Last night's movie was "Stark Fear"(1962), a combination Soap Opera/Noir starring Beverly Garland as an abused wife who runs off with her boss (Kenneth Tobey) in order to escape her sadistic husband (Skip Homeier). This is one of those low budget movies that come up every once in a while, where you've never heard of the "studio" (Holiday Pictures, anyone?), nor the director (Ned Hockman), and it seems like the whole thing was a pet project of some wannabe producer who scraped up enough money to hire a few well known actors. Or maybe he knew one or two of them and they were doing him a favor. I selected "Stark Fear" from a Youtube list mainly because of the cast; Garland has become a favorite of mine, I have her "Decoy" TV series on dvd and she was great as a scream queen in well made sci-fi flicks like "The Alligator People". She was also Roger Corman's girlfriend for a while. Kenneth Tobey was likewise a staple in '50s B-Cinema, often playing Generals and other authority figures. He was also one of the leads in "The Thing From Another World", one of the greatest science fiction movies of all time. And Skip Homeier can be seen in the same era in many Westerns and Noirs, in movies and on tv.
So you've got a solid cast, but the story loses coherence very quickly. After twenty minutes, I developed a Stark Fear that I wouldn't be able to finish watching, but I held out for Beverly Garland. Now, she is always good. She may not be Meryl Streep but then she isn't trying to be. What she was, was competent and professional, with obvious training in the Method school, and most of all, she had personality and intelligence, and a unique look. I mention all of this because somehow, the director managed to get a bad performance out of her, or at least an overwrought one. Maybe he used all the wrong takes, I dunno. But Garland never overacts, except in this film. Apparently the director walked out partway through, and Skip Homeier took over for the remainder of the shoot. On IMDB, there is a note from Beverly Garland that this was the least favorite of her pictures. I concur.
There are several reviewers on IMDB calling "Stark Fear" an overlooked gem, but don't you believe 'em. They've got the "overlooked" part right however, and that's what you should do to avoid losing 84 minutes of your life to "Stark Fear". The plot isn't worth mentioning, which is why I didn't do so. It's sub-Tennessee Williams psycho-schlock. Better luck next time. /////
A much better option is tonight's picture : "Letter from an Unknown Woman"(1948), directed by the great Max Ophuls and starring Joan Fontaine and Louis Jourdan as a pair of star-crossed lovers in turn-of-the-century Vienna. Fontaine is "Lisa", a teenage girl living with her widowed mother in a drab apartment building. Lisa's existence is a lonely one until one day a new tenant moves in. He is "Stefan Brand" (Jourdan), a brilliant pianist on the verge of stardom. He's also impossibly handsome, and Lisa soon envelops herself in his presence, sitting in the courtyard all day listening to him practice, making sure to pass him in the hallway, etc. He's perhaps ten years older than she, and very suave compared to her status as a commoner. He barely notices that she exists, but she is fixated on him. Then one day her mother announces that they are moving, and Lisa is crushed.
Now living in Linz, Austria, Lisa takes a job as a dress model at a high fashion clothing store. She has blossomed into a beauty and a young military cadet has taken notice. He dates her through the approval of her mother and the mother's new husband, though Lisa wants nothing to do with him. She is still in love with Stefan, and soon she ditches the whole scene, leaving Linz, her job, the cadet and her mother to travel back to Vienna to look for Stefan, even though he never really noticed her when they were neighbors.
Because this is a melodrama, you can bet she finds him. Though no time frame is given, several years seem to have passed (maybe about five), and Stefan is now in demand on the European concert circuit. Lisa finds him at a hotel and manages to strike up a conversation. Her look has changed, and he doesn't remember her as his former neighbor, but still..........something about her strikes his fancy. He has taken to living the Rock Star Lifestyle (classical music version), and by now he has a woman in every city. But he's never been in love. Lisa, however, has loved him from the moment she first saw him, all those years ago. She reminds him of something, but he can't place it, and she's too shy to admit that she's been crushing on him from afar for all this time.
They hit it off that very first night after meeting at the hotel. Soon they are dating and in love. One day, Stefan gets called away on a concert tour he'd forgotten about, so enraptured has he been by Lisa and her sincerity of feeling. At the train station, he tells her not to fret : "I'll only be gone two weeks", but you can tell by their expressions and the music cues that it's gonna be a lot longer than that.
Stefan can't seem to give up the groupie lifestyle, and it's interesting that, while it isn't explored in depth, Max Ophuls demonstrates that the same temptations and urges have always affected successful musicians, and really all celebrities of any stripe, no matter the century. In other words, the rock n' rollers didn't invent it. But if you believe in love, which Ophuls clearly does, it's a lifestyle with tragic consequences. Something major happens after Stefan leaves for his concert tour. I can't tell you what it is, but when we next see him he is a changed man, and is reading the letter from Lisa that figures in the movie's title, and make careful note of that title because it is all important.
Max Ophuls was a German director who worked in Hollywood during the heyday of his career. I discovered him through Criterion, and have several of his movies on dvd. He specialised in stories of tragic romance, or the downfall - through deceit - of members of the upper class in the same time period, late 19th to early 20th century. His films look as if they were shot through a velvet filter, so sumptuous is the lighting and art direction, the costumes and the sets. He creates a period look that is impeccable. Watch "The Earrings of Madame De" as a prime example, or "Le Plaisir".
I had never heard of "Letter from an Unknown Woman" until tonight, when I found it on Youtube, and though it's not quite as gripping as the aforementioned films, perhaps because of the slight lack of chemistry between Fontaine and Jourdan, it's nevertheless right up there, because of the script, the acting, and an incredible final image that will stay in your heart, a ghost if you will.
I was thinking to myself at the end of the movie, "I hope this one is on Criterion", because the print was only so-so. I checked, and while it's not been released on that label, it is available on Blu-ray. If you're gonna watch it, it's worth buying the disc. And while you're at it, check out the rest of Max Ophuls' work. When they say "they don't make movies like this anymore", he's a perfect example of what they're talking about.
That's all I know for tonight. See you in the morning. Tons and tons of love!
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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