, the basis for the 20th Century- beginning it is clear that Milland and Todd Fox “Gothic noir” Moss Rose (1948). 26 Noir City Sentinel July / Aug 2009 BEYOND THE FEDORA GOTHIC NOIR Second of Two Parts By Marc Svetov Special to the Sentinel The Gothic noir was an established style or sub- rationalizations compel him to avenge the “murder” genre in Hollywood in the 1940s, represented by cos- of his brother through even more murderous mis- tume films ranging from modest Val Lewton RKO deeds. Slade must kill women, again and again. The productions (The Body Snatcher [1945], Bedlam wheel must turn, even as Slade himself hangs from it, GOTHIC NOIRS OF [1946]) to top-shelf studio products (Gaslight [1944], tortured. Hangover Square [1945]). But can we truly call them Ann Todd seemed to specialize in period roles THE CLASSIC ERA film noirs, considering that their settings and cos- that prefigured a modern type of inner conflict. As tumes were mainly derived from the past, be it noted in the first installment of this series, she is liter- Among the Living (Paramount, 1941) Edwardian/Victorian England, America during the ally cut in two between duty and lust in So Evil My Gaslight (MGM, 1944) Civil War or the early 1900s, or France in the early Love (1948). Two years later, in Madeleine (1950), a The Suspect (Universal, 1944) 1790s? Others were contemporary but set in an envi- “wedding gift” project with her husband, director Experiment Perilous (RKO, 1944) ronment coded as Gothic, such as the Deep South. David Lean (which ironically hastened the end of Bluebeard (PRC, 1944) Must noir be set in 1940s–50s urban America to their union), she is a Victorian-era woman tormented deserve the label? The scholars are still arguing. (It’s by another irresolvable dilemma: marriage to a Dark Waters (United Artists, 1944) their job!) The Lodger (Fox, 1944) Many “period” films definitely found them- It was a short-lived phenomenon, but The Spiral Staircase (RKO, 1945) (above) selves transported into a darker realm in the 1940s as The Body Snatcher (RKO, 1945) noir coalesced as a form of (as yet unnamed) visual it had potent appeal for audiences Hangover Square (Fox, 1945) discourse.

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