Moral Maze of Murder: John Barrymore Jr. in ‘While the city sleeps’ (Fritz Lang, 1956)

Posted on August 15, 2015January 30, 2018 by James

Although John Barrymore Jr. (1932-2004) – also known as John Drew Barrymore – was the son of John Barrymore and Dolores Costello, his thespian parents did not provide him with an easy start in the acting profession. His mother and father separated when he was only eighteen months old, and Dolores sent him to St John’s Military Academy when he was seventeen, determined to steer him away from acting.

Undeterred, he made his film debut in the western Sundowners (George Templeton, 1950) and took many roles – most of them forgettable – on both stage and screen over the next few years. Of these, only the part of troubled teenager George in The Big Night (Joseph Losey, 1951) stands out. A slightly noirish movie, it contains hints of the simmering yet sympathetic darkness that Barrymore would bring to While the City Sleeps.

Losey was a great director but a comparative newcomer to film in comparison with Lang, who began making silent films just after the end of WWI. After directing classics such as Dr Mabuse, der Spieler (1922), Metropolis (1927), M (1931) and the (possibly) anti-Nazi Das Testament des Dr Mabuse (1933) Lang left Nazi Germany, arriving in Hollywood in 1936. His American output included westerns and a series of superb film noirs including Scarlet Street (1945), The Secret behind the Door (1948) and The Big Heat (1953.) It is interesting to note that in 1951 Joseph Losey made a remake of Lang’s M – a film that provided some of the inspiration for When the City Sleeps. This was Lang’s penultimate American film before he returned to Germany.

In a previous post I explained a little about film noir including how the effect created by the deep shadows and dark fog of classic noir is typically a metaphor for the impaired moral vision of the characters: most of the time they are literally ‘in the dark’ about the wider picture, unable to discern what distinguishes the villains from the victims. While the City Sleeps breaks with this tradition: the film is brightly lit throughout, lacking Lang’s trademark chiaroscuro, and from the outset we know that John Barrymore’s character – John Manners – is the killer. So what, then, is the film about?

Ostensibly, it is about the hunt to catch a killer who has been murdering women in New York, and who has been dubbed ‘the lipstick killer’ after leaving the words ‘Ask mother’ scrawled in lipstick on the wall at the scene of his first murder. The story was based on a real case – that of William Heirens, who was convicted (perhaps unjustly) of multiple murders in Chicago in 1946. A journalist of that city, Charles Einsten, adapted the story into a novel entitled The Bloody Spur (1953), on which Casey Robinson based his screenplay.

There are many differences between the film and the Heirens murders, but Barrymore’s performance draws heavily on one key element – the cry for help written by Heirens wrote in lipstick on his victim’s mirror: ‘For heaven’s sake, catch me before I kill more. I cannot control myself.’

This notion that the killer is driven by an irresistible compulsion that he himself detests, was integral to Lang’s original M, in which Peter Lorre played disturbed child-killer Hans Beckert. Finally cornered by the city’s criminals that have hunted him down, Beckert empties his soul in an astonishing monologue that (thanks to Lorre’s extraordinary performance) actually elicits some sympathy: ‘I can’t help myself, I have no control over this, this evil thing inside of me – the fire, the voices the torment! It’s there all the time, driving me out to wander the streets, following me silently, but I can feel it there – it’s me, pursuing myself.’ This blurring of moral boundaries between law-breakers and law-enforcers is, of course, a recurring theme in film noir, and While the City Sleeps is no exception, even if Barrymore’s performance fails to match that of Lorre.

As the above poster reveals, the ‘law-enforcers’ in the film are not the police (again, a common noir trait) but ‘newsmen’ – senior staff of the Kyne Inc. media empire – who have their own motives for hunting down the killer. The film’s original title was The News is Made at Night – a clever phrase that links media activities with deeds done under the cover of darkness. Parallels are constantly drawn between the motives and actions of the killer and the media men, with a strong hint that the latter are even more reprehensible in their morals. Beckert made the same point when confronted by the criminals who – repelled by his murders and resentful of the extra police attention they had attracted – succeeded in hunting him down to enforce their own form of vigilante justice. His crimes were the result of compulsion, while theirs were choices born of financial greed and laziness.

