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I always liked Mr. Donnelly
My poem "One Way or Another" has been accepted by Through the Gate. It was directly inspired by Max Ophüls' The Reckless Moment (1949), whence the title: "We're all involved with each other, one way or another." You may remember that this movie knocked my socks off in May. For people who would like a similar experience in 35mm, the HFA will be screening a print on Sunday. I plan to be there.
Excuse me while I rant for a moment. With the exception of the dramatis personae, the chain-smoking, and the assertion that both the protagonist and her blackmailer are sympathetic characters, I disagree with everything that HFA synopsis says about the film. It is a women's picture in the least dismissive and most direct sense: it is about what it is like to be a woman in America in 1949 and even to some degree, distressingly, today. The war years and the home front are immaterial: the source novel was set during World War II, but the film catches the action up to the present day, the prosperous postwar boom that narrowed women's roles again even as the country congratulated itself on its steady progress into the future. (The opening voiceover sets the scene with the very first line: "This happened last year, about a week before Christmas." The final draft script was dated March 1, 1949.) Lastly and most crucially, James Mason doesn't pull Joan Bennett into anything. By hiding the body she believes her daughter is responsible for, Lucia Harper enters that "dark quicksand" of her own volition: Martin Donnelly can find her there, but he's not the reason she's on the shady side of the law. If anything, it's Lucia who pulls Martin out of his familiar criminal underworld into a much more hazardous zone, the American nuclear family. He falls in love with her. Her feelings are harder to identify. It's one of the reasons the film is so striking. So it's a very attractive description and I have no doubt it will intrigue noir fans who haven't seen the film, but I worry about the lens they'll view it through. To take one last example, the description of Bennett's Lucia as "fluttering." You could apply that adjective to Lucia Holley of Elizabeth Sanxay Holding's The Blank Wall (1947), who is not more passive than her film counterpart—in addition to disposing of a body and dealing with Martin, she takes notable charge of one episode in the novel that is deleted from the film—but is much less organized, more easily overwhelmed, used to relying on the tacit support of others like her housekeeper Sybil. There is nothing vague or scattered about Bennett's unsentimental, dark-glasses-wearing housewife, who doesn't seem to realize that she could even let anyone help her until it's too late. You can see the skeptical look she's giving Martin in the HFA's photograph. It's habitual. How could you see the movie and miss it? I suppose if someone tells you not to look for it in the first place? It's one thing when I disagree with reviewers; it's another when they're just factually wrong. Anyway, ignore the writeup and see the film. Unlike Caught (1949), it is not on DVD.
(The picture below is a studio shot; I just happen to like it. It is also a pretty decent representation of their relationship.)
Excuse me while I rant for a moment. With the exception of the dramatis personae, the chain-smoking, and the assertion that both the protagonist and her blackmailer are sympathetic characters, I disagree with everything that HFA synopsis says about the film. It is a women's picture in the least dismissive and most direct sense: it is about what it is like to be a woman in America in 1949 and even to some degree, distressingly, today. The war years and the home front are immaterial: the source novel was set during World War II, but the film catches the action up to the present day, the prosperous postwar boom that narrowed women's roles again even as the country congratulated itself on its steady progress into the future. (The opening voiceover sets the scene with the very first line: "This happened last year, about a week before Christmas." The final draft script was dated March 1, 1949.) Lastly and most crucially, James Mason doesn't pull Joan Bennett into anything. By hiding the body she believes her daughter is responsible for, Lucia Harper enters that "dark quicksand" of her own volition: Martin Donnelly can find her there, but he's not the reason she's on the shady side of the law. If anything, it's Lucia who pulls Martin out of his familiar criminal underworld into a much more hazardous zone, the American nuclear family. He falls in love with her. Her feelings are harder to identify. It's one of the reasons the film is so striking. So it's a very attractive description and I have no doubt it will intrigue noir fans who haven't seen the film, but I worry about the lens they'll view it through. To take one last example, the description of Bennett's Lucia as "fluttering." You could apply that adjective to Lucia Holley of Elizabeth Sanxay Holding's The Blank Wall (1947), who is not more passive than her film counterpart—in addition to disposing of a body and dealing with Martin, she takes notable charge of one episode in the novel that is deleted from the film—but is much less organized, more easily overwhelmed, used to relying on the tacit support of others like her housekeeper Sybil. There is nothing vague or scattered about Bennett's unsentimental, dark-glasses-wearing housewife, who doesn't seem to realize that she could even let anyone help her until it's too late. You can see the skeptical look she's giving Martin in the HFA's photograph. It's habitual. How could you see the movie and miss it? I suppose if someone tells you not to look for it in the first place? It's one thing when I disagree with reviewers; it's another when they're just factually wrong. Anyway, ignore the writeup and see the film. Unlike Caught (1949), it is not on DVD.
(The picture below is a studio shot; I just happen to like it. It is also a pretty decent representation of their relationship.)
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Thank you!
I like your Good Decision Cat icon.
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Thank you! I need to write more poems about film, but this one just turned up, entirely itself.
(There's a chance I will be able to make the showing on Sunday, depending on houseguest plans etc.; I will let you know if I can.)
Excellent! I hope to see you there!
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Thank you! The issue is slated for the end of October, I am told. A good season for it.