When Hunks Like Robert Mitchum Lighted Up The Film Noir Heavens- Faith Domergue’s “Where Danger Lives” (1950)-A Review

When Hunks Like Robert Mitchum Lighted Up The Film Noir Heavens- Faith Domergue’s “Where Danger Lives” (1950)-A Review

DVD Review

By Sarah Lemoyne

Where Danger Lives, starring Faith Domergue, Claude Rains, Robert Mitchum, directed by legendary film noir director John Farrow, 1950

The reader may wonder, no, may be in shock that young Sarah Lemoyne, me, is reviewing a 1950s film noir minor classic Where Danger Lives starring Robert Mitchum one of the half dozen or so best- known male noir leads rather than the expected “expert” on the genre Sam Lowell or at least a well-known reviewer like my mentor Seth Garth. Thank site manager Greg Green for that although after all that is what he gets paid for. Paid for putting out what he has termed “the fire.” The “fire” in this case the nondescript “dispute” if it can be said to rise to that level between the now slightly wizened Sam Lowell (my concession to Sam via Greg after consistent and provable accusations by me that he, Sam, has become both mentally and physically a shell of what his old-time legend bought and paid for by the studios and book publishers had been, had become wizened and senile from his rantings against a harmless young woman like me trying to learn her craft) and me over my so-called allegations about who actually wrote his film reviews after his breakthrough tome on film noir which is still considered by some of the diminishing clot of  older writers on the subject the definitive volume but which I made the “mistake” of saying was dated and left me cold, left me out in the cold in trying to understand the genre. Frankly should have been revised by him, or somebody about twenty years ago when neo-noir films like L.A. Confidential and Mullholland Drive took the genre in another direction. Also should have included at least a tip of the hat to the idea that most of the guys, private detectives, crooks, criminals and skirt-chasers were deeply misogynous. But that would have thrown his precious main theory about “man’s fate” into the trash heap and his book into the remainder bins.      

Although I have proof positive that mainly stringers, usually female stringers romantically involved with him if you can believe that , or believe that this mountebank has actually been married three times and has a bunch of nice kids, or young women looking to get up the professional male-dominated food chain he has muddied the waters so much that it is hard to believe that he did not do the deeds as noted. Worse of all personally were his insinuations, hurtful insinuation to both Seth Garth, allegedly his old school boy friend, and my partner Clara that Seth and I were in the throes of some intergenerational romance. Thoughts of a dirty old man who under other circumstances should have been relieved of his duties, except he had already been relieved of them through what was supposed to be his retirement. That “hanging around like Father Death,” Seth’s take on the matter is what has brought Seth to my defense and assistance much to Clara and my appreciation (although it was touchy for a while when she thought I was in my “man” interest stage after having gone to dinner with him alone one night since I have always been a “B” in the LGBTQ firmament while she is exclusively “L”).

All that is over now though, all the mutual mudslinging is over courtesy of Greg who did what most editors do when their writers start to wrangle to the detriment of the work. Called us in to walk the plank, for me to walk the plank or so I thought given Sam’s vast seniority. But no Greg the fount of wisdom just told Sam that Sarah should do a film noir review, a review of one of the examples that Sam used in that long-ago book everybody went crazy over. Not a major example but a sturdy one as this Where Danger Lives is. In return Sam is too do a musical or was to do a musical because when Greg suggested that he balked. Sam balked and said he would go back into cubbyhole retirement and leave the field to the younger writers. Thanks Sam but I still wanted to do this review to show my stuff so I too can climb up that cutthroat food chain you have withdrawn from with seeming good grace. So here we are.

After perusing Seth’s copy of Sam’s The Life And Times Of Film Noir:1940-1960 I noticed at least in the femme fatale section proper that Sam has made quite a case for some “going along minding his own business man,” usually a a professional man, being “mantrapped” by some vampish woman with evil designs on his time and happiness. (By the way, btw in Internet speak, perusing Sam’s book is all anybody could reasonably be expected to do since at 900 hundred long drawn out pages not even the most devoted besotted, book-wormish aficionado could wallow through the whole thing except those who have no other life and time on their hands than to wade through such things. Even Seth has told me and he has said it was okay to use his remarks here that he has never read the whole thing, never would have been able to so even as nighttime before bed reading. Especially as bedtime reading. Seth always said that Sam was a great reviewer but when he went beyond that put out the lights. Of course, Seth had the advantage, if it was an advantage, of having been present at the creation as he says while Sam was lumbering along on the volume and so knows exactly where Sam’s head was when he wrote the thing.                            

