CAST A DARK SHADOW/WANTED FOR MURDER: Blu-ray (Eros/Excelsior 1946/1955) Cohen Media Group

Cohen Film Group’s latest offering is advertised as “two fully restored film noir classics” when actually it’s more like 1 ½; each, an atmospheric gem, although and alas, both to have belly-flopped at the box office when they premiered in 1946 and 1952 respectively. First, to director, Lawrence Huntington’s Wanted for Murder (1946), rather ironically to star Eric Portman as serial killer, Victor James Colebrooke – an affluent middle-aged mama’s boy, doted on by his careworn millionaire mother (Barbara Everest), who suspects something to be wrong with her son, though even she cannot fathom precisely what. Despite Mutz Green’s superb B&W cinematography, Wanted for Murder is a fairly pedestrian outing. Part of the dearth here is owed the cast, especially Portman, who has grave difficulty exuding menace beyond a slow-burn calculation that allows him to stalk his unsuspecting gal/pals, leaving their bodies strewn in public places for Chief Inspector Conway (Ronald Culver) and his occasionally befuddled sidekick, Sergeant Sullivan (Stanley Holloway) to belatedly discover. But the other half of the misfire rests squarely on Emeric Pressburger and Rodney Ackland’s strictly-by-the-numbers screenplay, to repeatedly stall the action, if also to deliver at least two very finely executed vignettes – one, to kick-start the movie at a moodily lit carnival where Vic’s mainstay, Anne Fielding (Dulcie Grey) momentarily runs off to share a whirl around the carousel with clean-cut and amiable, though otherwise, dull as paint double-decker motorman, Jack Williams (a thoroughly wooden Derek Farr). Delayed in his reunion with Ann, Victor finds time to murder one of the many female patrons at the fair, leaving her body in a nearby glen. This, of course, sets up Williams to take the fall as, not knowing even Anne’s name or where she lives, he cannot find anyone to corroborate his innocence of the crime.

Aside: while I have never heard it referenced, I sincerely wonder if storyteller extraordinaire, Alfred Hitchcock saw Wanted for Murder before embarking on his magnum opus, Strangers on a Train (1951). There are distinct similarities between these two movies, worth noting. Each stars a killer (Hitchcock’s Bruno Anthony, played with effete evil by Robert Walker) who hails from a life of privilege. Both men are seemingly bored, seeking some sort of angry thrill/kill to roil their sadomasochistic desire. And each movie begins with a killing at a fair ground – seemingly a place where nothing could go wrong. Also, both movies feature a bizarrely befuddled matriarch who is ever-devoted to her offspring, despite his peculiarities that would make any sane person sit up and speculate on their sanity. Finally, each of the killers is eventually, deliberately, undone by their own maniacal self-confidence. However, this is where any and all similarities should end. As far as whodunits go, Wanted for Murder is pretty straight forward and thoroughly absent of Hitchcock’s spark to create genuine thrills. The movie’s score, from Russian-born émigré composer, Mischa Spoliansky, includes extracts from a pseudo-piano concerto featuring soloist, Eric Harrison. Wanted for Murder is very loosely based on Terence de Marney and Percy Robinson’s London-born stagecraft from 1937. But from this inauspicious debut, plans to coproduce it with Marcel Hellman fell flat at 2oth Century-Fox. Instead, much of the interiors were shot at Welwyn Studios, with location work at Star House, 14, The Royal Exchange, Chelsea Embankment, and, New Scotland Yard. Hellman eventually ironed out the wrinkles in his international deal with Fox to distribute Wanted for Murder, along with two other projects in development, Meet Me at Dawn – 1947, and, the never made, This Was a Woman.

