Alma en la sombra

James Hilton was not a great novelist, but he was a popular one in the 1930s and 1940s, and two of his books have managed to become minor classics. Both also were the basis of popular films: LOST HORIZON and GOODBYE MR. CHIPS. But, oddly enough, they were not the only Hilton novels that made it to the screen, nor the only two that became classic films. RANDOM HARVEST can be added to his novels that became film classics. And he also wrote his "Crippen" novel, WE ARE NOT ALONE (which starred Paul Muni and Dame Flora Robson), and this film, RAGE IN HEAVEN. In story it actually resembles RANDOM HARVEST a bit: In that film Ronald Colman is an amnesiac from World War I who escapes from an asylum, and eventually turns out to be the head of a large industrial empire. In RAGE IN HEAVEN Robert Montgomery is a paranoid who flees an asylum in France, and turns out to be the head of a large industrial empire. But Colman's character is intelligent and fair minded - a good boss. Montgomery is argumentative, harsh, and (ultimately) incompetent and cowardly. One can say that RAGE IN HEAVEN is the dark side of RANDOM HARVEST.

Robert Montgomery's film career is one of the most aggravating in Hollywood history. He built up a career in the 1930s playing cads and bounders in MGM comedies, with an occasionally good comic hero role (THE LAST OF MRS. CHEYNEY and TROUBLE FOR TWO come to mind). Then he got the plum role of the psychopathic Danny in NIGHT MUST FALL, and an Oscar nomination for best actor in 1937. But he did not get the Oscar (Spencer Tracy did). I have always suspected that had Montgomery won the Oscar he deserved to his name would be properly remembered today, as more than just a good actor who was the father of television's "Samantha", Elizabeth Montgomery. Instead, while he still had some good parts later in his career (many as a director and producer, as well as actor), he never got the recognition he thoroughly deserved.

It is obvious that RAGE IN HEAVEN was meant to be a follow-up "psycho" role for Montgomery, following Danny. But Phillip Morell is not as well done as Danny, probably because NIGHT MUST FALL was a play by Emlyn Williams originally, and so it was easier to transfer it to the screen than Hilton's novel. But then, LOST HORIZON, MR. CHIPS, and RANDOM HARVEST were well done screenplays too. Danny (for all his murderous habits) has his human moments, but Phillip doesn't. Phillip is always under-spoken and wide eyed. He always is on the verge of exploding (and similarly of collapsing - witness the moment the Union leadership force their way into his office to confront him over his unwillingness to settle the labor impasse, and how he just collapses and runs out yelling, "Give them whatever they want!"). A modern treatment might develop his mania somewhat. It is obvious that Hilton understood what paranoids were capable of - the business about the hidden confession in the diary rings true - but it is still not developed enough for the audience to understand. We know that Phillip's father was insane (and committed suicide) but more details are needed.

It was Ingrid Bergman's third or fourth American film. She was slowly inching her way to real stardom (she had touched it opposite Leslie Howard in the Hollywood version of INTERMEZZO), but her performance, while natural, is not very memorable. George Sanders again demonstrates his dependability in any role, here as a good guy almost destroyed by his mad friend. Oscar Homolka does a good job as the asylum head, whose assistance to Bergman saves Sanders in the end. It is not as good a film as it should have been with a better laid out script, but it is watchable one or two times.

The first half of this film is a fascinating portrayal of a Paranoid Psychopath. The second half deteriorates into an in-earnest attempt to deliver a thoughtful look at someone suffering from this form of mental illness.

Ingrid Bergman, in her third Hollywood feature, is the subject of a dangerous obsession from her husband, a wealthy heir, who lacks self-esteem and lives in a constant state of jealously and prone to being easily agitated. Robert Montgomery plays the ticking bomb.

Parenthetically, Montgomery was reportedly unhappy the studio demanded he play the role because he wanted time off and therefore delivered his lines quickly and without much effort. I found this to be, ironically, effective for the character.

