Last night, we had a hostage drama in "Cat and Mouse"(1958). As it opens, "Ann Coltby" (Ann Sears) gets off a bus to visit a "Mr. Scruby" (Hilton Edwards), an Alfred Hitchcock-looking chap who's sent her a letter requesting she see him, claiming he was a friend of her late mother. When she gets to his apartment, he starts insinuating things about her father, and a Coltby family secret is revealed: that her Dad was hanged for a diamond robbery/murder. Three minutes in, and Scruby is accosting Ann. "Tell me where those diamonds are!" Ann, a shy young woman, says she was an infant when it happened. "I know nothing about my father's crime!" Scruby becomes increasingly belligerent, tells her he was present when her Dad killed the jeweler (he and Scruby stole the ice together), and her Dad gave the diamonds to her Mom before he was caught and hanged. Just when it looks like Scruby is gonna beat Ann up, she manages to shove his Hitchcock-lookin' butt and he falls backward over the fireplace bricks, conking his head in the process. For all intents and purposes, he appears to be deader than a doggone doornail.
But now, it's out of the frying pan and into the fire for Ann, because no sooner does she kill Mr. Scruby than his door is kicked open by one "Rod Fenner" (Lee Patterson), a classic '50s American tough guy, tall and lean, with a huge pompadour, Kevin Bacon face, and leather jacket, doing a cross between James Dean and Kookie, Lend Me Your Comb. Fenner's an awol GI from an American airbase in London. He's been missing for two years, working secretly for Scruby on other blackmail and criminal jobs. He breaks the door down because he's been eavesdropping at Scruby's doorstep, listening to his fight with Ann. Now that she's killed him, Fenner is gonna blackmail her. He takes her hostage, because he's heard about the diamonds and wants them, too.
We still have 70 minutes to go (an eternity in film, as we have come to know), and if you're gonna make a movie that's longer than 62 minutes, you better have some concise drama to present. The results here are hit and miss, and the film's title is apt, because Fenner keeps trying to tie Ann up, or alternately to romance her. He likes toying with her because shes a budding spinster, so there's your Cat and Mouse motif. Ann, never having been kissed, briefly experiences Stockholm Syndrome and is swept up in Fenner's attentions and manliness, but her straight laced nature eventually wins out, as she's extremely distrustful of his ultimate intention. Does he want to marry her, as he claims, or is he just after the diamonds and planning to kill her when he obtains them? She keeps trying to escape (more Cat and Mouse), and all of this interplay hinges on the acting of Patterson and Sears. His style varies, from too-carefully modulated Method acting, playing the quintessential 1950s Chicago greaser, to a genuinely frightening schizo portrayal. Actress Sears is English, and thus a Total Pro (have you ever seen an English actor who wasn't?) As a consequence her style has less variation, but she stays in character. Patterson is all over the map, but then his Fenner is a nutjob.
Fenner just wants the freakin' diamonds, and it turns out he's been gaslighting Ann the whole time, because lo and behold, we find out she didn't kill Mr. Scruby after all, she only knocked him out. Rod Fenner killed him by placing him on the railroad tracks.
Intercut throughout is the police investigation, and the British coppers are some dogged sons of guns. They close down on bad guys by swift deduction and thoroughness. They aren't armed themselves, but the English judges hang your ass. God bless ya if you're a criminal and you get caught in England.
The investigation breaks up the Cat and Mouse game, which does go on too long in places. I'd have cut the 79 minute flick down to maybe 68. Still, Two Big Thumbs Up. Mr. Scruby is a great character (if awful), you actually wish for more of him. Good location footage in the London suburbs, with more of those American-style houses, scenes of Ann riding the bus, and trying to mail a "Help!" letter. The picture is razor sharp. ////
The previous night's movie was "Crow Hollow"(1952), one of those House With a Secret mysteries. It's kind of a Greenhilly deal: "Tell me, you aren't planning to leave Greenhilly, are you?" "Not until I've dealt with Mr. Cherrywood, if indeed that is his real name."
Sweet "Anne" (Natasha Parry) is excited to have met the love of her life, young doctor "Robert" (Donald Huston). Though she's only known him a week, they plan to marry. Her roommate tells her to be careful, and her dying aunt goes a step further when she hears the honeymoon is to be at the manor known as Crow Hollow. "Oh no, dear. You mustn't go to Crow Hollow! The three sisters who live there are evil! Stay away from Greenhilly!" Her fiancee Robert assures her that, while his elderly aunts may be eccentric, they are harmless.They're kind of like Addams Family aunts: one collects spiders, another makes chrysanthemum soup, and a third insists you eat whether you're hungry or not. "You're too thin, dear. My to-mah-to sandwiches will fatten you up." At first, Anne is charmed by the old ladies, even if she doesn't like Aunt Judith's new acquisition to her spider collection, a big old hairy tarantula. Anne is more put-off by the aunts' tall, striking blonde maid, "Willow" (Patricia Owens). They're about the same age, but Willow addresses her as "Miss", and seems resentful and sullen. You'd think Willow never gets out of Greenhilly, I mean Crow Hollow. It's like she's a prisoner or something.
The aunts treat her special, however, enough so that Anne thinks Willow feels superior to her, and she does come off condescendingly.....hmm, or is she just provincial? Anne and Willow finally make a tentative, unacknowledged truce. Dr. Robert is never present, he's always out on a house call. Some honeymoon this has turned out to be. Anne is thus left with the aunts and the chilly Willow the whole time. "I'm thinking of leaving Greenhilly"! And she should leave, asap, because one day, while Willow is doing her hair, at Auntie Opal's suggestion, she puts the finishing touch of orchids in Anne's hair, and out pops the dreaded tarantula, which crawls down Anne's dress and nearly bites her.
You may be wondering: "Where is Mr. Cherrywood in all of this? Surely he must fall under suspicion!"
Anne is fascinated by a portrait of Robert's mother, the matriarch of Crow Hollow, deceased lo these many years. Her three sisters don't seem to like reminiscing about her. Anne finds her grave site out in the windswept manor fields. She died young, at 26. Rumors are that she was poisoned. Leave Greenhilly, Anne! Don't wait!
Because this a House With a Secret movie, and 65 minutes long, you start running the outcome scenarios in your head. It's the curse of having seen a billion movies. 'Twas more fun when you were younger and didn't know all the plot possibilities, but it's always fun to guess whodunnit, and how and why, and that's what you do here. What is the secret of Greenhilly? Why is Willow so formal yet provincial the same time? She a knockout in her maid's uniform, but she's never been to London and has likely never left the manor grounds.
Anne gets a stomach ache one night, and that's all I can tell you. I'd love to see a restoration of this film, because I believe a razor sharp print with perfect sound would do wonders for building the creepiness. At one point it looks like Dr. Robert is gaslighting Anne. "Just take your medicine, dear, and get some rest. You've not been well of late." Leave Greenhilly! Two Big Thumbs Up for "Crow Hollow, which would be upped to Two Huge with a perfect print. A weird and highly recommended gem. ////
And that's all for tonight.I hope you had a good Ritchie Blackmore's Birthday. My blogging music was "The Aerosol Grey Machine" by Van Der Graaf Generator, my late night is Handel's Alcina Opera. I wish you a nice weekend, and I send you Tons of Love, as always. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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