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Post by Andrea Doria on Mar 24, 2024 21:42:08 GMT
Sorry, we never drink milk while on duty.
I burst out laughing when he offered them milk. It was a great moment of comic relief after all the terror. I had screamed when he broke through the window curtains. They sure didn't shirk on the drama with this one.
I also like the moment when Barbara was being strangled and told him he would hang. Good thinking! His self interest made him stop when the begging wasn't working.
Thanks for such a good pick and all the fun comments from everyone!
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Post by Fading Fast on Mar 24, 2024 21:46:51 GMT
Bogie could have simply won the argument with the blackmailer as he should have - "you can't tell on me and I can't tell on you -" as it would have resolved it, but still left Bogie in the same spot with his wife as he wanted her dead for his artistic needs not because of the blackmailer.
The blackmailer was really superfluous all along if the reason Bogie keeps killing his wives is artistic inspiration - he needs a new wife to paint as the angel of death because that is when he does his best work.
I very much hope and believe that Sally and, probably, Penny will become Bea's adoptive parents. I, too, loved the touch where Bogie realizes his daughter has talent.
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Post by topbilled on Mar 24, 2024 21:56:12 GMT
Sorry, we never drink milk while on duty.
I burst out laughing when he offered them milk. It was a great moment of comic relief after all the terror. I had screamed when he broke through the window curtains. They sure didn't shirk on the drama with this one.
I also like the moment when Barbara was being strangled and told him he would hang. Good thinking! His self interest made him stop when the begging wasn't working.
Thanks for such a good pick and all the fun comments from everyone! Yes, I think when he comes in to her bedroom that way, the film successfully transitions from psychological thriller to full-on horror.
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Post by topbilled on Mar 24, 2024 23:50:03 GMT
Till the next masterpiece is finished do us part
Barbara Stanwyck had a unique motion picture career, especially during the 1940s and 1950s. Most box office names of that era were locked into long-term studio contracts and would occasionally, just occasionally, be loaned out. That was the situation with her costars in this film, Humphrey Bogart & Alexis Smith. Bogart and Smith were under the thumb of Jack Warner and often not able to expand their range in genres at other studios.
However, in Stanwyck’s case, she was one of the rare freelancers during these years…I say rare, because if there were freelancers in the studio system they tended to be men, not women. Yet Stanwyck bucked the trend and she was able to move from studio to studio, selecting the scripts she was most interested in doing. Also, because she was not limited by one particular studio’s style, she’s able to effortlessly segue from a role as a femme fatale killer at Paramount (in DOUBLE INDEMNITY) to a wacky homemaking guru at Warner Brothers (in CHRISTMAS AT CONNECTICUT) to a tragic tuberculosis patient at United Artists (in THE OTHER LOVE) to…well, you get the idea.
With THE TWO MRS. CARROLLS she was back at Warner Brothers, this time as an imperiled socialite whose artist husband (Bogart) has sinister plans to do away with her once he’s completed painting her latest portrait, an Angel of Death type masterpiece. We know after the first few minutes of the film the same fate befell his first wife, the original Mrs. Carroll, off-screen.
One too many glasses of poisoned warm milk led to the initial instance of uxoricide. Soon it will be time for Stanwyck’s character to get her dose of calcium and follow suit if outside forces don’t intervene.
One person who may be able to save Stanwyck is a dapper ex-beau (Patrick O’Moore) who is still holding a torch for her. He’s been a most gracious loser and stepped aside when she impulsively wed widower Bogart, but O’Moore likes visiting and hanging around the manse as a friend.
There is also a middle-aged doctor named Tuttle (Nigel Bruce in delightful scene stealing mode) who shows up on house calls. But his predilection for booze prevents him from properly diagnosing Stanwyck’s mysterious ailments.
Indeed, Bruce has a habit of treating her and other such women for their nerves, instead of what really might be wrong with them. Then, there’s the police who get involved at the end when Bogart is dangerously close to offing Stanwyck.
