I MET A MURDERER

James Mason

I MET A MURDERER (1939). Director: Roy Kellino.

Mark Warrow (James Mason) works hard on his small farm where he lives with his wife, Martha (Sylvia Coleridge). Martha is old before her time, embittered, disappointed with her lot in life and with Mark for not giving her an easier kind of existence. Mark seems to understand his wife's disillusionment to a certain degree, but he loses it when she shoots the family dog. Mark goes on the run, where he encounters another woman, Jo (Pamela Kellino, later Mason) on the road. Mark keeps his dark secret, but is completely unaware that Jo has a surprising secret of her own ... Mason and Pamela were talented actors, and Kellino is not a bad director, but if only they had decided to leave the writing chores to others. I Met a Murderer rambles along as if it were scripted on the run, and none of the characters are developed enough to make you really care about anyone. Mason is not perfect casting for a farmer (!), but he's quite good, as usual, making the most of his brooding intensity. Coleridge and Kellino are both on the mark. William Devlin is effective in what really amounts to a silent role as Martha's brother, Jay. There are interesting things in the movie, but they never quite jell into a good picture, and although the film only lasts a little over an hour, it seems twice as long. Kellino also photographed Murderer, and makes good use of its bucolic settings. Composer Eric Ansell over-scores the picture as if it were a silent movie -- the music is often nice but there's just too much of it.

Verdict: Minor entry in the Mason canon. **.

CHARADE (1954)

Pamela Mason and James Mason 

CHARADE (1954). Director: Roy Kellino. Produced by James Mason.

Actor James Mason had founded a film company with the director Roy Kellino and his wife, Pamela, in the thirties, and did so again with the same principals in the fifties. In the interim Roy and Pamela got divorced and Pamela then married James Mason, with whom she'd had an affair, and Mason produced this trio of stories co-starring his wife -- with the cuckolded ex-husband doing the directorial duties. Okay. The first story concerns a lonely lady artist whose neighbor, another woman, is strangled one night. The artist does a sketch of the man she sees coming out of the murdered woman's apartment. She sees the man (Mason) again when he moves into the now empty apartment, and the artist and the stranger become friends. The artist becomes mesmerized by the stranger and is not at all horrified by the fact that he's also a strangler. This can't lead into anything good and of course it doesn't. The premise is interesting but the people are too unpleasant to fully engage us, and as a story of erotic obsession it's too tepid. The second story, "Duel at Dawn," (from Dumas) concerns a Major Linden (Mason) who is engaged to the Baroness Tanslan (Pamela Mason of The Navy vs the Night Monsters). Captain Stamm (Scott Forbes, who appeared on Zane Grey Theater with Joan Crawford), whose proposal of marriage to the baroness had been rejected, so insults the major that the latter challenges him to a duel -- although the terms set by the captain are outrageous. This is the best of the three stories and is suspenseful and intriguing in equal measure. The last story, apparently scripted by the starring couple, is a dull mess about a wealthy man in New York who quits it all to become a butler back in England, where he meets the maid Lily, marries her, and winds up back in his office in New York. Meant to be funny, this segment is merely tedious. The Masons would have been better off if they had done a full-length version of "Duel at Dawn," which is terrific. James and Pamela are both excellent actors, and Mason is especially good as the major. Forbes, Paul Canavagh as Colonel Heisler. Bruce Lester as Captain van Buren, Sean McClory [Valley of the Dragons] as Jack Stuydevant, the wealthy man's friend in episode three, all give excellent support, as does the uncredited actor who plays Mason's employer in the final story. Pamela and James appear as themselves at the opening and ending and in introductions to each segment. They divorced ten years later.

Verdict: This vanity production is one third all right. **3/4.