I will give you an example of what I mean by the so-call mantrap defense of the guy coming under the spell of some wayward femme fatale who takes no prisoners. In discussing the high classic Out of the Past starring Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer and Kirk Douglas a section that goes on for some one hundred pages alone longer than the plot outline Sam gives the most useful for our purposes case for his dog-eared theory. Kirk, a minor gangster working out of Reno who would have been devoured alive by the sharks in Vegas, hired Jeff, Mitchum’s role, to seek Kathy, played by Jane, his errant girlfriend who has run off with a fistful of his dough and what amounted to the “finger.” Jeff, a professional detective, went to Mexico her last known whereabouts to find her, bring her back and collect his fee as any professional detective would have done and be done with it. Simply. Except once Jeff got down south, got to waiting around some off-beat cantina for her to appear once she did and he got his looks at her all his resolve vanished. I admit Jane Greer was a looker, would be a looker today too with that “come hither” look that men have found attractive in me when I am into listening to them sweet talk me which has not been for a while now. (They could learn something from Seth by the way who when he took Clara and me out to dinner, a dinner after the dinner we had alone which had upset Clara no end and got her yelling habits on, to ruffle things out she said to clear the air that if he was interested in me romantically that he would not beat about the bush about it. Said that he would have, as Clara had, taken dead aim at me. That made me feel good and hopefully satisfied Clara). 

But Jeff was a pro, was supposed to do his business and forget it. Instead he got hung up on some vagrant jasmine   scent, something in the sultry air, something about the way she turned her head just so and bought into some evil plot she had hatched up to get him to od her bidding, to get her to forget to bring her back to Kirk. And who knows what madness since not only did she grab Kirk’s dough but winged him with a couple of slugs in her girlish gun-simple way. In the end he will be betrayed by her, will be left holding the bag for a killing of another detective, will be forced to duck out and hide his identity in some two-bit California town and in the end wind up in some un-mourned ditch bleeding like a sieve. I could say more but the reader gets the picture of a man who can’t get out of the spider-like clutches of a woman. We, Sam wants us to believe, should bleed for Jeff just because he couldn’t keep his dick in his pants on a job. Couldn’t say no. Yeah, right.

I suggest that Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon turning over the faithless Bridget and her stuff of dreams when she tried to have him take her place in the big step-off and Phil Marlowe in The Big Sleep when he foiled Carmen’s “come hither” advances and took gangster Eddie Mars down for the count had the better professional attitude when the deal went down. So much for Sam’s silly idea that the guy is just victim, just a patsy for whatever any stray good-looking woman has in store for him. That whole bogus sentiment will come into play when I set up the plotline and theory behind the film under review.

There is always one moment of no turning back in each film noir I have seen but except for what book reviewer Josh Breslin calls “holy goofs,” guys a la Jack Kerouac’s characterization who could not talk and chew gum at the same time, a moment when the guy makes the wrong turn. Except that wrong turn is not without volition on the part of the male and is not some Calvinistic predestination gambit where free choice either doesn’t matter or can’t be bought for love or money since he is not one of the elect and a doomed soul. Take the good doctor here Jeff, Mitchum’s role, funny Jeff was also the name of the wayward private detective in Out of the Past who wound up with a couple of slugs in him via a gun-simple femme in a graven ditch out in nowhere. He had a promising career in front of him, good bedside manner, a good if not outstanding resume and a girlfriend nurse who if not startingly beautiful like sultry Margo, Faith’s role, at least would be a good life partner and bedmate. He could have had it all and had no complains.       