By that point, Bogart has killed a pesky chemist (Barry Bernard) who won’t stop blackmailing him. It seems the chemist knows Bogart murdered the first Mrs. Carroll and has proof that the coppers may find interesting.
A wonderfully acted scene by Bogart two-thirds of the way into the picture has his character visit the chemist one last time and snap, killing him on the spot. The desperation and determination to end such a threat is palpable.
Rounding out the supporting cast is Anita Sharp-Bolster as a no-nonsense majordomo employed by Stanwyck; as well as Isobel Elsom as a guest who’s arrived with her predatory daughter (Alexis Smith).
Smith is pretty much a second lead, and as a Warner Brothers contractee, she is given third billing. But her character only forms one of two different triangles in the movie. And she disappears before the last act in which Bogart and Stanwyck finally square off.
The showdown at the end is very suspenseful. We’ve had Stanwyck reach a terrible realization that the man she married is mentally ill; and her perfect marriage has all been an illusion. He’s going to get rid of her, just as he did her predecessor.
It has all been confirmed by harrowing truths told to her by a wise young stepdaughter (Ann Carter), not to mention Stanwyck’s gone into her husband’s studio and glimpsed the Angel of Death portrait of herself. If that doesn’t say ‘you're next,’ nothing does!
After Bogart sends his daughter and housekeeper off, he intends to do away with Stanwyck. Conveniently for her, she has a gun given to her by O’Moore. You see, a burglar’s on the loose, and there is danger in the area. Of course, the greatest threat to Stanwyck’s ability to go on living is right under her own roof.
The moment when Bogart breaks into her bedroom as some sort of pseudo-vampire, takes the film from bubbling psychological thriller to full-bodied horror potboiler. It is the story’s dramatic highpoint and certainly the most memorable scene. Stanwyck was a good screamer in some of her movies (see her last feature William Castle’s THE NIGHT WALKER for verification of this fact); and she definitely knows how to convey terror (see SORRY WRONG NUMBER and WITNESS TO MURDER for additional proof).
But this is not just a Barbara Stanwyck movie. It’s also a Humphrey Bogart movie. We have a perfect collaboration of two stars of equal standing, at the peak of their respective careers. We don’t necessarily believe in them as a couple who need a happily ever after; but we do believe in them as a couple who can scale the emotional heights of an ill-fated union and make us appreciate the calmness of our comparatively uneventful affairs.
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Post by Fading Fast on Mar 25, 2024 9:19:02 GMT
The Two Mrs. Carrolls from 1947 with Barbara Stanwyck, Humphrey Bogart, Alexis Smith and Ann Carter
The Two Mrs. Carrolls is a good movie whose whole is worth less than the sum of its parts. With Barbara Stanwyck, Humphrey Bogart and Alexis Smith starring and a script from a hit Broadway play, this should be a better move than it is.
Part of the problem is that most of the surprise in this murder mystery story is drained right out of it as we learn early on that an artist, played by Bogart, is a killer. We see him poison his first wife to marry a wealthy woman, played by Stanwyck, whom he just met.
Along for the wife-swap ride is Ann Carter playing Bogart's preternaturally mature pre-teen daughter. She's not the most-realistic character, few adults are as poised as she is, but movies have a certain latitude and, here, The Two Mrs. Carrolls uses its latitude well.
Probably to protect her own sanity, this highly intelligent and thoughtful child doesn't see that her father is a murderer. She, instead, indulges her father. It's an engaging performance from a child performer.
For a time, Bogart and Stanwyck's marriage seems to be going well, still, there are signs of Bogart's insanity that kind wife Stanwyck passes off as a temperamental-artist thing. But when a pretty neighbor woman starts scratching at the back door, things heat up.
Alexis Smith, the pretty, tall and door-scratching neighbor who looks like she could eat peanuts off the top of Bogart's head, makes a hard run at Bogart seemingly because she likes stealing other women's husbands.
Bogart, not for the reason you think - the real reason is the "surprise reveal" in the mystery - likes to be stolen away. So once again, out comes the poison. But there are a couple of problems.
