The Kiss Before the Mirror

James Whale, the director of FRANKENSTEIN and BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN already proved that he was not only a horror and fantasy film maker, but also a solid director in any domain. This tremendous little and short film offers, proposes a very unusual and unpredictable plot which the scheme has not been used much since. I have rarely, if not never, seen this before. Maybe I am wrong. Anyway, the much talking is unavoidable for a 1931 and it is the only flaw of this feature. The quality of the copy I just saw was excellent and this enhances the great photography of this film. Unfortunately the last part, last reel, smashes the whole material. The ending is awful, I expected far more. But this film remains a gem.

With a very serious and leading role by Frank Morgan. Not a trace of the harmless blithering bumbler he played over at MGM in the 30s and 40s.

Morgan plays Viennese attorney, Paul Held. Paul is called to be defense attorney to his good friend, Walter (Paul Lukas) who has shot his wife to death when he finds out she is having an affair. More than this, his wife was undressing in her lover's home in preparation for some passion when Walter sent her to her maker under most embarrassing circumstances. Paul tries to get out of Walter exactly what made him suspect his wife. Walter says it was how she was admiring herself in her mirror in a way that only a woman meeting a lover would do. So he followed her, and when he actually saw her infidelity he killed her.

Paul returns home and finds his wife (Nancy Carroll) doing the exact same thing - saying she is going out with girlfriends, but dressing and admiring herself in her big vanity mirror in a way a woman would only do for another man. Paul follows her just as Walter followed his wife, and discovers that his wife Maria is meeting another man.

Paul returns to Walter, says that he now knows what Walter feels and that he intends to use every argument available to get Walter out of jail. If he is a successful and Walter is acquitted, then he knows the argument works and he will kill Maria and know that he too can be acquitted. Lukas plays this well as the tortured killer. Paul's mistake is to think that the fact that they both have cheating wives gives them comradery, when in fact Walter is consumed by guilt.

It is so odd to see Frank Morgan playing such a dark vengeful character, tormenting Maria by wanting her in court each day, to tell her that death is the just fate of all such unfaithful wives. She knows he knows, she knows he might kill her, and yet he hasn't come out and threatened her or accused her.. It's all very Hitchcockian a decade before many people knew about Hitch.

There is a really interesting attorney who works for Paul - Jean Dixon as Hilda Frey. She has a kind of tough exterior with a wise cracking and confident persona that matches Eve Arden. She is somebody I would have liked to see more of, but she has a very small part. It seems like the film is hinting that she could be gay, but that was all you could do at this point in history was hint.

There is a very good score and art design in this one. Even Walter's prison cell is interesting to look at with excellent cinematography by Karl Freund.

What did I not like? The commentary on the Kino Blu talks of absolutely nothing but how the women characters in the film are such victims! OK, Walter's wife and her bullet riddled corpse - maybe some room for argument there. But both Paul's wife and Walter's wife seem to have married money and taken lovers because they were bored. But they had no intention of leaving their walking paychecks. To me this film was more about the strong connection between obsession and love. I guess I should be glad that Kino actually put a commentary track on this rather obscure film.

This is not a horror movie. James Whale is best known for those. (His 1936 "Showboat," on the other hand is my absolute favorite movie musical, bar none.) This one is a brief but insightful character study.

Frank Morgan plays a famous lawyer engrossed in a murder case. He finds himself identifying with the jealous husband of a beautiful woman.

He identifies a little too strongly. He begins to see in his own wife the behavior of his client's wife.

Morgan's wife is played by one of the most charming of early movie actresses: Nancy Carroll. I've seen her primarily in light comedy, where she is absolutely charming. She has a quirkiness that resembles that of Janet Gaynor. And she physically resembles the ultra-sexy Clara Bow.

Her career was short, apparently by her own choice. This is one of her best roles. And, though it's atypical and little known, it's a very fine example of James Whale's masterful touch.

The only other James Whale movie that I have seen, except for his classics, "Frankenstein," "Bride of Frankenstein" and "Invisible Man," was "the Old Dark House." I liked "the Old Dark House," but it wasn't a masterpiece like the other three.