Enter exotic flower mysterious Margo via a suicide attempt into the emergency room while Jeff was on duty. Margo, admittedly the clinging type set off something in him beyond his desire to make sure she did not attempt another end to her life especially when she “did the dixie,” a term via Seth via Sam, on him and set him on a search for her. Right there he should have, could have dropped the whole thing. No, this good doctor actually made a house call for crying out loud. What doctor this side of Nick Adams’ father in the Hemingway series of the same name made house calls once the AMA pulled the brakes on that practice citing too much wasted time and too few billable hours.         

           

Okay, sometimes a guy, a gal too I know I did with a couple of partners before Clara, will get infatuated and then sober up. Will let the thing die on the vine because things don’t add up. This is where Sam is all wrong in his wrong-headed theory. One night at some gin mill rendezvous dear sweet Margo tried to brush Jeff off claiming her father, her rich as Midas but demanding father, needed her to go on a vacation with him. False flag, red flag for any sane guy. What does the big broad-shouldered, jut-jawed lug do. Run out to her house to confront her father, to give him the real deal that he wanted to marry his daughter. Except that her “father” was really her husband and this was a non-incestuous relationship because she lied to Jeff, admitted she lied to Jeff right in front of hubby and her fall guy. Jeff could have walked, sort of did walk, except a sudden scream from Margo from inside the house sent him back in. Yeah, yeah, Sam like she forced him back. He wanted to on his hands and knees and with a smile- for his own desires.    

That walk back through those un-pearly gates led to his demise, led to his willing demise, his big step off when after fighting hubby, a much older man, who fell down after beating Jeff about his witless head. It turned out that he had killed the old man-and was at the same time subject to the trauma of a concussion in his medical self-examination world. Groggy, he accepted responsibility for the killing despite the old man still breathing while he was injured. He wanted to report the accident after all that was what it to the cops but against all good sense, against his still substantial ability to make decisions despite his head injury Margo talked him out of it. From there it is nothing but a run south to the border and freedom for the pair. Naturally to juice up the plot they run into plenty of hassles before they get to that precious Mexican border and the good life, the free life. All the while Margo was acting very weird, acting like she has something to hide. Which she did. I hope I offend nobody in the mentally-challenged community but she was a very disturbed woman who moreover had actually killed her hubby with a pillow which Jeff was clueless about. Clueless about until he stopped being of use to her as his head injury condition made him less useful for the final fateful getaway.

It was not until dear Margo gave him her patented old pillow treatment that he finally wised up, finally knew she had a screw loose. Confronting her with his so-called newfound wisdom right at the border and freedom fence she did the Kathy on him, fed him a couple of slugs for his efforts. Another gun-simple woman. Not so strange the coppers who have been hounding the pair from out in the desert somewhere to the border threw some slugs into her. She did do something Kathy never would have done, a gesture for love as Rick of Rick’s Café Americain would have said, twisted love maybe, and gave a deathbed confession absolving Jeff. Jeff, undeservedly lived to doctor on, lived to go back to that ordinary sweetie nurse and to avoid another walk on the wild side.        

Sam Lowell may not like it but his she-devil noise about the women, the femme fatales is all smoke and mirrors, all is now pricked like some kid’s balloon. Even Seth, as devoted if not as well known a film noir aficionado as Sam, paid me the compliment of saying that I had put a searchlight on something that had bothered him for a long time about Sam’s silly theory. That helpless male victim part by grown men of the world. He still is not totally convinced of my take on the matter but he respects it and if I give some more proofs he, unlike Sam, is willing to jump ship. Welcome aboard, mate.

A Salute To The Working- Class 1960s Radicals-The Sam And Ralph Stories - In The 157th Anniversary Year-Karl Marx On The American Civil War

A Salute To The Working- Class 1960s Radicals-The Sam And Ralph Stories - In The 157^th Anniversary Year-Karl Marx On The American Civil War  

[In early 2018, shortly after I had taken over the reins as site manager at this on-line publication I “saw the light” and bowed to the wisdom of a number of older writers who balked at my idea of reaching younger and newer audiences by having them review films like Marvel/DC Comics productions, write about various video games and books that would not offend a flea unlike the flaming red books previously reviewed here centered on the now aging 1960s baby-boomer demographic which had sustained the publication through good times and bad as a hard copy and then on-line proposition. One senior writer, who shall remain nameless in case some stray millennial sees this introduction and spreads some viral social media hate campaign his way, made the very telling observation that the younger set, his term, don’t read film reviews or hard copy books as a rule and those hardy Generation of ’68 partisans who still support this publication in the transition from the old Allan Jackson leadership to mine don’t give a fuck about comics, video games or graphic novels. I stand humbled.

