The Film Junkie

So much of this film is well intentioned, but the plot is so loosely strung together that it is hard to make sense of.

We begin with a man (Humphrey Bogart) escaping from San Quentin prison.  Apparently he was found guilty for murdering his wife, though he pleads innocent.  From that moment on we see the world from his perspective and we only see his face when it is shown on the cover on the newspaper. 

He is helped along by a strange woman (Lauren Bacall) who has sympathy for his case due to her dead father’s similar case. 

Agnes Moorhead has a supporting role as a friend of Bogart’s dead wife who helped put him in the slammer.  She owns every scene she is in and my best memories of the film are of her majestic presence.

Of course, Bogart undergoes plastic surgery to change his face to his famous mug and elude the cops.  However it never seems to help and everyone in San Fran seems to know who he is.

The frustrating parts about this film come down to how Bacall fits in with just about everyone Bogart knew before he got locked up.  I was waiting for her to be revealed as a bad guy, but it never happened and that left me disappointed.

The love story didn’t fit with the rest of the film, however it is saved by a tremendous performance by Moorhead and great cinematic style.

Grade: B+

This is a deeply flawed but lovely film by Orson Welles about a 19th century upper class family that loses everything.

The film is far too short at 88 minutes and this is due to the fact that RKO edited out 40 minutes of Welles’ vision without his permission to try and appease audiences and stay closer to the novel on which it was based.

The short film is messy and confusing in plot, the characters are labelled and forced to try and evolve under those labels, the ending comes far too fast and leaves one with an empty feeling as it was never really developed.

However, for all its flaws, this film has some of the most astoundingly beautiful cinematography of the era.  Welles has an eye for frames that he used to invent new concepts in 1941’s ‘Citizen Kane’ and he employs that eye with tremendous skill here. 

One can only imagine what his larger vision was for the film.  There are some underlying incestuous plotlines that are on the cusp of being explored throughout the film.  There is also a devious jealousy hidden within Agnes Moorhead’s spinster sister character that could have been so much more delicious. 

The sets are remarkable and it is a visually stunning film, but it is really only a nibble at what Orson Welles wanted it to be.  I am left hungry for more.

Grade: B+