The great George Sanders plays the man in most danger of the lead character's pathological illness. Unfortunately, his character is given little to work with in the third act of the film.

There's a scene where a trial is held and the apathy displayed by Sanders (with the exception of one shot) is astonishing.

In the 1940s Hollywood began its fascination with stories focused on psychology. This is one of the first films in that era and unfortunately it was put in the hands of director W. S. Van Dyke, who had the reputation of working quickly and was nicknamed "One-Take Van Dyke." You can see characters trip over lines and a lack of care over the story's plot line.

Oscar Homolka seriously overplays the mental health doctor in the picture. Clearly the rage over the film's miscues should be directed at Van Dyke.

A somber-hued melodrama whose psychology is more compelling than its dramaturgy, Rage in Heaven sounds many of the minor-key motifs and dark timbres that would shortly coalesce into the noir cycle. Its most striking aspect has to be its acceptance of its disturbed central character as a given, without attempting to supply a neat, reassuring `explanation.'

The story – set in England, for no good reason – opens with a teasing prelude at a French insane asylum. But soon, in London, we meet up with Robert Montgomery as he meets up with old chum George Sanders and whisks him off to the country house of Montgomery's widowed mother (Lucile Watson), who in ailing health has retained the services of a companion (Ingrid Bergman). Though Bergman and Sanders generate some electricity, when he departs she marries Montgomery. This proves ill-advised.

Montgomery, who reluctantly has taken charge of the family's steel works, shows himself to be not only incompetent, irrationally jealous and vindictive, but also self-loathing, desperately insecure, and (as it turns out, like his father) suicidal. He requires unquestioned obedience, even at the risk of running his business into the ground – or poisoning his marriage. He lures back Sanders in order to validate his suspicions of an affair between his wife and his best friend but, when no evidence emerges, devises a fiendish plot to ruin all their lives. His plans almost succeed, but for an eleventh-hour deus ex machina, in the person of the head of that sanitarium in the outskirts of Paris.

Though somewhat cleverly contrived, the ending remains a contrivance yet doesn't quite invalidate the movie's dark vision (perhaps owing more to Christopher Isherwood, who wrote the screenplay, than to James Hilton's novel). Montgomery elects to play a charming villain, as he did in Night Must Fall, perhaps unsure of just how to depict a deranged psyche (he wasn't far off the mark). Sanders gets wasted as a square-rigger, which was never his long suit.

That leaves the radiant Bergman, two years before Casablanca assured her stardom, handed the thankless world of the loyal, longanimous wifey. In this flawed but unsettling and precocious melodrama, it's she who utters the final benediction. That benediction lingers in the mind as an enlightened touch – and a far cry from the black/white mentality of today's thrillers, which view psychological aberration as just a more heinous kind of evil, and so a further justification for triumphantly exterminating the evildoers.

This film, based on a James Hilton novel, is not often seen these days. In part, the material Christopher Isherwood extracted from the book doesn't make a good movie. As directed by W. S. Van Dyke, the film seems to have been sabotaged by its star, Robert Montgomery, who made no secret he didn't want to be in the picture. It's a shame because the rest of the players are evidently acting in a different movie.

The melodrama has some interesting things going for it. First there is the luminous appearance of Ingrid Bergman in her third Hollywood film. Also, George Sanders has one of the best roles he ever played in the movies. Both Ms. Bergman and Mr. Sanders are the reason for watching. Lucile Watson, Oscar Homolka and Philip Merivale, among others, make great contributions to the film.

While this is not by any means a horrible film, it could have been improved if only Mr. Montgomery, a welcome presence in any movie, would have done a better job inter acting with the rest and following direction.

Lighten up reviewer and enjoy this movie for what it is. Good Old fashioned entertainment. I've watched this movie man times and always enjoy it. Aubrey Mather as Clark is worth the admission price.