Similarly, the Kyne agency’s interest in the murderer has less to do with justice and relates more to the desire for an exclusive story to trump their competitors. Just after the story breaks on the news, Amos Kyne – the elderly head of themedia empire, dies before he can appoint a successor. (His nurse, by the way, is played by Celia Lovsky, Peter Lorre’s former wife who was responsible for his casting in M.) This opens the way for a power struggle between three senior executives: Jon Day Griffith (Thomas Mitchell), editor of the Sentinel newspaper, Mark Loving (George Sanders) head of news wire service and Harry Kritzer (James Craig) manager of the picture agency. Kyne’s sleazy son Walter – played with relish by Vincent Price – knows nothing about what is required for the job and so offers the post as a prize: the first of the three men to identify the killer will get the coveted job. Like his father, who wanted to sensationalise news reports of the murders in order to ‘scare silly’ every woman in the country – Kyne is interested in the murder story because of its potential for media sales rather than for any concern for moral justice or sympathy for the victims. While Griffith and Loving use all their respective resources to unmask the killer (and sabotage each other’s efforts in the process), Kritzer pursues another strategy. He has been having an affair with Walter Kyne’s wife Dorothy (Rhonda Fleming) and seeks to use her influence to secure himself the job.

Director Fritz Lang with Rhonda Fleming on the set of ‘While the City Sleeps,’ filmed during the summer of 1955. One of her most memorable performances was as the double-crossing Meta in the classic film noir ‘Out of the Past’ (Jacques Tourneur, 1947.)

So what then of Ed Mobley (Dana Andrews), the anchorman on the Kyne television channel? At first sight he looks likely to be the film’s hero: a Pulitzer Prize-winner, he is engaged to Loving’s secretary, the sweet and wholesome Nancy Liggett (Sally Forrest), and disappoints both Amos and Walter Kyne in refusing to run for the boss’s job because of his apparent lack of ambition. As the movie proceeds, however, it becomes increasingly clear that Mobley and Manners have much in common.

To show the parallels, we must return to the opening scenes when we first see John Barrymore in action. He appears on the screen dressed in a black leather outfit that was evidently inspired by Marlon Brando’s biker garb from The Wild One (László Benedek, 1953.)

Brando in iconic biker’s leathers. ‘

In his guise as a delivery man, Manners gains entrance to the girl’s flat by secretly placing her door on the catch as he hands over the parcel, then returning a few moments later to let himself in.

This same trick is employed by Mobley in an (unsuccessful) attempt to seduce Sally – but it at once alerts the audience to a connection between the two men. This is underlined again when Nancy hears the killer described as ‘a real nut on dames’ and responds ‘this description begins to fit Mobley.’

The truth is that – whatever their motives or justifications – all these men indulge equally in a world of voyeurism, surveillance and misogyny. Manners’ first murder begins (and is possibly provoked) when he spies on his victim in her bathroom. The next sequence introduces us to the glass-walled offices of the Kyne building, where Mobley is spying on Nancy as she resists the advances of her boss. Soon everyone in the office is watching everyone else as the power struggle escalates, and when Kritzer visits his lover Dorothy at her husband’s home, he expresses fears about sliding panels in walls and microphones hidden behind the pictures. Columnist Mildred Donner (Ida Lupino) makes a mockery of the male gaze when she teases Mobley with a slide that she suggests is a nude photograph of her, but is revealed to be a baby portrait (bottom right). Even the viewer becomes complicit in this voyeurism when the shapely Dorothy Kyne is shown in silhouette as she exercises behind a transparent screen (below), and the camera moves – at a tantalising slow speed – around the side of the screen. As the film nears its end, Manners is incited to another attack after he catches sight of Dorothy Kyne’s reflection in a mirror as she hitches up her skirt to adjust a stocking (bottom left). Rather like Peeping Tom (Michael Powell, 1960), this is a film about scopophilia.

If all the characters are equally tainted with voyeurism, then why is only Manners compelled to murder? After a criminologist provides him with some clues about the murderer’s likely profile, Mobley takes a gamble and arranges a television broadcast in which he addresses the killer directly, listing all that he knows: ‘Item 4, You read the so-called comic books…Item 7. You’re a mama’s boy.’ As the broadcast proceeds, we see Manners reading comics in front of the television; he recoils in panic, almost as if the media’s insights into his private world are proof that he is actually being watched through the screen.