The British government isn't stupid and requires a signature to be obtained whenever poison is sold. This gives scheming, immoral "chemists," pharmacists to us today, like the one played here by Barry Bernard, an opportunity to commit blackmail.
Bernard is outstanding as the blackmailer you love to hate. Even though Bogart is a murderer, Bernard is such a greedy low life - he's willing to let Bogart go on killing as long as Bogart pays him off - you hate him more than Bogie. Bogie, afterall, is insane.
Bogart's other problem is that Stanwyck and Stanwyck's friend, played by Patrick O'Moore - it's good to have an ex-lover still pining for you when your husband is a psychotic killer - aren't going to let her go gently into that good night.
The climatic scene, no spoilers coming, is dragged out and exaggerated a bit to create drama. Still, it's pretty well done by director Peter Godfrey as rain and crashing thunder outside set a Gothic-like atmosphere for a struggle to death in Stanwyck's bedroom.
Stanwyck is the standout performer in this one. The woman is so talented you forget she is acting as she just becomes her character. While the script drifts now and then into implausibility, Stanwyck's realistic portrayal is always there to give it credibility.
Bogart is a professional who doesn't give a poor performance. Still, his ideal role is playing the antihero, not the psychotic killer. Here he is natural when playing the kind husband and father, but you feel him "acting" when his insanity shows through.
Smith's character is written as two dimensional, so she can only do so much. You don't like her, which is what the script called for, so mission accomplished. Had she had a bit more Hollywood luck, the tall and talented Ms. Smith could have had a bigger career.
Nigel Bruce turns the ham factor up just a bit too high on his country doctor schtick in this one. Conversely, Anita Sharp-Bolster is spot on in her spirited portrayal of Stanwyck's sarcastic housekeeper who doesn't take BS from anyone.
Many pieces of this movie are good, some are even very good, but the story lacks the full punch it needed, in part, because too much is revealed early on putting too much pressure on the disappointing "big reveal" later.
The Two Mrs. Carrolls has enough talent and pedigree to have been a great movie. Yet In the busy Hollywood subgenre of psychotic-murderous-spouse movies, it's just a good one. Maybe the twist that spurs Bogie to murder will make it a great one for you.
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Post by Andrea Doria on Mar 25, 2024 12:51:12 GMT
Many thanks to Topbilled and Fading Fast for two fascinating reviews.
We always have dinner immediately after the movie and I usually tell hubs and son the story while they eat -- not because they want to hear it, but because I can't stop myself. Sometimes I doubt they're even listening, but when I got to the part where Bogie asks the police if they'd like a glass of milk they both almost choked laughing. I'm still thinking about the play being billed as a comedy and I'd love to see that version.
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Post by Fading Fast on Mar 25, 2024 13:47:07 GMT
Many thanks to Topbilled and Fading Fast for two fascinating reviews.
We always have dinner immediately after the movie and I usually tell hubs and son the story while they eat -- not because they want to hear it, but because I can't stop myself. Sometimes I doubt they're even listening, but when I got to the part where Bogie asks the police if they'd like a glass of milk they both almost choked laughing. I'm still thinking about the play being billed as a comedy and I'd love to see that version. "...Sometimes I doubt they're even listening..." That's funny.
Clearly they were listening, though.
It can be quite hard to engage people who aren't old movie fans in plot conversations about old movies.
I have a good friend who invited me over a few Sundays ago and I told her I had to leave to be home a little before three. When I tried to explain to her that a group of us from an online forum watch a movie together ("On TV?", "No, on our computers" "How do you coordinate it?" "Sigh") and comment on it ("You stop the movie and chat?" "No, we do it while it's going," "How do you follow it?" "Sigh" "What do you say about the movie?" "I lied, there's no movie forum, I'm going home to shoot up heroin," "Oh, have fun.") it didn't go well. So yes, our hobby can be hard to explain to others.
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Post by topbilled on Mar 25, 2024 14:45:20 GMT
Many thanks to Topbilled and Fading Fast for two fascinating reviews.
