A stable base: Edgar G. Ulmer at PRC (Part 3)

Edgar G. Ulmer's next directorial effort and more overtly auteur production for Producers Releasing Corp., BLUEBEARD (released Nov. 11, 1944) remains a distinctive piece of cinema both for the contributions of the director and the studio. It was a clear indication of PRC's move toward quality while still releasing such projects as Sam Newfield's THE MONSTER MAKER and NABONGA that year, the kind of bread-and-butter pictures that paid the bills and allowed production chief Leon Fromkess to indulge the company's efforts to upgrade its image (however, THE MONSTER MAKER deserves its share of praise as a genuinely unsettling horror flick and an indication of Newfield's often-smothered directorial talent). 

Although Ulmer had proven himself to be a quality filmmaker in tight circumstances with his mixed bag of output ranging from broad comedy to South Seas adventure, he was also getting a shot at projects that were more to his liking, with BLUEBEARD marking the beginning of a more creatively satisfying period of production with PRC.

Ulmer's authorship of BLUEBEARD extends to the production design and choice of cinematographer. Although taken to task for the painted backgrounds of Paris circa the 1880s in which the story is set, they do, however, help create a mood of foreboding that had become evident in the director's more serious films. Cramped studio "exteriors" add to the lower-budgeted basis of the production, as pointed out by historians and critics Tom Weaver, John Brunas and Michael Brunas in a half-praiseworthy, half-raspberry analysis of the film*, but the narrative drive and performance of John Carradine in the lead push BLUEBEARD beyond a simple costume thriller or even a horror movie, as it has been identified over the years. BLUEBEARD offers a more adult approach to Pierre Gendron's original screenplay that may appeal solely to Ulmer's cult following, but it is overall an engaging work sincerely brought to life by its cast and crew.

Despite a wave of murders of beautiful women committed by a "bluebeard" (use of the term is curious since the killer isn't married to any of the victims, but it was a neat commercial title), puppeteer Gaston Morell (Carradine) continues to present his operas in miniature in public places. A chance meeting with modiste Lucille Etienne (Jean Parker) sparks an attraction betweeen the two, which irks Gaston's assistant and sometime lover Renee Clermont (Sonia Sorel). When Renee confronts him and wonders aloud about his secretiveness, Gaston strangles her and utilizes a hidden passage in his house to toss her body in the Seine. Gaston is the hunted killer, a onetime artist of promise whose secret is kept by a greedy dealer, Jean Lamarte (Ludwig Stossel), who blackmails Gaston into painting canvases and then selling them under ther name of Albert Garon. A wealthy buyer (George Irving) recognizes a striking portrait as Garon's work, providing police Inspector LaFevre (Nils Asther) with his first solid lead in apprehending Bluebeard.

Lamarte convinces Gaston to take one more commission for big money and he reluctantly agrees, only to find it a trap set by LaFevre that results in not only Lamarte's death but that of Francine (Teala Loring), LaFevre's operative and sister of Lucille, who poses as the model for the portrait. Lucille, who previously and unknowingly mended a cravat Gaston used in killing Renee, puts two and two together and brings her suspicions to Gaston. Gaston, in turn, reveals via flashback that his compulsion to kill his models stemmed from his creation of a Joan of Arc portrait in his art student days; he murdered its inspiration, Jeanette LeBeau (Anne Sterling), whom he found deathly ill on the street and nursed back to health, in reality a "low, coarse, loathsome creature" who laughed at him and his ambitions. Gaston had since switched to creating and staging puppet shows "because I can't kill wood," but has transferred his obsession to the female subjects of his "Garon" works and unfortunate helpers like Renee.

Lucille, rightly outraged when Gaston confesses to strangling Francine, rejects his mad advances just as LaFevre and several gendarmes break in and prevent Lucille's murder. Gaston, all rationality gone, flees to the rooftops of nearby houses, putting up a terrific battle with the law until he loses his footing and falls to his own doom in the river.

BLUEBEARD, as can be seen from this synopsis, carries enough elements to give it a commercial appeal, but is also a labor of love on which Ulmer lavished much attention, thanks to a longer-than-usual shooting schedule allowed by Fromkess. In his interview with Peter Bogdanovich, Ulmer said BLUEBEARD was an occasion in which the director employed German cinematographer Eugen Schufftan (1893-1977) to shoot one of his films. 

An emigre to the U.S., Schufftan was unable to obtain membership in the union covering directors of photography and camera operators, and his use in films of the '40s was mostly undercover; Arthur H. "Jockey" Feindel, who was BLUEBEARD's operative cameraman, received DP credit on BLUEBEARD, while Schufftan's name appears as production designer.** Thus, BLUEBEARD carries a visual scheme more Continental than Hollywood, befitting a film that stood out from the rest of the studio's product. Schufftan went on to win the Oscar for best black-and-white cinematography on Robert Rossen's THE HUSTLER (1961), and his last credit was also for Rossen on his production of LILITH (1964), also the director's final feature.