The comic found at the murder scene (left) and read by Manners as he watches Mobley’s broadcast (right.)

This anxiety about the harmful effect of comic books was much in the air at the time, following the recent publication of The Seduction of the Innocent (1954) by Dr Frederick Wertham, which argued that EC crime comics such as Vault of Horror, Crime Suspense and Tales from the Crypt were a factor in rising juvenile delinquency. Wertham’s study was hugely influential at this time, resulting in widespread suspicion of comic book culture. Einstein’s novel predated this hysteria and hints instead at religious fanaticism being the driving force behind the killer’s actions. The film’s portrayal of a killer with a mother fixation anticipated Psycho by four years, but had already been explored in the character of Bruno Anthony in Strangers in a Train (Hitchcock, 1950)

Kyne’s media men have no real interest in Manners’ motives of course, and only seek his capture to better their own position. The lack of moral integrity on the part of vigilantes is a theme that Lang explored in his westerns The Return of Frank James (1940) and Rancho Notorious (1952) where victims of crime struggle to reconcile their desire for revenge with the qualities of justice and mercy. In fact a great deal of Lang’s movies portray muddied distinctions between criminals, victims and the representatives of institutional justice – from The Woman in the Window (1944) in which Edward G Robinson kills someone by accident then sinks deeper into deceit trying to conceal the death – to The Big Heat (1953) which shows detective Glenn Ford struggling to stay within the law after leaving the police force to pursue his wife’s killer.

In all these films there comes a point when the protagonist’s actions reveal their true nature, and perhaps the pivotal moment in this movie is when we realise that Mobley is essentially using his fiancée Nancy as bait to catch the killer. Having goaded Manners by taunting him about his comic books and domineering mother, Mobley then announces his engagement on television, suspecting (quite correctly) that the killer will seek revenge by attacking Nancy. All they have to do is watch her closely, and the ‘lipstick killer’ will fall into the trap.

This is a fairly despicable way to treat one’s fiancée, and is made worse by the fact that we have seen Mobley’s drunken pursuit of Mildred, the seductive and highly desirable columnist who presents such a contrast to the prim and virginal Nancy. As viewers were warned earlier, Mobley and Manners – like Guy and Bruno in Strangers in a Strain – are really two peas in a pod, with one man acting as an alter ego, carrying out real crimes that represent the repressed desires of the other.

Read all about it! In Lang’s portrayal of the complex relationship between the murderer and the media, no one is innocent.

The net begins to close however, and the film climaxes in a hectic subterranean chase as Manners is pursued through subway tunnels. Although most of the film has used brightly-lit daytime interiors, this sequence returns to the dark, noirish feel of the movie’s opening frames.

In scenes reminiscent of the pursuit of Harry Lime in ‘The Third Man’, the viewer can hardly help feel sympathy for Barrymore’s character as he is hunted down like a rat

Barrymore changed his name to John Drew Barrymore in 1958 and the following year divorced his first wife, Cara Williams, by whom he had a son, the actor John Blyth Barrymore (born 1954.) He married his second wife, Italian actress Gabriella Palazzoli, in 1960, ushering in a period making historical films in Italy such as The Night They Killed Rasputin (1960), The Trojan Horse (1961) and Arms of the Avenger (1963). He returned to America in 1964 but his marriage ended in 1970. His third wife Jaid was the mother of Drew Barrymore, born in 1975, by which time his acting career had ended, his talent ruined by excessive drinking and drug-taking. While the City Sleeps remains one of his best performances, and a frustrating hint of a potential that was never fully realised.

John Barrymore with his daughter Drew

This post is part of the Barrymore Trilogy Blogathon, celebrating the ‘royal family’ of Hollywood. Details of all the other posts in the blogathon can be found here

song at twilight – 48 years ago today

Posted on August 9, 2015January 30, 2018 by James

Portrait of AW, from ‘Duett im Zwielicht’ theatre programme, 1966

AW died on 9 August 1967 at the home of his old friend Hansi Burg, where he was convalescing after a heart attack suffered on stage some four months earlier. Although the play, Noel Coward’s Duett im Zwielicht (Song at Twilight) was then running at the Kleine-Komödie in Munich, it had actually opened in December 1966 at the Renaissance-Theater in Berlin, so today I am posting a couple of photographs from the original theatre programme and some contemporary press cuttings.