We always have dinner immediately after the movie and I usually tell hubs and son the story while they eat -- not because they want to hear it, but because I can't stop myself. Sometimes I doubt they're even listening, but when I got to the part where Bogie asks the police if they'd like a glass of milk they both almost choked laughing. I'm still thinking about the play being billed as a comedy and I'd love to see that version. The droll humor at the end does give us some necessary comic relief, so the film can end on a 'lighter' if not still macabre note.
I found this synopsis of the play:
Sally Carroll, the wife of artist Geoffrey Carroll, gradually realizes that Geoffrey, with the help of his former spouse, Miss Harriet Updyke, is trying to drive her insane and ultimately murder her in this thriller.
In the play, the first wife is not killed off until the third act. She is an ex-wife and is still alive at the beginning. Geoffrey does kill her, probably after she turns against him. It still doesn't seem like a comedy, does it?
So I think what the screenwriters did was they just offed the first wife at the beginning, so the audience was not misled about Geoffrey as they are in the play...and then the murder of the ex-wife later in the story was switched to the murder of the chemist, to show how much more insane he's become.
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Post by Fading Fast on Mar 25, 2024 15:06:22 GMT
Many thanks to Topbilled and Fading Fast for two fascinating reviews.
We always have dinner immediately after the movie and I usually tell hubs and son the story while they eat -- not because they want to hear it, but because I can't stop myself. Sometimes I doubt they're even listening, but when I got to the part where Bogie asks the police if they'd like a glass of milk they both almost choked laughing. I'm still thinking about the play being billed as a comedy and I'd love to see that version. The droll humor at the end does give us some necessary comic relief, so the film can end on a 'lighter' if not still macabre note.
I found this synopsis of the play:
Sally Carroll, the wife of artist Geoffrey Carroll, gradually realizes that Geoffrey, with the help of his former spouse, Miss Harriet Updyke, is trying to drive her insane and ultimately murder her in this thriller.
In the play, the first wife is not killed off until the third act. She is an ex-wife and is still alive at the beginning. Geoffrey does kill her, probably after she turns against him. It still doesn't seem like a comedy, does it?
So I think what the screenwriters did was they just offed the first wife at the beginning, so the audience was not misled about Geoffrey as they are in the play...and then the murder of the ex-wife later in the story was switched to the murder of the chemist, to show how much more insane he's become. That's great color. As I noted in my review, I thought they should have left you unsure about Geoffrey until much later, which seems to have been the original story design. It's interesting to see what different writers do with the same story.
The more I've thought about the movie, the less I believe in Alexis Smith's character as she is too selfish and smart to have wanted Geoffrey as she would have seen the clues - which we saw - that Stanwyck being a good wife drove by. Other than breaking up Stanwyck's marriage, what would Smith have gotten out of it? And this is a woman who is always getting something for herself.
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Post by topbilled on Mar 25, 2024 15:24:02 GMT
The droll humor at the end does give us some necessary comic relief, so the film can end on a 'lighter' if not still macabre note.
I found this synopsis of the play:
Sally Carroll, the wife of artist Geoffrey Carroll, gradually realizes that Geoffrey, with the help of his former spouse, Miss Harriet Updyke, is trying to drive her insane and ultimately murder her in this thriller.
In the play, the first wife is not killed off until the third act. She is an ex-wife and is still alive at the beginning. Geoffrey does kill her, probably after she turns against him. It still doesn't seem like a comedy, does it?
So I think what the screenwriters did was they just offed the first wife at the beginning, so the audience was not misled about Geoffrey as they are in the play...and then the murder of the ex-wife later in the story was switched to the murder of the chemist, to show how much more insane he's become. That's great color. As I noted in my review, I thought they should have left you unsure about Geoffrey until much later, which seems to have been the original story design. It's interesting to see what different writers do with the same story.
The more I've thought about the movie, the less I believe in Alexis Smith's character as she is too selfish and smart to have wanted Geoffrey as she would have seen the clues - which we saw - that Stanwyck being a good wife drove by. Other than breaking up Stanwyck's marriage, what would Smith have gotten out of it? And this is a woman who is always getting something for herself. Well I think we were supposed to buy Cecily as being totally infatuated with Geoffrey...but yes, I agree, she was too clever not to realize if she became the third Mrs. Carroll, she'd experience a similar fate as the previous two wives. I find her character most disposable. She is conveniently written out before the last act. She has no stake in the final outcome, like Penny does.