I have never seen "Wizard of Oz" title character Frank Morgan in a leading role, so I always assumed he was a character actor, but he easily carries the film in this case. His wife is played by Nancy Carroll who starred in some 35 films from 1928 to 1935. She is quite fine. Gloria Stuart, famous for the Titanic (1997) has appears briefly in the film. Jean Dixon, as a very sharp statuesque woman lawyer nearly steals the picture with a sharp sense of humor.

The movie is about obsession, love and murder. Whale does a wonderful job of balancing comedy with tense scary moments as he did in "Bride" and "Invisible Man." The movie is very humanist and really solidifies the idea of him being a great auteur director. There's an hilarious scene of two gay newspaper men commenting on the trial. The movie is tight and short, barely over an hour, so it can't be called a masterpiece, but it does manage a lot of emotional intensity for a film of this length and this time period.

Ah yes, the old "he killed her because he loved her" defense. A wife cheats on her husband and he has a "right to avenge his honor," a literal quote from the protagonist. The attitude this film takes (or the mirror it holds up to 1933, if you will) is unfortunate, because it mars an interesting premise, some fine performances, and skilled directing. Despite the misogyny, I thought this small pre-Code film which flies by in 69 minutes was worth watching.

To open things, a society woman cheating on her husband is followed by him and murdered. Despite her small part, Gloria Stuart at 23, 64 years before Titanic, is enchanting. There's something romantic and dreamy about her scene with Walter Pidgeon, even though she's committing adultery, which is a distinctly pre-Code impression. Her husband admits to the crime and is then represented by a sharp lawyer (Frank Morgan) and his crack team (Jean Dixon and Charley Grapewin).

Where the film gets interesting is when the lawyer's wife (Nancy Carroll) begins acting in ways that eerily resemble those of the woman who was killed - that is, as she's getting dressed up, it seems as if she's going out to meet a lover, not her friends. His client described his wife at her dressing room table in front of the mirror, humming a tango, getting upset with his affections because it would muss her up, and so it happens with the lawyer, him knowing by her expression in a shocking moment that she reviles him. The transformation Carroll affects is very well done, as her pretty face goes from tenderness to anger brilliantly, and I liked the use of many mirrors in the scene as well. Even the two pairs of lovers (Stuart/Pidgeon and Carroll/Donald Cook) resemble one another, mirror images if you will.

The angst of the two men when they confer as lawyer and client, but also as two cuckolds, is amplified by the light and shadows that director James Whale gives us, which makes the film seem like a forerunner of film noir. The case takes on very dark tones as he pledges to get his client off even if he has to lie to do so, and then to kill his own wife.

While the setup is strong, it falters in how it plays out. As I mention above, there's a theme of women cheating on their husbands and then deserving to die, which is unpleasant. Even in its minor characters we see this. Early on, a prisoner looking out of a strange subterranean cell has no qualms over having killed his wife, and hopes she's now in hell. Later, when a man showing up to the court for his own case involving his longtime sweetheart's lawsuit involving "breach of promise" is told by the bailiff that this case involves murder, he says it's a "very good idea." Women are also shown to be crowding the courtroom and amorously clamoring to see the murderer. Women, ya gotta watch 'em and keep 'em in line, right?

It's in Morgan's character and his impassioned defense of the murderer that we see it most of all, however. He talks about a "personal law," an "unwritten law" of vengeance a betrayed husband may mete out, and then challenges the jury:

"Most of you, perhaps all of you, believe you know at this moment where your wife or husband is, for faith is the greatest element in love. And exclusiveness of possession is all that makes marriage worthwhile. Therefore, ask yourself, what you would do if both of these were destroyed, and if upon leaving here you found the one you loved and trusted disrobing at the bedside of a lover. What would you do?"

There are great performances here - Morgan in his vulnerable, hurt moments as well as his courtroom speech (much as I disliked its contents), and Carroll's as well, showing fear and guilt. Her character itself needed more depth, and the way she has to perform it has to match the way the film ends, but she did very well with the role she had. I just wish this thing had gone some other route, maybe something supernatural based on the similarities of the infidelity and all those mirrors, but unfortunately it slips into becoming a morality tale, something that should be apparent from the title of its 1938 remake, "Wives Under Suspicion."