This caricature shows the three lead actors – AW (Sir Noel Latymer, a famous writer nearing the end of his life), Heli Finkenzeller (Hilde Latymer, his wife) and Friedel Schuster (Carlotta Gray, a former lover.) The play was first produced in London in April 1966, with AW’s roles performed by Noel Coward himself, and Hilde and Carlotta played by Irene Worth and Lilli Palmer respectively. The play had been translated into German by Martin Dongen and was directed by Viktor de Kowa – who had co-starred with AW and Hansi Burg’s father, Eugen Burg, in Der Stolz der 3 Kompanie (Fred Sauer, 1932.)

The distinctive art deco frontage of the Renaissance Theater, a former club and cinema, it opened as a theatre in 1922.

Among the press-cuttings I have reviewing the opening night of Duett im Zwielicht at the Renaissance Theater is a favourable one by Dora Fehling in Der Telegraf , who was impressed by AW’s ability to elicit sympathy for Latymer’s unattractive character: a difficult task, she admitted, but on in which the actor succeeded. Heinz Ritter went further, describing AW’s distinguished appearance in his green smoking jacket, and praising his ability to soften Latymer’s abrasive nature with an air of Schnitzler-like resignation, making the character understandable to the audience and providing him with a poignant sense of tragedy. Ilse Urbach was less impressed by AW’s performance, however, finding too much of the grand old silent-film star about him. Perhaps she would have been kinder had she realised that this grand old man had only a few months left to live. May he rest in peace.

Paris Singer and the Romance of Redcliffe

Posted on July 14, 2015July 20, 2020 by James

On the seafront at Paignton, a short distance from Oldway Mansion -photographs of which featured in my previous post on Paris Singer and Isadora Duncan – there looms the distinctive shape of the Redcliffe Hotel. Although the Singer family’s association with Oldway is well-known, Paris Singer’s ownership of Redcliffe and the surrounding area is often overlooked. Today’s post will focus attention on this.

Col. Robert Smith, the architect and first resident of Redcliffe

Singer was not responsible for the construction of Redcliffe. This honour belonged to Colonel Robert Smith (1787-1873), a gifted artist and architect who served in India with the Bengal Engineers. He retired from the army in 1832, spent some years in Italy with his wife and young family, before returning to England in 1850. Although born in France, he had brought up in Bideford and had a sister still living in Torquay, which is presumably why he chose to settle in Devon. He designed Redcliffe himself in 1852 and the mansion was built in stages between 1855 and 1864.

It was a magnificent building, with 23 bedrooms, a conservatory, billiard room, and an underground plunge bath by the sea that was reached by a subterranean tunnel from the house. Redcliffe Castle, as it was called, sat in five acres of gardens that were filled with rare plants Smith had collected from around the world.

Redcliffe around 1880, showing the Eastern influence

Another photo from around the same time, this time looking from the sands to the NE

The octagonal tower in 2009, showing the decorative emblems

It was an enormous building for an elderly man to live in alone, but Smith also built himself a vast chateau near Nice in France. He did not have long to enjoy either property, dying on 16 September 1873. Redcliffe passed to his estranged son, Lieutenant Robert Claude Smith of the Bombay Calvary, but financial problems forced him to sell the house and all its contents in 1877.

At this time Paris Singer was, of course, only ten years old, and his vast fortune was administered by trustees. The Redcliffe Estate was an attractive buy, because it allowed the trustees to extend Singer’s Fernham estate all the way to the seafront, linking it with other land purchases between Oldway Road and Marldon. After buying Redcliffe, the trustees erected the sea wall that runs along Preston Beach, as well as laying out Marine Drive.

