A DOUBLE LIFE

Shelley Winters and Ronald Colman

A DOUBLE LIFE (1947). Director: George Cukor.

Anthony John (Ronald Colman) is a well-known theater actor who is divorced from, but still in love with, his ex-wife, Brita (Signe Hasso of A Reflection of Fear). They have remained friends and co-workers and decide to do their rendition of Shakespeare's Othello. Never too tightly wrapped to begin with, Anthony begins unraveling as the successful show goes on month after month, developing an intense jealousy over Brita (and a publicist named Bill played by Edmond O'Brien), that threatens to rival Othello's equally unfounded jealousy over Desdemona. Is someone going to pay the ultimate price for Anthony's madness, and who will it be? A Double Life has a famous star -- Colman won a Best Actor Oscar for his performance -- and director, but the movie is successful neither as drama nor suspense film. The characters in the script by Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin are too superficial to make us actually care about anyone, and there is no real tension in the movie, Shelley Winters plays a waitress that Colman dallies with, but this very good actress is hardly given enough to work with in her two brief scenes with the star. Signe Hasso comes off better as Desdemona than Colman does in his okay but often hammy interpretation of Othello. There are people who really love this movie (they go on about it as if were along the lines of he actual Othello) and Colman's performance, but I think Colman has given better performances in much better pictures than this. Betsy Blair has a nice bit as a hopeful actress, and Ray Collins, Whit Bissell, and Joe Sawyer also have minor supporting roles. Cukor has directed better melodramas than this, including Gaslight and A Woman's Face. In the final sequence Hasso seems to be indulging in a bit of silent movie acting! I believe Colman's Oscar was given for his body of work. This bears some similarities to the earlier The Brighton Strangler, which some may actually consider the better movie..

Verdict: See a performance of Othello instead. **.

THE HOUSE ON 92ND STREET

THE HOUSE ON 92ND STREET (1945 ). Director: Henry Hathaway.

When American William Dietrich (William Eythe) is contacted by German agents who want to train him for espionage in the pre-WW2 period, he notifies the FBI and agrees to become a double agent for them. Gradually he infiltrates a German spy ring that is trying to get atom bomb secrets or the like. Concurrently the US enters the war after the attack on Pearl Harbor. What transpires is presented in documentary fashion -- there are even real shots of actual spies taken during the period -- as this is a fact-based story. FBI agents even play bit parts throughout the movie. Lloyd Nolan plays agent George Briggs, whom Dietrich reports to, and Leo G. Carroll is Colonel Hammersohn, a higher-up in the spy network, which also employs Elsa Gebhardt (Signe Hasso). Years later Carroll gave orders to The Man from U.N.C.L.E. Hasso mostly did television work. Which is appropriate since The House on 92nd Street is like a long television episode. The only lively scene has the Nazi gals slapping around Dietrich when he refuses to talk.

Verdict: Truth isn't always more interesting than fiction. **.

A SCANDAL IN PARIS

A SCANDAL IN PARIS (1946). Director: George Sanders.

The life story of Eugéne François Vidocq (George Sanders) who was born in a prison, becomes a crook and reprobate with women, and manages to wind up the Prefect of Police in Paris -- with plans concerning the Paris bank. Along the way he is assisted by Emile Vernet (Akim Tamiroff, in one of his best roles), who is even less moral than Vidocq is. Among the women in Vidocq's life are Therese (Signe Hasso), daughter of the Minister of Police, and sexy Loretta (Carole Landis), who is married to the former Prefect of Police (Gene Lockhart). While A Scandal in Paris has an exasperating and hypocritical moral incongruity to it, it is also unpredictable for the most part and is certainly never boring. Sanders is as splendid as ever in a role he was born for, Landis and Lockhart are terrific as a battling married couple, and the rest of the cast is in fine form as well. Jo Ann Marlowe is adorable as the self-assured little Mimi, younger sister of Therese.

Verdict: Sometimes crime does pay. ***.