ella raines Tagged Articles at Cinematical

There's some level of basic cinematic verisimilitude that we never think about or notice until a film fails to meet it, and Phantom Lady fails to meet it. There's never a hint that the actors in this film believe they are actually the characters in the story, and you can't blame them. They are forced to act their way through a painful mishmash of dated styles, deal with scene-stopping directorial choices, make sense of absurd character motivations, and remain wary of sets that seem like they could collapse inward at any moment and kill everyone. If the people behind Mystery Science Theater 3000 never picked Phantom Lady as one of their objects of merciless ridicule, they really missed out -- it would be perfect for them. This is a film in which the good guys stand around and discuss their theory that the unidentified killer should be easy to unmask because all serial killers are "paranoiacs" and paranoiacs are easy to spot because they have uncontrollable mannerisms. While they are having this discussion -- I'm not making this up -- one member of the group, Franchot Tone's businessman character, actually begins squinting one eye as though it were squirted with lemon juice, and watches as his own hands involuntarily clutch into claws. If someone said this film was so bad that it was fascinating to watch, I guess I wouldn't disagree, but I seriously recommend a stiff drink first.

Cruelty is a necessary element of film noir, but it usually comes in the ending -- the last-minute reveal that he never really loved her or that she was only out for money, or that the wrong man will go down for the crime after all, because the system just doesn't care. The interesting thing about The Suspect is that cruelty is woven into the premise -- it paints the wholly improbable scenario of having a twenty-something secretary with the drop-dead movie star looks of Ella Raines (see above) fall in love with her boss, Charles Laughton. Yes, that Charles Laughton. Stop laughing, I'm serious. Laughton's character can hardly believe his good luck, and decides not to bother Ella Raines with the factoid that he has a wife at home. After what we can surmise has been a life of endless toil and trouble, he's not about to mess up this good thing that has fallen into his lap. The scenes where Laughton returns home from a hard day's work to be confronted by his shrieking horror of a wife (Rosalind Ivan) are entirely redundant -- the audience has already forgiven him for adultery, and is ready to forgive him for murder as well. In fact, we want him to murder his wife.