good back-story, and good acting

Absolutely Fantastic

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties. It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

A charming, handsome handyman (Robert Montgomery) wheedles his way into the home of a wealthy old woman (Dame May Witty). Her niece (Rosalind Russell) is suspicious of him and eventually pieces together that he is a murderer the police are looking for. Montgomery being the killer is spoiled in most descriptions of this movie. Even TCM spoils it in their one sentence description on their programming guide. I guess we can't exactly cry foul over spoilers for a movie over 75 years old, but still it makes me wonder if there would have been some added punch for audiences in 1937 who might not have connected the dots right away. Entertaining thriller with a standout performance from Robert Montgomery, who clearly has fun with his part. Witty is excellent as always. Russell is good in one of her first big roles. Her character does a few things that are hard to explain, such as covering for Montgomery even though she knows he's got a severed head in a hatbox! I've read a decent theory that Russell wanted him to kill the old lady and that's why she prevented his arrest earlier. But I'm not convinced that's supported by what we're shown as much as it's people trying to explain away some out of character moments by Russell. Still, it's all good fun and an enjoyable film.

Following a grisly murder, a pushy stranger worms his way into a rich, old lady's remote household, much to disapproval of her uptight secretary.What a good touch when Danny (Montgomery) roughly shoves the house cat and then smilingly tells Mrs. Bramson (Witty) how much he likes the little four-footed critters—a neat introduction to his devious nature. I wish the rest of the movie were this well executed. Aside from being overlong and too talky as other reviewers point out, (some silent mood scenes are badly needed), there's a big hole in the middle that's been generally overlooked. Surprisingly, it concerns that otherwise excellent actress Rosalind Russell.Key to the plot is the highly refined, severely repressed Olivia's (Russell) conflict over Danny. She's both attracted and repelled by him. He's such a low, boisterous type, it's hard to see her attraction to him at any level. But the script has wisely prepared us with her attraction to dark, woodsy things. Now, the movie's key scene is in the kitchen where Danny boldly confronts Olivia's repressed attraction. To this point, Olivia has had only one outward emotion, namely an emotionless expression consonant with her inner discipline and station in the household. Danny's aim is to force from her an acknowledgment of what he knows she feels even though she won't admit it even to herself.Crucial to this pivotal scene is that actress Russell convey even the slightest expression of the inner conflict she is now experiencing— conflict we know she's experiencing from the dialog. But try as I have, I can't spot a single change of expression. She's grudgingly okaying the words, but without the necessary conflicted behavior. In short, her words say one thing, her manner another. Thus, we're not drawn into her conflict, we merely observe it in the dialog. And crucially-- instead of becoming active participants in the story, we're encouraged to remain passive observers.In terms of story development, the role of Olivia becomes unconvincing, especially since the deadpan continues for the rest of the film. It's especially implausible when the plot has her hide the severed head in order to save Danny from the law. As a result, her motivations from the kitchen scene on ring hollow, thereby undercutting her pivotal role in the movie as a whole. It wouldn't be accurate to say that Russell therefore walks through the part in uninterested fashion. Rather, I'm inclined to blame director Thorpe for not providing the proper cues, especially in that key kitchen scene. At the same time, I wish Montgomery's Danny were not so extreme, bordering at times on the clownish. For a usually restrained actor, it's a real departure, robbing his character of any hint of needed menace. Still and all, the idea of Danny's acting out for the benefit of his "double"— the one that emerges in the mirror scene at the end-- remains a provocative one.Where Danny's blustery, overdone charm really works is with tyrannical old Mrs. Bramson. His is just the kind of overriding personality that would melt her icy reserve. At the same time, Witty steals the film with a rock solid performance, especially during that exhausting breakdown scene that even had me gasping for breath. I also like that morbid sight-seeing tour with E. E. Clive as the guide. That people would pay to see a gravesite suggests to me the basic gentility of small town England for whom murder is such an unusual and curious event. I gather from IMDb that studio head L. B. Mayer didn't like the results and didn't want to release the film. Whatever the failings, It's far from being that bad. Ironically, it appears that had Mayer himself wanted to do justice to the material, he would have assigned a top studio director instead of the thoroughly mediocre Thorpe (check out his credits). In fact, the movie as a whole suffers from uninspired direction, its rich atmospheric potential left visually untapped. As far as I can tell, Thorpe simply filmed the script that was handed him and nothing more. After all, his reputation with the studio rested on efficiency, i.e. bringing projects in under budget.I just wish someone like Hitchcock had gotten hold of the material first. With its rich potential for nuance and atmosphere, a gifted psychologist like Hitch could have made something really memorable. Unfortunately, as the movie stands, it's a long way from that point.

