A couple of weeks ago, my sister and I were talking about Reseda and she asked me, "do you remember someone named Siodmak"? I did, actually. Ever since I went to work for Pearl in 2010, memories of our neighborhood began to come back, along with the names of the families who lived there in the early 1960s. "The Siodmaks lived in the tract back then. Mom and Dad used to mention them a lot. 'We're going over to the Siodmaks' tonight', they'd say, meaning maybe for cards, or just a get-together. Neighbors visited each other a lot in those days".
"But I know why you're asking me", I continued. It was because we'd also been talking about the little group of show business folks on our corner, Bill Raynor and Mr. Reeves and Dad, who I mentioned in a recent blog and also to Vickie during our conversation. "There were two Siodmaks in the movie business. I Googled them years ago, because like you, I remembered that name when I came back to Reseda". Siodmak is an unusual name, one that sticks with you, and what I also recalled had something to do with science-fiction. "Mr. Siodmak is a writer", I remember Mom or Dad saying, There was also a vague memory of him having written something famous, and maybe for the movies.
The two Siodmaks I Googled, around ten years ago I'd guess, are Robert and Curt Siodmak. One thing that was interesting right off the bat, was that the Wiki for Robert said "he insisted his name be pronounced 'See-odd-mack' ", suggesting there was another, more common pronunciation, and that perhaps Robert had Americanised his last name for career purposes. This served to assure me that I had the right Siodmak, though I was pretty certain already.
If you've been reading recently, you know that I mentioned Robert Siodmak as the director of "Fly By Night", the romantic comedy spy thriller we watched last week. That was his second feature film in Hollywood; before that he worked in Germany where both he and his brother Curt were born. When I first remembered the Siodmaks, and recalled my parents' comments about one of them being a sci-fi writer, I assumed it was Robert, simply because his name seemed to ring a bell. This notion was reinforced when I Googled him and saw he was a director. Many directors write, and so I thought he had been the Siodmak who lived up the block from us all those years ago.
But then I said to Vickie, "You know, it must've been his brother Curt". I'd rechecked the Wiki of both brothers, and it turns out that Curt was the novelist. He also wrote screenplays, and in fact, he wrote "The Wolf Man", the legendary Universal horror film from 1941 starring Lon Chaney Jr. But I considered it and said, "would he be living in Reseda if he was that famous"? "But screenwriters are rarely famous", Vickie replied. "They don't get paid that well either". So we were left with a conundrum; Curt Siodmak was the sci-fi novelist who one of my parents referred to, yet Robert was the director, the more well-known of the two, and it was his first name I seemed to recall as being attached to the Siodmak of my childhood memory. Which was the one who lived in Reseda?
Well, I just did some more Googling the other night, and I did come up with a link to Siodmak and Reseda. It referred me to an old newspaper article, at a site you have to subscribe to in order to read. There was a cache of first names, however, yet they were female Siodmaks. The article was from 1965, and it did list the exact name of another neighbor also mentioned in the article. This proved that the Siodmaks lived close by, just around the block. Curt passed away in central California in 2000 at the age of 98, meaning that he'd have been in his mid-60s during the Reseda time-frame. Brother Robert (born in 1900) left Hollywood to return to Europe in the mid-50s, but came back here in 1967 to make two more films before retiring. He died in Switzerland in 1973. All this led me to believe that it must've been Curt who lived up the street. "Or perhaps he was a Grandpa or Uncle who came to visit", I suggested to Vickie. I can't say for sure, but he was certainly of the same Siodmaks, and he definitely was in the Reseda house, either as a resident or a relative. So that's my Siodmak Story, and while it doesn't change the price of tea in China, I include it just for fun, and because Vic and I were discussing the subject. It also adds to our little "neighborhood show biz group" that was kinda cool even if not made up of major names.
Finally, it's a preface to our latest movies, because all the Siodmak Talk led me to Youtube search Robert. Over the last two nights I watched a pair of his films, which I present to you now for your consideration.