Carradine, who made for a different kind of action hero in Ulmer's ISLE OF FORGOTTEN SINS (1943), and was an unbilled player in the director's THE BLACK CAT a decade earlier at Universal, gave one of his best performances as the tormented Gaston, whose mental disorder sends him from sensitive artist to murderous lunatic in a flash. Because the role of a killer who engenders audience sympathy was stronger than his usual villainous assignments (e.g., a Nazi agent in 1944's WATERFRONT for PRC), Carradine expressed a fondness for the role and BLUEBEARD in his later-in-life interviews. Carradine's identification with horror roles -- his portrayal of Count Dracula in Universal's HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN soon followed BLUEBEARD into theaters -- may have given the latter some impression of a study in terror, but a viewing will confirm its true image among the emerging psychological thrillers of the time.

Despite a professed dislike of Ulmer, Parker (who'd co-starred in TOMORROW WE LIVE, 1942) delivers a charming and unaffected portrayal of Lucille, backed by Asther's professional handling of the role of the cop on the case. Stossel is appropriately weasel-like as the double-crossing Lamarte, while supporting actors such as Loring, George Pembroke, Emmett Lynn and Henry Kolker are solid in their contributions.

A strong interest in psychotherapy is expressed by Ulmer in the next film he signed, STRANGE ILLUSION, personally produced by Fromkess and issued March 31, 1945, under its alternate title, OUT OF THE NIGHT, as reported by Michael H. Price and John Wooley***. A more commercial attempt at a thriller in which it mostly succeeds, STRANGE ILLUSION fed into growing audience interest in movies with psycholgical underpinnings, in which Paul Cartwright (James Lydon) finds his own sanity and life imperiled as he struggles to expose his widowed mother Virginia's (Sally Eilers) new beau (Warren William) as not only a fraud, but a dangerous killer who caused his father's death in a freak car-vs.-speeding train accident.

Troubled by dreams in which Virginia and Paul's sister Dorothy (Jayne Hazard) are are at the mercy of a charming but faceless cad, college student Paul cancels a fishing trip with family friend Dr. Martin Vincent (Regis Toomey) and comes home to find smooth Brett Curtis (William) has ingratiated himself with Virginia. Paul's father, a noted jurist, politician and criminologist, kept a file on one Claude Barrington, a Bluebeard-type who had escaped arrest and identification for his past crimes. After reading the dossier, Paul is convinced Curtis and Barrington are the same man.


Yet Paul's increasingly high-strung behavior puts him in the clutches of Professor Muhlbach (Charles Arnt), the oily proprietor of a nearby private asylum in cahoots with Curtis/Barrington to rob the Cartwrights of their wealth by having Curtis marry Virginia. Paul at first agrees to stay at Muhlbach's place, but discovers Muhlbach has no intention of curing Paul but in arranging a fatal accident before Paul blows the works. Eventually fleeing from the death trap, Paul discovers evidence that Curtis and Muhlbach arranged for Paul's father to meet his doom. Curtis, who's also a sex fiend in his spare time, tries to have his way with Dorothy in a boathouse when Paul, Dr. Vincent and the police put an end to his infamy.

Adele Commandini's screenplay for STRANGE ILLUSION was based on a 1941 play by Fritz Rotter (1900-1984), LETTERS FROM LUCERNE, that Ulmer liked and developed as a project for PRC. As Ulmer explained, interest in the psychological themes of the script developed by Ulmer and Commandini left the Rotter basis in the dust, and reportedly PRC sold the rights to to the play back to the author. More overt, however, is the movie's relationship to HAMLET as the dream-distressed Paul receives a posthumous warning from his father (via a pre-written letter regularly sent to him by the estate) to protect Virginia and Dorothy from unscrupulous individuals, thus approximating the ghostly message Hamlet receives in the opening scenes of Shakespeare's tragedy. 

Paul, upon meeting Curtis, becomes the avenging angel of his father, who suspected that Barrington, allegedly killed in a mine cave-in, was still alive and planning revenge on him and his family for "interfering" with his nefarious plans. Brett Curtis was the name of the man who was in the mine with Barrington and died in the collapse; Barrington, never having been photographed, simply appropriated the Curtis identity to carry out the plot he and Muhlbach developed against the Cartwrights.

Not the first time the Bard's work served as the genesis of a movie scenario, STRANGE ILLUSION makes fine use of the father-son relationship from HAMLET, although Paul's problems don't really approach those of the melancholy Dane; in fact, Paul is mostly quite the '40s young adult with a healthy interest in girlfriend Lydia (Mary McLeod), music and vernacular, but his privileged existence is seriously disrupted by the entrance of the inexplicable into his mental processes. The visualization of his dreams and broader exterior shooting were again lensed by Schufftan (with Philip Tannura awarded onscreen credit), a certain quality that matched the 84-minute running time, a distinct move up from the usual PRC product length of 65 to 70 minutes (and just under an hour in some of the lower-quality productions).