Not only stand humbled though but in a valiant and seemingly successful attempt to stabilize this operation decided to give an encore presentation to some of the most important series produced and edited by Allan Jackson-without Allan. That too proved to be an error when I had Frank Jackman introduce the first few sections of The Roots Is The Toots Rock And Roll series which Allan had sweated his ass over to bring out over a couple of years. Writers, and not only senior writers who had supported Allan in the vote of no confidence fight challenging his leadership after he went overboard attempting to cash in on the hoopla over the commemoration of the 50^th anniversary of the Summer of Love in 1967 but also my younger writer partisans, balked at this subterfuge. What one called it a travesty. Backing off after finding Allan, not an easy task since he had fled to the safer waters of the West looking for work and had been rumored to be any place from Salt Lake City to some mountainous last hippie commune in the hills of Northern California doing anything from pimping as press agent for Mitt Romney’s U.S. Senate campaign in Utah to running a whorehouse with Madame La Rue in Frisco or shacking up with drag queen Miss Judy Garland in that same city, we brought Allan back to do the introductions to the remaining sections. That we, me and the Editorial Board established after Allan’s demise and as a guard against one-person rule, had compromised on that gesture with the last of the series being the termination of Allan’s association with the publication except possibly as an occasional writer, a stringer really, when some nostalgia event needed some attention.       

That is the way things went and not too badly when we finished up the series in the early summer of 2018. But that is not the end of the Allan story. While looking through the on-line archives I noticed that Allan had also seriously edited another 1960s-related series, the Sam and Ralph Stories, a series centered on the trials and tribulations of two working-class guys who had been radicalized in different ways by the 1960s upheavals and have never lost the faith in what Allan called from Tennyson “seeking a newer world” would resurface in this wicked old world, somebody’s term.

I once again attempted to make the mistake of having someone else, in this case Josh Breslin, introduce the series (after my introduction here) but the Editorial Board bucked me even before I could set that idea in motion. I claimed, somewhat disingenuously, that Allan was probably out in Utah looking for some residual work for Mitt Romney now that he is the Republican candidate for U.S. Senator for Utah or running back to Madame La Rue, an old flame, and that high- end whorehouse or hanging with Miss Judy Garland at her successful drag queen tourist attraction cabaret. No such luck since he was up in Maine working on a book about his life as an editor. To be published in hard cop y by well-known Wheeler Press whenever he gets the proofs done. So hereafter former editor and site manager Allan will handle the introductions on this encore presentation of this excellent series. Greg Green]                   

By Bart Webber

Sam Eaton and Ralph Morris met on May Day 1971 under unusual circumstances to say the least. May Day might spring to mind for the politically attuned, left-wing politically attuned more likely, as an international workers’ holiday celebrated in many countries but not in the United States as anything but an unofficial day of commemoration by the high heaven left-wing native remnant who remember the mass marches on that day in the 1930s in places like New York City and San Francisco and the immigrants used to celebrating the day in their countries of origin. That day though Sam Eaton, who had become an anti-war activist a couple of years before when in reaction to his closest friend from high school corner boy days, Jeff Mullins, being blown away in some God forsaken village near Pleiku in the Central Highlands of Vietnam and Ralph Morris, an ex-Army veteran who had served eighteen months in that same Central Highlands area and after being discharged had also become an anti-war activist in reaction to what he called “the U. S. government making animals, nothing less” out of him and the fellow soldiers he served with in Vietnam had met on the football field at then RFK Stadium in Washington, D.C.

