Spellbound (1945)

The surprisingly young psychologist (Gregory Peck) arrives to be the new director of a sanitarium, but his troubling behavior leads to suspicion that he is not who he says he is. Will love bloom?

Ingrid Bergman plays the psychologist with the heart of gold and Leo G. Carroll is the kindly outgoing Dr. Murchison. Also here is old friend Norman Lloyd as an inmate and Wallace Ford (Freaks) as a creep in a hotel lobby. There are a few interesting background characters that could have had more screen time, something screenwriter Ben Hecht was adept at creating.

The psychobabble, and there is a lot of it, doesn’t distract much from the story. Peck’s Ballantyne is in serious trouble and on the run, and Bergman’s Dr. Petersen believes in him despite having no reason to. Grant’s understated performance, while disappointing Hitch, was eerily appropriate for the amnesiac.

Spellbound takes some unexpected turns and features a pretty trippy dream sequence. This is classic Hitchcock. Maybe not a top five Hitch, but definitely top ten. AMRU 4.

She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949)

Retiring Captain Brittles (John Wayne) goes on one last patrol, this time to evacuate the women-folk. Oh, and one of them wears a yellow ribbon. It’s unimportant.

The ribbon signifies that the woman (Joanne Dru) is officially going steady. Between two young officers, she chooses the rich pretty-boy over the one with a promising military career ahead of him. I struggled to follow this sub plot and I needn't. It was very uninteresting.

A young John Agar appears as Brittles right hand. He was married to Shirley Temple at this time. Also here is Harry Carey Jr, not to be confused with Harry Caray. And also is Ben Johnson whom we recently saw in Shane.

The 41 year old Wayne was surprisingly believable as the 60 year old captain, impressing long time collaborator John Ford, who said he "didn't know the big son of a bitch could act!" I haven’t seen too many of Wayne from his young and fit years and he didn’t much resemble himself from his El Dorado years, which is a good thing.

She Wore a Yellow Ribbon has a few strange elements, like Wayne getting a man thrown in the brig for some reason. Also, there is the element of Wayne trying to avoid hostilities with the natives rather than the more familiar narrative. Pointless love triangle aside, the major theme explores a man dealing with his obsolescence. Who is he if not the gruff captain the others look to for leadership. This is a theme I can relate to. AMRU 3.5.

Scarlet Street (1945)

Humdrum bank employee Chris (Edward G. Robinson) comes to the aid of a woman (Joan Bennett), and they strike up a friendship. Under the mistaken belief that he is a famous and fabulously wealthy artist, she and her abusive boyfriend (Dan Duryea) plot to scam him.

On today’s internet this would be called a romance scam, but back then the scammer was required to interact with the victim in real time. Oh, and actually be a pretty woman. Fritz Lang directed the 1944 noir The Woman in the Window also staring Robinson, Bennett, and Duryea, and featured a very similar plot (“A reserved professor meets a model and gets mixed up in murder.”)

I thought I had seen Joan Bennett before (outside of Suspiria, that is) but it was her sister Constance that appeared in What Price Hollywood? and Topper. There was also a sister Barbara who appeared in only five films and lived a troubled life. I shan’t go into detail.

Dan Duryea seems to always play the same character. A joyously hateful scoundrel. Here is no different. Robinson plays the hapless victim to perfection, led down the path like a lamb to the slaughter. But Robinson was capable of adding depth and complexity to the otherwise two-dimensional role. A subtle glance can express wonders.

The Big Heat is the standard bearer of later career Lang but Scarlet Street is a close second. Nothing compares to Lang's early work, but these latter films can be quite surprising. It's a solid story and Robinson's performance is fantastic. AMRU 4.