First up is "The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry"(1945), starring the inimitable George Sanders as a man dominated by his sickly sister. In reality, "Letty" (Geraldine Fitzgerald) is a hypochondriac who uses her "illness" to keep "Harry" (Sanders) at her beck and call. He has no life outside work and home, and truth be told, Letty's need for Harry's attention borders on the inappropriate if you get my drift. By day he's a designer at a textile mill. One afternoon, a sales rep comes to the factory to see the latest fabrics. She's young and pretty. Her name is "Deborah Brown" (Ella Raines). Harry shows her around, they hit it off, and soon they are seeing each other for dates.
Harry has another sister at home named Hester. The siblings come from a once-wealthy family now on hard times. All they have left is their house, and each other, but Hester is thrilled for Harry that he finally has a girlfriend. Even if it eventually means losing his support, she'd be happy to see him get married. Letty on the other hand pretends to be happy for him, but it's an act. She's so obvious anyhow, always "feeling ill" whenever Deborah's around, energetic when she's gone.
The siblings have a faithful dog named "Weary", who's grown old and feeble and may need to be put down. On a side note, George Sanders has a line of dialogue here that dog lovers will relate to : "People who love dogs should never own one, because they only live a short while then they die and break your heart". So true, and I know a lady who lives a few doors down from Pearl who was so devastated by her dog's death that she swore she'd never get another one. "I just couldn't go through that again", she said. I understand the sentiment, believe me, though I'd love to have another dog if I could. Ah, maybe some day soon. Well, let's get back to the movie. Weary is near the end of his life. Letty feels he should be euthanized and has bought some poison, specially concocted by their pharmacist to painlessly put him to sleep. Harry believes they should let Weary live out his final days. "After all, he's not in any pain", he reasons. Letty always has the last word, however, and the next we see of Weary, he's being lowered into the ground in a doggie coffin. Letty poisoned him after all. This of course is a foreshadowing of what will happen later.
Deborah Brown has another suitor, a man her own age who has business opportunities in Europe. She uses his proposals as a lever to make Harry jealous and force him to marry her. She knows that only an ultimatum will break him away from the psychosexual hold of Letty, who's manipulated Harry his entire adult life. Harry agrees to marry Deborah, then summons all his courage to break the news to Letty, who becomes quietly furious. On the day before the wedding, Letty fakes an illness in church. She's carried away in an ambulance, and all of Harry's marriage plans fall by the wayside. Old habits die hard and he follows Letty to the hospital like a trained servant. "She needs me", he tells Deborah, who breaks off their engagement soon after.
With Deborah now gone for good, Letty miraculously recovers. At home, she fawns over Harry, talking about all the fun they'll have together, "just like we used to do". Before Deborah came along, she means. It hits Harry that Letty's driven away the only love he's ever known. Hester stuns both of them by saying this out loud, denouncing her sister in front of Harry. He's embarrassed but knows Hester's right, and.......remembering the batch of dog poison.......he gets an idea.
That's all I'm going to reveal about Harry's plan, but doesn't go as he expects. The last 15 minutes of the film has two major twists and turns, and this time you'll have to discover them for yourself, but I do want to warn you that there's what I'll call a "second ending" to the movie that was apparently added due to censorship. I don't know what had to be censored, but according to Wiki it caused the producer to quit the movie! When I saw this "second ending", I was absolutely baffled, because it appeared to make no sense, and it seemed render the first ending moot. I was going, "what was that all about"? Then I rewound it and watched again, and I said "ohhhhh.......now I get it", even though I agree with the producer that it's totally ridiculous. My caveat, therefore, is please don't let this second ending spoil an excellent movie. Just pretend it's not there, and that the movie ends when you initially think it does, when it should end. That's all.