Central to the film's credibility is the performance of Lydon (born 1923), who suffers but never succumbs to the terrors of the dreamworld that has invaded his life. He's affable yet intense when the occasion calls for a heavier reaction to the film's events, and agreeably light while approaching others. A New York stage actor in his teens, Lydon entered movies in 1939 and had only recently completed a contract with Paramount in which he portrayed disaster-prone high school goof Henry Aldrich, a role originated by Jackie Cooper in WHAT A LIFE! (1939), the film adaptation of the same-titled play by Clifford Goldsmith. The resulting Henry Aldrich series of 1941-1944 was one of Paramount's more popular B movie entries and a pleasant rival to the M-G-M Andy Hardy series starring Mickey Rooney.

Lydon was borrowed from Republic Pictures, the company with which the actor had a new contract, for STRANGE ILLUSION. But he had made two films for PRC during 1944: Ralph Murphy's comedy THE TOWN WENT WILD in which he co-starred with former child star Freddie Bartholomew (with whom Lydon worked in TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL DAYS, 1940), and WHEN THE LIGHTS GO ON AGAIN, considered one of PRC's standout releases of that year. The latter, whose title was taken from a then-popular song, was directed by William K. Howard, who had helmed Lydon in his film debut of five years earlier in the the independently-made, New York-shot BACK DOOR TO HEAVEN. As a returning World War II veteran adjusting to civilian life, Lydon was hailed for his sensitive portrayal, "a performance that meant the end of adolescent parts for him," as Don Miller observed.@ Lydon continued with acting as he became more involved in television production in the '60s and '70s.

Noteworthy too is William's interpretation of STRANGE ILLUSION's villain, to whom William lent the qualities of charm and latent violence that marked his heyday as a Warner Bros. leading man in the '30s. The added hint of his character's lust for young women, which Muhlbach charitably labels "that weakness," is given a remarkably sleazy aspect by William with a mere glance and smile; Curtis's popping around a pillar to leeringly greet a startled Lydia at one point is rather creepy. After having played The Lone Wolf from 1939 until 1943 in a series of Bs for Columbia, William's health declined, allowing him to make only two more films, FEAR (1946) and THE PRIVATE LIFE OF BEL-AMI (1947), before he expired at 53 in 1948.

Conversely, Eilers seems almost pathetic as Paul's mother, so oblivious to Curtis's phoniness you're left to wonder if she deserves the fate about to befall her. Her naivete is explained away due to her youth and inability to grasp the evil her late husband knew too well. Eilers, whose peak came at Fox Film as a leading lady in BAD GIRL (1931) and several other movies, remained busy afterward but saw her career in decline about the time STRANGE ILLUSION was produced. Her last screen appearance was in the Columbia western STAGE TO TUCSON (1950) with Rod Cameron; Eilers was 69 when she passed in 1978.

Also earning praise is Arnt (1906-1990) as the unctuous Professor Muhlbach, masking his evil intentions behind a calm and rational exterior while maintaining a shaky control over the volatile Curtis. A veteran of credited and unbilled parts as everything from store clerks to judges (and a surprise murder suspect in Reginald LeBorg's FALL GUY, 1947, at Monogram), Arnt retired from a busy career in movies and TV after playing the mayor in SWEET BIRD OF YOUTH (1962), directed by Richard Brooks.

Psychiatry as a subject for serious dramas or thrillers gained more respectability by the end of 1945 with Alfred Hitchcock's SPELLBOUND for producer David O. Selznick, in which Ingrid Bergman uses her professional skills to cure Gregory Peck of his nightmares and clear him of a murder charge. Because Muhlbach did not employ any medicines or procedures in his treatment of STRANGE ILLUSION's Paul, the film escaped the criticism heaped upon the Twentieth Century-Fox release of the melodrama SHOCK that soon followed SPELLBOUND into theaters in January 1946. The Alfred L. Werker-directed story focused on a psychiatrist (Vincent Price) who abuses his field of expertise and knowledge of healing drugs to silence a distraught woman (Anabel Shaw) who witnessed Price murdering his wife. 

The New York Times' Bosley Crowther found the depiction of the psychiatrist as a villain a disservice to the relatively-new branch of medicine, while John McManus of another Big Apple daily, PM, held forth thusly: "I have seen many irresponsible, meretricious and sometimes sickening films in my time but SHOCK is the first one that ever literally turned my stomach."@@ He had yet to see scores of TV dramas to come dealing with deadly mind healers.

(To be continued)

* "BLUEBEARD," in Tom Weaver, John Brunas and Michael Brunas, POVERTY ROW HORRORS!: MONOGRAM, PRC AND REPUBLIC HORROR FILMS OF THE FORTIES, Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Co., 1993, pp. 177-190.
** Peter Bogdanovich, "Interviews: Edgar G. Ulmer," in Todd McCarthy and Charles Flynn, eds., KINGS OF THE Bs: WORKING WITHIN THE HOLLYWOOD SYSTEM, New York: E.P. Dutton & Co., 1975, p. 401.
*** Michael H. Price and John Wooley, with George E. Turner, FORGOTTEN HORRORS 3!: DR. TURNER'S HOUSE OF HORRORS, Baltimore, Md.: Luminary Press, 2003, p. 129.
@ Don Miller, B MOVIES, New York: Ballantine Books, 1988, p. 290.
@@ Quoted in James Robert Parish and Steven Whitney, VINCENT PRICE UNMASKED, New York: Drake Publishers, 1974, p. 64.