Paris Singer married Lillie Graham in 1887 and ten years later the Paignton Echo records the couple hosting a fundraising bazaar for the local Methodist Church at Redcliffe Towers. During this time the house was rarely occupied, and only opened during the summer months for events such as bazaars and flower shows. In January 1900 Singer had the building converted into a convalescent hospital for soldiers wounded in the Boer War. According to the Paignton Echo, this was done on behalf of Paris by his brother Washington Singer. Paris Singer’s real interest lay in developing the sea front, and in 1904 plans were drawn up for fourteen houses to be built along the front of Preston Green, with another seven houses in the grounds of the Redcliffe itself. (below)

Singer had sold Redcliffe Towers in 1902, and two years later it opened as the 100-bedroom Hotel Redcliffe, touted as ‘The Finest Health Resort in Devon.’ With its opulent, eastern furnishings, oak panelling, stables, electric lighting and panoramic views of Torbay, it offered luxurious accomodation and dining for Paignton’s growing number of visitors.

Singer’s grand plans for the sea front were never implemented, and in February 1913 he sold Preston Green to the local council. He retained a small patch of land adjacent to Redcliffe on which he had earlier built an aircraft hangar for storing his two Avro seaplanes. Two months after the sale, Isadora Duncan’s two children drowned in the Seine. The lovers finally separated in 1917.

Paris Singer (1867-1932), owner of Redcliffe from 1887 to 1902

One of Singer’s seaplanes in flight, with Redcliffe in the background

After the end of the First World War, the seaplanes were used as a visitor attraction, with pilots such as Captain R.L. Truelove offering flights around the bay for the price of 25 shillings. Maybe readers with aeronautical expertise can tell me whether the plane above is an Avro 501, 504 or 510?

Paris Singer in the cockpit of one of his planes

Two of the planes on the beach near the hangar – a cafe now occupies the site.

In 1919 Paignton Council paid Paris Singer £650 for the hangar, as they wished to develop Preston Green as a pleasure ground. During the early 1920s the area was laid out with bathing huts, tennis courts and a promenade. The hangar was leased out to an aerial mapping firm, but was eventually demolished just before World War Two and replaced with a beach cafe.

The view today from inside the Redcliffe Hotel, looking across the bay towards Torquay

Wohlbrück and Tauber in ‘melodie der liebe’ (1932)

Posted on July 11, 2015January 30, 2018 by James

On my last visit to London I managed to locate the grave of the famous tenor Richard Tauber (1891-1948) and thought I should write a short post about his collaboration with AW. Despite his self-confessed musical range of ‘two and a half notes’ Anton’s career involved a considerable amount of musical performances, from operetta films through to concerts, stage musicals and even an appearance at Glyndebourne. In 1932 he co-starred with Tauber in Melodie der Liebe – also known as Right to Happiness.

Tauber was born in Linz to theatrical parents, and began performing professionally in his early twenties. After the end of World War One his career really took off, with a contract to the Vienna State Opera, the first of over 700 recordings, and hugely successful excursions into the popular genre of operetta. His first film appearances were during the silent era, but with the advent of sound there was clear potential for adapting his operetta performances for the screen.

Many of these films were, to be frank, of no great merit, having little other purpose was to provide a vehicle for Tauber’s singing. Despite his popularity, Die grosse Attraktion (Max Reichmann, 1931) failed badly at the box office,
leading to the collapse of the Richard Tauber Sound-Film Company. As would happen again during his career, he recouped the financial losses with a lucrative concert tour of Britain and America. When he returned to Germany in 1932, it was clear that a different approach would be necessary if he was going to be attempt another film.

Thankfully the script for Melodie der Liebe (Georg Jacoby, 1932) was much stronger than previous screenplays and provided cinema audiences with a decent story to follow between the musical sequences. Tauber played Richard Hoffman, an eminent singer who has lost his wife and is travelling in the company of his brother in law Bernhard (Szoke Szakall) and young daughter Gloria (Petra Unkel), prior to his departure for a tour in America. After a chance meeting in a pub, he falls for a young woman named Lilli (Alice Treff), unaware of her real intention: she is already engaged to Erwin Richter (AW), an ambitious conductor who sees Hoffmann as a means of furthering his own career. While this pair devise a plan to exploit Hoffman’s infatuation, and Lilli’s hard-up parents do their best to secure a match, the singer’s daughter has met charming young artist Escha (Lien Deyers), who sees right through Lilli’s pretence. Things come to a head as Hoffman prepares for his farewell performance of Tosca: will he find true love before he sails for New York in the morning?