Two Big Thumbs Up for "The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry", featuring exceptional performances from George Sanders and especially Geraldine Fitzgerald as the manipulative Letty. It's highly recommended and the print is razor sharp. ////
Our other Robert Siodmak picture is "The Suspect"(1944), which can be considered a companion piece to "Uncle Harry". Once again, we have a middle-aged man thoroughly dominated by a woman, in this case his wife, and once again the man finds true love, which is thwarted by his tormentor. If you ever want to see great acting, watch Charles Laughton. Every role he plays is finely nuanced, and he does so much with subtle expression changes on that fleshy face of his that you always feel you're watching a real person, a fictional character brought to life. I know many actors are capable of this, but with Laughton there's an extra dimension, and of course he could play anything, from The Hunchback of Notre Dame to Captain Bligh to King Henry VIII. Here, he's "Phillip Marshall", a tobacco shop manager in Victorian-era London. He's married to "Cora" (Rosalind Ivan) a shrew so awful that she's driven their son out of the house. He's moving to Canada, and with the nest now empty, Phillip asks her for a divorce. Being a harpy, she naturally won't grant him one. Phillip thus spends as much time avoiding her as possible.
One day, a young woman named "Mary Gray" (Ella Raines again) comes into the shop. She's looking for work, but Phillip has to send her away, noting that his boss would never hire her. "He wouldn't have a woman around tobacco". They weren't even allowed to smoke in 1902.
Later, on his way home he sees Mary crying on a bench. He stops to ask what's wrong and she explains she's nearly broke. Phillip takes her out to dinner and they become fast friends. Though he's heavy set and older, she finds his kindness attractive and even boasts about him at her new place of work, a job he arranges for her through a friend. By now they're seeing one another every night, going to dinner, to the opera, even the circus. Their relationship is still platonic at this point, but it's heading toward love.
Of course, Phillip's busybody wife finds out about it. She considers it cheating, even though he's asked her for a divorce, and she threatens to drag Mary's name through the mud. A young single woman seeing a married man in Victorian England was likely to be run out of town, so Cora's threat is potentially enough to ruin Mary's life if she carries it out. Phillip loves Mary and doesn't want to take that chance, so he spontaneously concocts a plan to kill Cora, making it look like she fell down the staircase.
All is well and good, until an Inspector from Scotland Yard starts nosing around. He examines the staircase, and suggests it wasn't an accident but murder. He can't prove it, though, so he continues to hound Phillip at various points throughout the movie, always "dropping in for a few questions" like Columbo, but really trying to catch him in a lie.
Far worse is his neighbor, a drunken wife beater who decides to blackmail Phillip. As we saw in "Dangerous Afternoon", blackmail doesn't always work, sometimes it's deadly for the blackmailer, and in this case the neighbor winds up poisoned and deceased behind Phillip's couch.
With Cora and the neighbor now out of the way, and Mary believing he's innocent, Phillip proposes a move to Canada. "We can join my son. He can get us both work at his firm". Mary agrees, and with their ship set to sail Phillip will soon be free of all suspicion. But wait! The Inspector boards the ship at the very last minute. Is he there to finally arrest Phillip? On the contrary! He's come to inform him that the case has now been closed. "We've caught the person who did it", he says. "It's an open and shut case, for which she'll surely hang". Wait another minute. She? "For which she'll surely hang"? What in the world's going on here?!
Watch "The Suspect" to find out. Like it's counterpart "The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry", it's a grade-A mystery from which Robert Siodmak wrings every bit of suspense. In doing so, he reminds one of an early Alfred Hitchcock, and he's every bit as sophisticated as The Master. He also gets terrific performances out of Charles Laughton and the beautiful Ella Raines in both films. There's no troublesome second ending in "The Suspect", just one hell of a twist, so no caveat is needed this time, just Two More Big Thumbs Up.
So there you have it. Robert Siodmak knocks two pics out of the park. Let's look for more from him, and screenplays by his brother Curt as well. It's a Reseda thang. /////
I'm finishing up "From a Buick 8", definitely one of SK's best, and I've been listening to Bruckner symphonies from my Naxos box set. Give him a try, he's heavy metal.
That's all I know for now. I hope you had a nice day, and I send you Tons of Love as always!
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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