Robert Tanitch reviews the latest DVDs
The Dark Mirror (1946). Robert Siodmak directs a quasi-Freudian psychological thriller with identical twins, one a Goody Two Shoes, the other a Femme Fatale. Can a psychiatrist (Lew Ayres) and a baffled cop (Thomas Mitchell) tell which twin (both played by Olivia De Havilland) is insane and a murderer? No, they can’t. Dimitri Tiomkin’s music is even more paranoid than the siblings
Secret Beyond the Door (1948). Fritz Lang directs an over-simplified psychological thriller in which Sleeping Beauty meets Bluebeard. A rich woman (Joan Bennett) marries a complete stranger (Michael Redgrave) whose ancestral home is full of rooms in which murders have taken place. Miklos Rosza’s music is even more hysterical than the heroine who would prefer to die that give her husband up.
Force of Evil (1948). This brutal yet poetic film noir, one of the best, is about corruption on Wall Street and the illegal lottery racket, written and directed by Abraham Polonsky, and much admired by Martin Scorcese. A lawyer (John Garfield) works for a racketeer who wants to break the small banks and get all the money. Garfield and Thomas Gomez (playing brothers) relish the literate blank verse dialogue. Howard Chamberlain is a frightened book-keeper and Beatrice Pearson is a sweet secretary. The final sequence, a descent down some long stairs to a corpse in the water, is a stunning image.
The Big Combo (1955). Joseph H Lewis directs. It is John Alton’s noir photography which gives the film its classy look. A cop (Cornel Wilde) wants to nail a sadistic criminal (Richard Conte). He also happens to be in love with the criminal’s mistress (Jean Wallace). Conte has far more personality than Wilde and Wallace is a very dull blonde and limited actress. Two scenes stand out: a torture by hearing-aids and a shooting lit only by a car’s headlight. A very young Lee Van Cleef plays a gay thug.
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