Looking pensive: AW as Erwin Richter

One strength of the storyline is that it allowed Tauber to perform songs and arias that were integral to the plot, rather than being contrived interruptions of it. Audiences particularly enjoyed little Petra Unkel’s performance as Gloria, and Szakall’s antics as her hapless Uncle Bernhard. The film premiered in Berlin on 26 April 1932 and was well received, later being released in Britain and America as The Right to Happiness.

AW in a characteristic pose. Only one more film and his elegance would be perfected with the appearance of his trademark moustache

Very few could claim their right to happiness in Nazi Germany, however, and several of the film’s cast were forced to leave soon after the film was released. Deyers and Szakall both went to Hollywood, the latter finding fame in Casablanca. Tauber’s grandfather was Jewish but he was raised as a Catholic after his father converted. Nazi papers began attacking him nonetheless, drawing attention to his ancestry as well as criticising the amount of money he was making. He left Germany for his native Austria in 1933, later moving to Britain where he achieved some success with more films as well as concert and opera performances. In 1936 he married English actress Diana Napier (1905-82) and remained in Britain throughout the war, dying in London of cancer on 8 January 1948.

Tauber’s grave in Brompton cemetery

Ten years later the BBC Home Service presented an hour long programme, ‘The Richard Tauber Story’ to mark the anniversary of his death. The radio programme was broadcast at 8 pm on Wednesday 8 January 1958, narrated by Evelyn Laye (AW’s co-star in the 1954 musical Wedding in Paris) with contributions from Walbrook, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Percy Kahn, Jane Baxter and Tauber’s widow Diana Napier.

Lola Montez (MAX Ophuls 1955) Part 1

Posted on July 1, 2015January 30, 2018 by James

There are two things I haven’t done for a while – 1) posted here and 2) watched Lola Montes (Ophuls, 1955.) Both are long overdue, and so today – the first day of another month – I thought I’d post a couple of film stills from my collection. Both are black and white, which does no justice to the lush cinematography and gorgeous Eastmancolor of the film – as well as being Ophuls’ final film, Lola Montes was his only venture into colour, and we’ll never know what wonders he might have achieved had it been otherwise.

AW as King Ludwig I of Bavaria in ‘Lola Montes’

AW plays Ludwig I (1786-1868), King of Bavaria from 1825 until he was dethroned by the revolution 1848. The king’s downfall was partly due to his public relationship with Lola Montez (1821-61), a former dancer and courtesan who wielded influence over Ludwig ever since they met in Munich in 1846. Born in Ireland, her early life saw her flitting around between Liverpool, London, Montrose, Calcutta and Paris, and by the time she met Ludwig she had been married, separated, had an affair with Franz Liszt (other alleged lovers included Alexandre Dumas, author of The Three Musketeers) and performed on stage under the pseudonym of ‘Lola Montez, the Spanish Dancer.’ Her risqué ‘Spider Dance’ would later become notorious.

Lola (Martine Carole) and the KIng

After the fall of Ludwig, Lola had to flee Bavaria, spending time in Switzerland and England before emigrating to America where she took part in public lectures and performances about her past. It is probably this period of her life that suggested the bold concept of Ophuls’ film – to present Lola’s life as a circus performance. As a historical event this is pure fiction, but it provides scope for playing with ideas about public life as a visual spectacle, with the sins of a celebrity forming the centre of (quite literally) a media circus.

Such a circular visual device obviously recalls La Ronde (Ophuls, 1950) where again there is a central narrator around whom the story revolves: however, the Ringmaster (Peter Ustinov), is a much darker and more cynical character than AW’s master-of-ceremonies in La Ronde. There is a cruelty about the Ringmaster’s exploitation of the woman, who is forced to answer questions about her past life in exchange for money. Her life in the circus ring is in sharp contrast to her former life with Ludwig, probably the happiest period of her life. In my next post on Lola Montes I hope to write more about AW’s performance and include some colour pictures from the film.