Shades of Fox’s own Hangover Square (1945) cast their pall on Wanted for Murder. The plot begins in earnest as Anne Fielding is delayed in the London Underground on route to a rendezvous with her venial boyfriend, Victor James Colebrooke. Evidently, Vic can’t be much of a stud as it doesn’t take much for Anne to gravitate to the not-so-subtle flirtations of Jack Williams. Delaying her clandestine meeting with Victor to take a carousel ride with Jack, Anne then discovers a moody Victor waiting nearby. Unable to predict he has only just murdered a woman who is a dead ringer for her, Anne accompanies Victor back to the city, leaving Jack forlorn and confused. Meanwhile, we discover Victor is the grandson of a notorious hangman. Plagued by what he perceives to be nightmares about his familial destiny, Victor’s mental acuity is gradually spiraling out of control. His desire to kill unsuspecting women supersedes his love for Anne. Even so, how long will it be before Victor decides she is expendable too. To this end, Inspector Conway and Sergeant Sullivan begin to piece together several clues that distinctly point to Vic as their man.  But instead of a taut game of cat and mouse, what quickly develops is a rank police procedural without so much as a flash of originality to recommend it.

Infinitely more rewarding is the second movie in this double bill, Cast A Dark Shadow (1955), the tale of a thoroughly wicked young man, Edward ‘Teddy’ Bare, who has married Monica (Mona Washbourne), a woman much older and decidedly above his station in life, for the express reason to inherit her money. However, Teddy’s thoughts turn to murder after he discovers from his inebriated wife, she intends to recall her solicitor, Philip Mortimer (Robert Flemyng) to draft a new Will. Presuming this to cut him completely out of his inheritance, as Monica continues to babble about her duty to a sister, Dora, living in Jamaica, Teddy plots, first to strangle, but then suffocate Monica. Setting up the housemaid as his alibi, Teddy pretends to go out to his club for the evening, but sneaks back into the parlor to turn on the gas in the fireplace, staging an accidental asphyxiation, to appear as though Monica passed out before she could light the pilot. The ruse is convincing enough at the inquest. But Philip doesn’t buy it for a moment. Indeed, he now informs Edward that Monica’s present Will only leave him their home in trust – the rest of her considerable estate to go to Dora. So, Monica’s desire to draft a new will was not to cut Edward out, but actually make him the sole beneficiary of her estate. 

Bemused by his ill-fated haste and timing, Edward is trapped in his current circumstances, but quickly latches on to the monied, if déclassé widow, Freda Jeffries (Margaret Lockwood) whom he woos and weds on the fly. Alas, Edward has overlooked Freda’s tolerance for his pretty boy charm. After the marriage she takes on a very possessive and controlling role in Edward’s life, refusing to allow him complete access to her fortune. She also lets it be known she has her misgivings about how the first Mrs. Bare died and informs Edward that, as two deaths would look suspicious now, he has no choice but to accept their marriage on her terms. Begrudgingly, Edward falls into line. Now, Edward becomes casually acquainted with Charlotte Young (Kay Walsh), who is house-hunting, presumably for a property to transform into an equestrian school. As Edward was once an estate agent, he shows Charlotte around, much to Freda’s jealous chagrin. Only now, Edward begins to suspect something afoul in their friendship. Indeed, luring Charlotte to the estate that evening while Freda is out, Edward confronts her as being Monica’s sister, Dora. She admits to as much, but is fearless in her defiance of him. Charlotte knows he murdered her sister. Now, Freda returns home, and, still jealous, escorts Charlotte to the door. After she drives off, Edward happily confides in his wife. He murdered Monica and now, Charlotte, whose brakes he has tampered with, knowing, as she drives down the steep embankment away from their home, she will be unable to make the hairpin turn at the base of the hill and instead drive off the cliff to her death.  Alas, the joke is on Edward, as Charlotte reappears with Philip – both, having overheard his confession from the veranda. Making a mad dash to escape them, Edward finds his means of escape barred by Charlotte and Philip’s parked cars. Jumping into one of the vehicles now, too late Edward realizes he has stolen the car he rigged to malfunction and kill Charlotte. Powerless to prevent the inevitable, Edward drives over the edge of the cliff and is instantly killed in the plummet and explosion that follow.