They, respectively, had been arrested along with thousands of others while trying to “capture” the White House and to surround the Pentagon and symbolically shut it down. Those were heady days and although they did not effectively shut down the government that day and all the collective actions for years by the anti-war movement did not beat the American government out of Vietnam (it would take a concerted effort by the North Vietnamese Army/South Vietnamese Liberation Front offensive to sweep away the old regime and sent the United States desperately packing to the helicopter pads on the roof of the embassy as the famous photograph had it which right-wing aficionados still call “a stab in the back” for not staying the course even longer, not providing that admittedly corrupt Saigon  regime yet more weapons, dough and legitimacy) the friendship between the two men has lasted until this day (with some periodic lapses while both men moved back from total 24/7 political commitment to get jobs and raise families, nicely done). More importantly they remained true to their anti-war youth even as the high tide of the 1960s turned to ashes. They kept the faith, although in attenuated form.

One of the things that resulted directly from that May Day 1971 defeat of their slim forces by the rapacious government which launched a massive counter-offensive, counter-revolution to hear Sam say it which has lasted in some form, most recently around the so-called cultural wars, was the need felt by both of them to have a better handle on how to actually bring down a government bend on war, and continuation of war, by mass actions (including, if necessary as strange as it may seem to a reader today revolution so Sam word then not so off-beat). So they in the summer of 1972, like many thousands of other young radicals looking for some answers since what they had been doing previously was stalled began to read a lot of leftist literature from the past, including the works of Karl Marx, a name that previously meant the “enemy” in their red scare Cold War upbringing in the very working class towns of Carver, Massachusetts and Troy, New York respectively. Moreover Sam, who had been living in a commune in Cambridge with some other free-lance radicals invited Ralph to come over from Troy for that summer and take part in a study group which was being formed by one of the many “red collectives” that were sprouting up around the town.

And they did so, did study although they both confessed since they were not well-versed or deeply interested in history, did find out what May Day and lots of other things meant in the old days. Part of that study included a close study of Karl Marx’s relationship with America, a fact that they were both totally unaware of from the conventional histories they had been taught in high school. Particularly important were the efforts by Marx and the First International that he in effect led to support the Northern side in the American Civil War under the imperative of the abolishment of slavery in the Marxist scheme a progressive step for human progress and an unfettering of the capitalism system, then on a progressive historical curve by the dead weight of slave labor. And they had very kind words to say of one Abraham Lincoln who acted as a serious agent for change whatever his personal views on the black liberation question (in those old days every issue came forth as a question, the women question, the gay question, the Russian revolution question and so on).

So that is why today as Americans commemorate the 157^th anniversary of the start of a bloody civil war Sam Eaton and Ralph can draw inspiration from what Karl Marx tried with might and main to support. Sam, the writer of the two, although Ralph has put in more than his fair share of ideas, wrote a little piece on the subject as an introduction to articles by Marx on the subject. Here is what he had to say:                  

I am always amazed when I run into some younger leftists, or even older radicals who may have not read much Marx and Engels, and find that they are surprised, very surprised to see that Marx and Engels were avid partisans of the Abraham Lincoln-led Union side in the American Civil War. In the age of advanced imperialism, of which the United States is currently the prime example, and villain, we are almost always negative about capitalism’s role in world politics. And are always harping on the need to overthrow the system one way or another in order, peacefully if possible, but by any means necessary as Malcolm X used to say, if necessary, to bring forth a new socialist reconstruction of society. Thus one could be excused for forgetting that at earlier points in history capitalism played a progressive role. A role that Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky and other leading Marxists, if not applauded, then at least understood represented human progress.

Of course, one does not expect everyone to be a historical materialist and therefore know that in the Marxist scheme of things both the struggle to bring America under a unitary state that would create a national capitalist market by virtue of a Union victory and the historically more important struggle to abolish slavery that turned out to a necessary outcome of that Union struggle were progressive in our eyes. Read on.

