Last night's thriller operates on the concept "bigger is better": why have one axe murderer on the loose when you can have six? The more the merrier, right? That's what's happening in Chicago, in "Fingers at the Windum"(1942), oops I mean "Window." There's a rash of axe murders, and murderers, and it's gotten so bad that no one will go outside. Businesses are closing up, including theaters. "Oliver Duffy" (Lew Ayers), a stage actor, finds himself out of work and, as he heads home, still dressed in top hat and tails, he sees a young woman walking alone and notices that she's being followed. As Oliver is acutely aware of the axe murder spree, he can't in good conscience let her proceed by herself, so he approaches to accompany her home, and at first she thinks he's a pick-up artist. Romantic repartee ensues for the next five minutes as they walk together, and during this time, in an intercut scene, we see a psychotic man being examined by a psychiatrist at a police station. The cops think surely they've caught their axe murderer, but the shrink assures them there's more than one man.
Next, a shadowy figure enters the apartment of another schizophrenic. He gaslights the schizo, telling him "you know what I need you to do." He's programming the poor man to kill a woman with an axe. It appears he's the mastermind behind the axe killings, but who is he?
Back with Oliver Duffy and "Edwina Brown" (Laraine Day), they are now at her apartment. He concocts a ruse to stay the night on her fire escape, because he fears for her safety. It turns out he was right, because that night a psycho climbs through her window with an axe. Edwina and Oliver catch the guy, pin him down and call the cops, but the detectives on the case don't believe in psychological explanations or "mastermind" theories. They just think that, for some inexplicable reason, the city has succumbed to an epidemic of axe murders.
But now, it's gotten so bad that the newspaper has put out a 25,000 dollar reward for the capture of the man, or men, who are committing the murders. Oliver and Edwina could sure use the money. They think the police are out to lunch on their "one man" theory and decide to solve the case themselves. Oliver, being a talented actor, decides to pose as a schizophrenic so he can gain access to a mental hospital, where he encounters a stern doctor played by Basil Rathbone.
The plot was extremely layered, maybe a tad too much, and Lew Ayers' portrayal of Oliver was what I will call fancy, even precious in places. Ayers had a distinct and slightly eccentric acting style that included some cute or affected mannerisms. He was very good , don't get me wrong, especially in the Dr. Kildare series where he was paired with Laraine Day as his nurse, so they were a team before this film. He was excellent in the sci-fi classic "Donovan's Brain" in which he starred alongside Nancy Davis. Here, he's playing a theater actor, so I guess some of his mannerisms can be forgiven. With a less talky script, it might've been less obvious. Still, even with the over-drawn-out plot, when Rathbone appears, all is right with the movie, and even from the beginning it has a unique calling card. Two Big Thumbs Up for "Fingers at the Window". The picture is dvd quality. ////
The previous night, we had one last Christmas film, actually a TV movie, entitled "A Christmas Memory"(1966). Written and narrated by Truman Capote, it's his own memory of a Christmas season during the Depression in Alabama, when he was seven years old and living with an eccentric female relative. She doesn't have a name in the movie, he just calls her his "friend". Geraldine Page plays her as an elderly but childlike free spirit. She has two older cousins who own the house she and "Buddy" (Capote, played by Donnie Melvin) live in, relegated to a back room. The cousins, responsible and churchgoing, tolerate but look down on the pair, who haven't any money save for the pittance they win by entering contests; any contest they can find, like naming a new coffee for a national brand. They hope that one will net them fifty thousand bucks. Mostly, though, they win nickle-and-dime contests like puzzlers and box top mail-ins. They've done well enough this Fall, in what must be the early 1930s, to have saved up 13 dollars, enough to buy the ingredients for the fruitcakes they bake and mail out every Christmas. The real Capote explains in voiceover that the fruitcake recipients are mostly strangers. His "friend" isn't social, she's never been but five miles from their house, and she likes people she barely knows, such as the postman, or a married couple from California who once drove through town and later sent them a postcard. These are the kind of people she makes the Christmas fruitcakes for, and of course First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt gets one every year. This year, Friend and Buddy are going to bake thirty fruitcakes, their new record.
Friend is proud as they enter the small grocery store in town. She reads off her list of cake ingredients to buy, then she and Buddy take the goods home on their improvised sleigh, a baby buggy with a baggage compartment. Their terrier Queenie tags along. They are three of a kind, and when they are done baking the fruitcakes after a full day's work, Friend decides they should celebrate by drinking small glasses of the whiskey they bought on their way home from "Mr. Ha-Ha" (Josip Elic), an American Indian bootlegger. The whiskey was for the fruitcakes, but there's a little bit left, so Friend pours even amounts for herself, for seven year old Buddy, and for Queenie the dog, mixing Queenie's whisky with some coffee. All three get to feeling pleasant, dancing around their tiny kitchen. Then the older cousins come home and scold Friend for giving a alcohol to a child.
But no harm has been done. Friend and Buddy and Queenie are life mates, a team; they listen to the lecture and shrug it off because they've got more important things to do. The next day, they need a Christmas tree, so they go out to the woods and find a perfect one, twice as tall as Buddy, so he won't be able to steal the silver star off the top. Buddy clearly adores his Friend, who it is also clear could never live on her own without the support of her cousins. Friend is an adult child, but she has wisdom (and responsibility, and dedication) far beyond what they offer. She's the kind of person who is a life-shaper for a child of artistic bent, which is why Truman Capote wrote his Christmas Memory about her. If you saw "The Fabelmans", and saw how the eccentric Uncle Boris influenced young Steven Spielberg, it's the same thing here. Friend is actually very industrious when she's doing what she's good at, things like baking cakes, decorating Christmas trees, or making homemade kites for presents. Buddy worships her, and the kites have symbolic significance.
In real life, Capote was sent off to military school, taken away from his Friend who was really his soulmate. He only lived to be 60, and was very eccentric himself but became the toast of New York and a friend of Jackie Kennedy. I've never read "In Cold Blood", but he is said to be a brilliant writer, and this is a beautiful Christmas story, without the cynicism one might expect given Capote's later reputation, and devoid of religious and sexual politics. It's Capote at his most earnest. That's the reason it has an 8.9 on IMDB, a rare score indeed. It gets our highest rating of Two Gigantic Thumbs Up. If there was ever a great actress, it's Geraldine Page. Next Christmas, make sure to watch this classic. ////
That's all I've got for this evening. My blogging music is "Fresh Cream" and my late night is "Mass in B Minor" by Bach (again). I hope you are easing into the post-Christmas week and looking forward to the New Year. I send you Tons of Love, as always. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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