Cast a Dark Shadow is loosely based on Janet Green’s Murder Mistaken.  Interestingly, Green had sought Dirk Bogarde to star in the stagecraft that featured Brenda de Banzie in the star-making role of Freda. Alas, Bogarde turned it down flat. However, when director, Lewis Gilbert signed on to the project, he again thought of Bogarde to fill the role. This time, the star acquiesced.  Bogarde’s performance is perversely tinged in an air of the homo-erotic. Indeed, when first Edward meets Freda at the pavilion, he is engrossed in a Health and Fitness muscle mag – 50’s code for suppressed sexual deviancy, ogling buff men squeezed into tight-fitted shorts.  And the sly gazes Bogarde gives Flemyng’s Philip during their heated exchanges can also be read as Edward’s ‘come hither’, if unrequited proposition for a little badinage on the side. If nothing else, it helps to explain away Edward’s rather insidious contempt for all women, beginning with the naïve Monica and culminating with his delicious desire to kill her only surviving heir, Dora, in order to truly inherit all of Monica’s wealth. While Bogarde went on to become the bigger star, at the time of its release, Margaret Lockwood was the more prominent player. Indeed, once considered bankable box office, Lockwood’s career had slipped to just this side of gone to seed. Her top-billing in Cast a Dark Shadow possibly ensured the picture’s lack of public interest. Indeed, Lockwood would make only one more movie following a hiatus of nearly 15 years: 1976’s The Slipper and the Rose. Reflecting years later on the movie, director, Gilbert sided with Lockwood’s performance, while Bogarde reasoned it was the complex ‘unwholesomeness’ of the ‘hero’ he preferred. In the final analysis, Cast a Dark Shadow is a much creepier and intelligently made thriller, unfairly dismissed in its own time and worse, never to have received the credit it so justly deserves. Spookily lit by cinematographer, Jack Asher, the picture crackles with a darkly demented verve for finding subtler amusements in Edward’s bizarrely purposed evil and its ultimate foil, to be unearthed in himself.

Cohen Media’s latest double feature, both movies housed on a single Blu-ray, and distributed by Kino Lorber ought to have yielded better things. I suspect Cohen is at the mercy of surviving elements. But Wanted for Murder sports an exceptionally anemic 1080p transfer. Contrast is so wan the entire image falls into a sort of faded grey mid-register. Fine detail is occasionally realized. But there are edge effects and a modicum of grain looking clumpy rather than natural throughout. Worst of all, the entire second and third reels are plagued by thoroughly garbled audio, so muffled as to render whole portions of dialogue unintelligible.  So much for ‘fully restored!’ There’s better news for fans of Cast a Dark Shadow, although here too the results are not perfect. The pluses: a refined image with deep and enveloping contrast, good solid blacks and excellent tonality. Occasionally, there are inserts that sport more than tolerable, amplified grain levels and even a shot or two, appearing as sourced from less than perfect second-generation elements. Also, problematic – edge enhancement – intermittent, though not egregious. Age-related artifacts turn up on both transfers, but are nothing to squawk about. Otherwise, this one looks infinitely better. It sounds better too, still in 1.0 DTS mono, but with very crisp dialogue throughout.  Overall, a far more invested effort to live up to its advertising. Bottom line: Cast a Dark Shadow is a worthy little noir thriller that looks fairly solid on Blu. Wanted for Murder is much worse for the wear and not much of movie either. You may consider it as just an extra, as no other special features are forthcoming within. Judge and buy accordingly.

FILM RATING (out of 5 – 5 being the best)

Cast a Dark Shadow – 3.5

Wanted for Murder – 2

VIDEO/AUDIO

Cast a Dark Shadow – 4

Wanted for Murder – 2.5

EXTRAS

0