Ralph Morris and Sam Eaton a couple of old-time radicals, old-time now in the  2010s unlike in their youth not being the Great Depression labor radicals who had been their models after a fashion and who helped built the now seemingly moribund unions, (or unions now rather consciously led by union leaders who have no or only attenuated links to past militant labor actions like strikes, plant sit-downs, hot-cargo struck goods, general strikes and such and would go into a dead faint if such actions were forced upon them and are so weakened as to be merely dues paying organizations forwarding monies to the Democratic “friends of labor” Party). They had come of political age as anti-war radicals from the hell-bent street in-your-face 1960s confrontations with the American beast during the Vietnam War reign of hell. Ralph from the hard-shell experience of having fought for the beast in the Central Highlands in that benighted country and who became disgusted with what he had done, his buddies had done, and his government had done to make animals out of them destroying simple peasants catch in a vicious cross-fire and Sam, having lost his closest high school hang around guy, Jeff Mullin, blown away in some unnamed field near some hamlet that he could not pronounce or spell correctly. The glue that brought them together, brought them together for a lifetime friendship and political comity (with some periods of statutory neglect to bring up families in Carver, Massachusetts and Troy, New York respectively) the ill-fated actions on May Day 1971 In Washington when they attempted along with several thousand others to shut down the government if it did not shut down the war. All those efforts got them a few days detention in RFK stadium where they had met almost accidently and steel-strong bonds of brotherhood from then on.     

They had seen high times and ebbs, mostly ebbs once the 1960s waves receded before the dramatic events of 9/11 and more particularly the disastrous invasion of Iraq in 2003 called off what they had termed the “armed truce” with the United States government over the previous couple of decades. So Ralph and Sam were beside themselves when the powder-puff uprising of the Occupy movement brought a fresh breeze to the tiny American left-wing landscape in the latter part of 2011.  That term “powder puff” not expressing the heft of the movement which was not inconsiderable for a couple of months especially in hotbeds like New York, Boston, L.A. and above all the flagship home away from home of radical politics, San Francisco but the fact that it disappeared almost before it got started giving up the huge long-term fight it was expected to wage to break the banks, break the corporate grip on the world and, try to seek “newer world”). Ralph and Sam were not members in good standing of any labor unions, both having after their furtive anti-war street fights and the ebbing of the movement by about the mid-1970s returned to “normalcy,” Ralph having taken over his father’s electrical shop in Troy when his father retired and Sam had gone back to Carver to expand a print shop that he had started in the late 1960s that had been run by a hometown friend in his many absences. However having come from respectable working-class backgrounds in strictly working-class towns, Carver about thirty miles from Boston and the cranberry bog capital of the world and Ralph in Troy near where General Electric ruled the roost, had taken to heart the advice of their respective grandfathers about not forgetting those left behind, that an injury to one of their own in this wicked old world was an injury to all as the old Industrial Workers of the World (IWW, Wobblies) motto had it. Moreover despite their backing away from the street confrontations of their youth when that proved futile after a time as the Vietnam War finally wound down and yesterday’s big name radicals left for parts unknown they had always kept an inner longing for the “newer world,” the more equitable world where the people who actually made stuff and kept the wheels of society running and their down-pressed allies ruled.   

So Ralph and Sam would during most of the fall of 2011   travel down to the Wall Street “private” plaza (and site of many conflicts and stand-offs between the Occupy forces on the ground and then Mayor Blumberg and his itchy cops) which was the center of the movement on weekends, long weekends usually, to take part in the action after the long drought of such activity both for them personally and for their kind of politics. They were crestfallen to say the least when the thing exploded after Mayor Blumberg and the NYPD the police pulled down the hammer and forcibly disbanded the place (and other city administrations across the country and across the world and police departments doing likewise acting in some concert as it turned out once the dust settled and “freedom of information” acts were invoked to see what the bastards were up to).

Of more concern since they had already known about what the government could do when it decided to pull down the hammer having learned a painfully hard lesson on May Day 1971 and on a number of other occasions later when Ralph and Sam and their comrades decided to get “uppity” and been slapped down more than once although they at least had gone into those actions with their eyes wide open had been the reaction of the “leadership” in folding up the tents (literally and figuratively). Thereafter the movement had imploded from its own contradictions, caught up not wanting to step on toes, to let everybody do their own thing, do their own identity politics which as they also painfully knew had done   much to defang the old movements, refusing out of hand to cohere a collective leadership that might give some direction to the damn thing but also earnestly wanting to bring the monster down.