Dame May Witty is a bad-tempered wheelchair-bound old woman. She's attended by her niece, Rosalind Russell, a sullen and repressed woman who keeps her eager suitor, Alan Marshal, at arm's length. He's a lawyer in the city, while Witty and Russell live in a woodland cottage. There are two women who serve as day maids. Nota bene: That's four women alone in an isolated house, with two of them gone by nightfall. Always a great set-up for a slasher movie.Then Robert Montgomery shows up. He's more of a caricature than a character. He looks cocky. A cigarette dangles from his lips and he keeps his thumbs hooked in his trouser pockets. He wears this weird topper, a flat hat wider than his head, like a woolen dinner plate.But, man, is he bewitching. He's always cheerful, as quick and perceptive about people as a particularly savvy shrink. He has an Irish accent. He's candid and forthright about himself and what he sees in others. He's loaded with this fey charm and it's easy for him to worm his way into the brutal old lady's graces so that, after some initial protests, she happily hires him as something between a personal attendant and a son.It isn't as though Robert Montgomery didn't have problems, though. Chief among them are the facts, which emerge only point by point during the story, that he's a blatant liar and a sneaky murderer who totes the head of his latest victim around in a hatbox with him.The play was written in 1934. A bit more than thirty years earlier Queen Victoria was on the throne. Victorian England was notorious for its repression of everything that could possibly be defined as "improper", meaning mostly sex and violence but also bad manners and a careless regard for class distinctions. Furniture legs were covered with little draperies. A chicken's "breasts and thighs" became "white and dark meat." It's the kind of atmosphere in which evil could pop unexpectedly, like a pierced carbuncle, an atmosphere that could produce Stevenson's "Doctor Jeykll and Mr. Hyde" or an Alfred Hitchcock.The play's author, Emlyn Williams, was born in 1905 and some of these values are carried over into his plot. Montgomery's character, Danny, smilingly admits that he's always "acting", as if eyes were staring at him. Every once in a while, though he doesn't tell Russell or anyone else, the zit pops and he dismembers somebody.Montgomery does a fine job with Danny. He always appears gawky. His movements are sudden and jerky, and his speech comes in bursts. Eventually, along with Russell, the viewer realizes that Danny is not merely acting but overacting. He races around singing and whistling and flattering the grouchy matron. He pushes her wheelchair too quickly. Everything he does is in fits and spasms.Russell's part is pretty complicated. She has to begin as a buttoned-up spinster who resents the lower-class Danny, but then becomes interested in him, half repelled and half attracted sexually, so much so that she saves his bacon when the police begin to suspect him of a local murder.Danny is the sort of guy who, if he didn't exist, would not be necessary to invent, but he does accomplish some good unwittingly. He opens up Rosalind Russell's passions and causes to her act out her desires.The movie is a little slow. It's not the action-filled mystery with cheap effects that we've become used to. The pace picks up towards the end. And it's not without weakness. The cynical and tough old lady finds herself alone in the house at night and instantly turns into a quivering mass of Jello. There's been no indication that this transmogrification from brick wall into vulnerability was coming -- or was even possible.But, that aside, it's a neatly drawn picture of aborted predation, of character and the evolution of character.

I have seen this film a couple of times, if only for the sinister, multi-faceted performance of Robert Montgomery (Elizabeth's father), but, as someone previously noted, it is an old play and it certainly creaks from time to time. A horrible crime is committed in a small English town; a local woman has been found dead, her head missing. There are no suspects, and the police are alerted for a maniac roaming the area. Rosalind Russell is a prim, bookish young woman staying with Dame May Witty, her petulant, wheelchair-bound aunt. The aunt makes demands of her niece, and tends to be full of unctuous self-pity. Robert Montgomery appears on the scene as Danny, an Irish dandy who is dating one of the old lady's maids. He soon charms Dame May, who hires him on as her helper and general syncophant - flattering her, and giving in to all her petty whims with a smile and a smooth air. Rosalind Russell does not trust him, and lets her dislike of him show, but there seems to be an undercurrent of attraction to him at the same time. Despite her distrust, she leaves her aunt alone with him to visit her lover in town, and the horribly inevitable occurs. I found several holes in this so-called "thriller". One is: if she did not trust him, and wondered about his past, and noted some instability in his personality -- why leave a defenseless old lady alone with him? Why were the police not more suspicious of a newcomer in town, and not more strident in their investigation of him? And, a most unpleasant truth, if indeed he had that missing body part in the infamous hatbox, why didn't the scent of decay (let's be realistic here) permeate that small cottage? That alone would have sent him to the gallows much sooner, as it would have been immediately noticed. So there was a little too much dramatic license here. If you've seen the later remake with Albert Finney - another fine actor who also imbued Danny's character with a very sinister psychosis - you'll find the same stretches of credibility here that detracted from the finale of this drama. It's good watching for the fine character actors in the cast, but not something that I'd think would scare the tar out of you if you examine it closely.