Noche en el alma

If you are a fan of Jacques Tourneur, "Experiment Perilous" is a must-see. This sinister and beautifully photographed period thriller ranks with Tourneur's supreme masterpieces, "Out of the Past", "Stars in My Crown", "Canyon Passage", "Curse of the Demon", "I Walked with a Zombie", and "Cat People". It is imbued with Tourneur's trademark touch of ambiguity and mystery. One of the reasons "Experiment Perilous" is so underrated is that the story does not flow logically. You have to do a bit of brain work to understand it, but if you are already familiar with Tourneur's cinema, this may come as a revelation. The film has often been compared to Cukor's similar costume thriller "Gaslight" which was also released in 1944 but "Experiment Perilous" is a better and more personal work. The opening chance encounter between Dr. Bailey (George Brent) and Cissie (Olive Blakeney) on the train resembles the mysterious chance meetings of "Cat People" and Tourneur's 1956 film noir "Nightfall". It has been said that the film was set in 1903 as opposed to 1944 because Heddy Lamarr wanted to wear period costumes. Lamarr is undoubtedly beautiful and her scenes with Brent and Lukas are exquisite and sensual.

There is an excellent analysis on the film in Chris Fujiwara's book, JACQUES TOURNEUR: THE CINEMA OF NIGHTFALL (1998).

Jack Tourneur knew how to build an ominous atmosphere :remember the scenes at the pool in "cat people",the meeting on the moor in "circle of danger" and almost everything in " night of the demon".

The meeting with the old Clarissa on the train,the station where she leaves the hero ,and the way she says goodbye (actually farewell) is almost supernatural.Then the extraordinary beauty of Hedy Lamarr and her picture add to build an eerie atmosphere ,sometimes recalling as user has pointed out ,"gaslight" .

The script,however ,does not always make sense ,and lacks focus ,unlike the three other works I mention.But just for the atmosphere ,this is another Tourneur you should not miss.

Atmospheric account of a chance meeting on a train that leads a doctor (George Brent) into the strange world of a young woman (Hedy Lamar) and her much older husband (Paul Lukas) . The opening takes place on a night time train ride to New York through cascading rainfall, and the inclement weather conditions continue on into a snowy and cloudy New York of the early 1900's. A story of a rich and jealous older husband with a lovely young wife, whom he had groomed in Parisian salons to enter society, and now feels insecure when she's enjoying the very society that he paid thousands of dollars to educate her to be in, who grew up in Austria and became laden with guilt and who now is so damaged that he can't see clearly enough to recognize his own good circumstances, and thus ruins everything. Director Jacques Tourneur dissects this pathological family (they have a son whom they keep in a bedroom which is up a spiral staircase) with great attention, creating some believable menace in true psychological suspense style. The need for a hero figure (Brent) to rescue the pretty Lamar and her innocent young son and provide a suitable conclusion, and Lamar's rather distracted and distant acting style are legitimate quibbles, but the overall tone is intelligently dark and serious.

Many critics have never been able to get past Hedy Lamarr's fabulous face. She was so beautiful, that it was hard to realize that she was actually human, an not some marble work of art. I think she gave a fine performance in this slick psychological thriller. The supporting cast was also good. I know I am probably the only person in the world, who would have preferred Hedy Lamarr over Bergman, in Gaslight. With superior direction, and a better script, I think Hedy Lamarr could have turned in a very good performance. Anyway, Experiment Perilous is a little gem, made during Hollywood's golden age.

Beautifully mounted recreation of 19th century New York, which is not surprising since this was RKO's golden age of set design and art direction. Those wall encased aquariums that line the main hall are shrewdly suggestive that anything might happen in such an exotic old mansion. Note too, the constant presence of snow on the sidewalks, a realistic and atmospheric touch unusual because of the expense.

The opening scenes foreshadow dangers to come-- the locomotive plowing through flooded tracks, the odd "birdlike" passenger who intrudes with her strange story. All of this had me thinking the movie would be special. Indeed, the first half is intriguing as the doctor (Brent) delves further into the mysterious death of the birdlike woman. However, the second half flattens out into a rather static drawingroom drama that fails to generate the kind of edge-of-the-seat climax that's needed.

George Brent was never a charismatic leading man, bland at best. Here, however, he blends right in as the stolidly responsible doctor who can be believed. The trouble is that the script follows him around for almost the entire time, and since he's seldom privy to events with the boy, we don't get much sense of the menace surrounding the boy that should drive the suspense, but doesn't. La Marr, of course, looks exquisite as the script requires; nonetheless, her skills as a besieged wife are considerably less than those of Ingrid Bergmann in the remarkably similar Gaslight (1944). Then too, Paul Lukas lacks the kind of conniving charm that the part calls for, making the showdown less a revelation of his true character, than a simple extension.

On the other hand, the movie has the great Albert Decker as a maverick sculptor who breathes real life into the proceedings, along with a terrific explosion and fire that's a real grabber. However, I'm still puzzling over that awkward epilogue involving the cop at movie's end. Was that to satisfy Code requirements that nothing gets past the police since there is an element of deception that would otherwise be left hanging. Anyway, whatever the movie's shortcomings, it remains unerringly pictorial throughout, a tribute to the artistic eye of director Jacques Tourneur and the RKO art department.