Ralph and Sam in the aftermath, after things had settled down and they had time to think decided to put together a proposal, a program if you like, outlining some of the basic political tasks ahead to be led by somebody. Certainly not by them since radical politics, street politics is a young person’s game and they admittedly had gotten rather long in the tooth. Besides they had learned long ago, had talked about it over drinks at Jack Higgins’ Grille in Boston more than once in their periodic reunions when Ralph came to town, how each generation had to face its tasks in its own way so they would be content to be “elder” tribal leaders and provide whatever wisdom they could, if asked.  Working under the drumbeat of Bob Marley’s Get Up, Stand Up something of a “national anthem” for what went on among the better elements of Occupy are some points that any movement for social change has to address these days and fight for and about as well. Sam, more interested in writing than Ralph who liked to think more than write but who contributed his fair share of ideas to the “program,” wrote the material up and had it posted on various site which elicited a respectable amount of comment at the time. They also got into the old time spirit by participating in the latest up and coming struggle- the fight for a minimum wage of $15 an hour although even that seems paltry for the needs of today’s working people to move up in the world.       

Malignant Obsession-Bette Davis and Leslie Howard’s Film Adaptation of W. Somerset Maugham’s “Of Human Bondage” (1934)-A Film Review

Malignant Obsession-Bette Davis and Leslie Howard’s Film Adaptation of W. Somerset Maugham’s “Of Human Bondage” (1934)-A Film Review

DVD Review

By Film Critic Sam Lowell

Of Human Bondage, starring Bette Davis, Leslie Howard, based on W. Somerset Maugham’s novel of the same name, 1934

No question love can take some funny turns from eternal bliss to the malignant obsession of medical student Phillip Carey, played by Leslie Howard, for waitperson (then known as waitresses) Mildred Rogers, played in an incredible performance by Bette Davis in the film adaptation of W. Somerset Maugham’s Of Human Bondage. The human, the very human capacity to find love in some very wrong places gets a full-throated workout in this 1934 film. Moreover even though the smitten and tortured character here is a man the feelings know no gender boundaries.     

The first problem for our troubled medical student is the class issue in very class-bound England then, and now. The play between the up and coming doctor and the tart-like waitperson could only spell trouble even if Mildred had been only half as perfidious as she was-always looking for the main chance-for the next Mister Big. The second problem was that the very smitten Phillip was physically- challenged (then called “crippled” which Mildred at one point made a point of being disgusting by when truth time came a-calling). The combination would have been daunting even if Mildred had been less of an opportunist. See while she was leading Phillip on she was also seeing her meal ticket-her Mister Big. Phillip played the sap for her on that one thinking he would marry her when all she was doing was making moves to marry Mister Big. Well Mildred should have checked his credentials or at least his marriage because Mister Big dumped her-turned out he was already married. All he did was leave her to the wind with child. Still Phillip took her back.                  

Okay once is okay but then the next best thing came along, a fellow medical student of Phillip’s and she was off again. Still once it was question of helping or her on the streets with an unwanted child he succumbed again. But he was getting wiser. At least he wasn’t as smitten as in those fresh bloom days. All she kept doing though was holding him in contempt while feeding off his feelings for her. At some point, a point where a young gentile women is interested in him, he begins to withdraw, begins to break from his feverish desire for Mildred as she begins her descent down into well, the gutter, the ”life,”  the hard streets. In the end T.B got her (then called consumption and if I recall earlier called the vapors), left her on deep cheap street and an unloved grave.

Phillip, well Phillip finally got himself free, got free once Mildred passed the shades. Took life in his own hands and grabbed that gentile woman who was made for him. Still Mildred led him on a not so merry chase. An excellent performance by Miss Davis especially one scene when she went berserk and cut up all of Phillip’s precious nude paintings (he had started out as a failed art student) and another when after she had been finally rebuffed by Phillip she spewed forth her utter contempt from day one. Watch this one-and read the book too.