As for Geoffrey being revealed as a killer early on, I think in those days, to prevent bad word of mouth, the studio screenwriters had to telegraph early in the story that a well-known actor like Bogart was playing an unredeemable character.
If the audience had mistakenly believed that he was the best husband who ever lived, then had the rug pulled out from under them halfway into the story, there would have been great disappointment and after the movie ended, they would have told others not to see it because the plot was a bait and switch. That kind of "twist" works in theater, but not in classic movies.
The way it is now, since Bogart's madness is made apparent up front, the audience has plenty of time to wrap its brain around that fact, and then they can invest fully in Stanwyck overcoming his devious machinations. By making him a villain early on, all sympathy can transfer directly to Stanwyck for most of the story. And on that level, it becomes a woman's picture.
Incidentally, another reason I like the sequence with the chemist being killed is because it takes us out of the main mansion set and opens up the story a bit more. We see the weather in that sequence, it is not all just sound effects of thunder storms. And I do think that even if Geoffrey can keep the blackmailer in check and turn it into a stalemate, he is not thinking logically...he's mad, and it makes sense to me that all his pent up aggression unleashes in an unplanned homicide. Having Geoffrey kill the chemist is not as premeditated as the deaths of the wives.
The one problem area for me, which you touched upon in your review, is how the daughter is able to overlook her father's madness...since she obviously understands his artistry and what it signifies, especially when she glimpes the portrait of Sally as an angel of death. I guess we can overlook some of this since she's a child, but as you say, she's a very mature child...and it might have helped if she had tried to voice some concerns about her father's increasingly disturbed mental state to the housekeeper, who just brushed it off as nonsense. So, yeah, that is the one problem area for me, that the daughter wouldn't want to try to alert others and get professional help for her father.
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Post by BunnyWhit on Mar 25, 2024 16:02:37 GMT
The more I've thought about the movie, the less I believe in Alexis Smith's character as she is too selfish and smart to have wanted Geoffrey as she would have seen the clues - which we saw - that Stanwyck being a good wife drove by. Other than breaking up Stanwyck's marriage, what would Smith have gotten out of it? And this is a woman who is always getting something for herself. I view Cecily as a mirror to Geoffrey. I see her purpose in getting him as the primary goal. It's not about having him, it's about getting him. Setting her powerful reason for the hunt (because she needs it) against his (he needs it as well), shows us that Geoffrey is human. He possesses the same yearnings as anyone else. But Cecily is able to walk away when it's made plain that she will not accomplish her goal, while Geoffrey can carry his need into the murderous realm, showing us the depth of his psychosis.
Enter Cecily's leopard outfit. The hunted becomes the hunter....but she knows when to call it a day.
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Post by galacticgirrrl on Mar 25, 2024 17:18:01 GMT
It can be quite hard to engage people who aren't old movie fans in plot conversations about old movies.
Ha! That was a great story. I have a friend who doesn't understand why one would ever read a book or watch a film twice. You are very brave - I don't dare tell her or anyone why I can't leave the house Sundays at 3. Seems a bit like the stuff of Fight Club or Freemasonry.
At a concert recently the topic of outdated movies came up. The chap next to me offered how inappropriate the Andy Rooney character was in Breakfast at Tiffany's. Oh dear. Gave me a good laugh. 60 Minutes will be forever on my mind when I watch that one again and again.
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Post by Fading Fast on Mar 25, 2024 17:52:38 GMT
It can be quite hard to engage people who aren't old movie fans in plot conversations about old movies.
...I have a friend who doesn't understand why one would ever read a book or watch a film twice... Your friend just deleted a third or more of my life.
It's amazing how strange it sounds to others say your hobbies are watching old movie: "What!?, what does that mean?" - and reading: "Is that really a hobby?"
Sigh.
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