L'esprit pervers

It's a dark movie - literally. At the first look at the vileness Hilda Blake (Helen Thimig) you will probably think: this is very bad acting. Than you realize Mrs Thiming is a great actress and that Hilda is a very scary character. There is an interesting romance between a soldier and a woman doctor suffering with a little community prejudice. All the action happens around a very big picture of a beautiful young woman, and the sinister Hilda give orders all the time to her submissive "friend" Ivy Miller (Edith Barrett). It's a pity that in the end the screenplay turns a little dumb in important details. This is the sixth film from Anthony Mann, and its style reminds me the very early Alfred Hichcock.

A seriously wounded Marine is given the will to live again through letters from a girl he's never met. He arranges to go and visit her when he's home on leave. Aboard a train to where Rosemary lives he mistakenly thinks for a moment that their paths have physically crossed before he arrives. A woman sitting opposite is carrying a copy of 'A Shropshire Lad' book of poems by Alfred Edward Houseman. That is the very book that had brought about the correspondence between the marine and Rosemary.

The woman on the train is Dr Ross who has just become the doctor for Rosemary's household. As Johnny the Marine is about to explain his mistake to Dr Ross the train crashes and many of the passengers are in need of her medical treatment. This brings these two strangers close and romance would have seemed to have blossomed if it wasn't Johnny's love for Rosemary who had saved his life through those letters. But Rosemary is not at home when Johnny finally gets to his destination.

Rosemary's house is on a remote clifftop. There lives Rosemary's mother and her nervous companion Ivy Miller. Rosemary becomes a mystery and her disabled mother is shown to be the kind who may live in a fantasy world for some reason. Tension builds as 'Rosemary's mother' becomes capable of endangering others in her bid to keep the romance between her daughter and Johnny alive. Not one moment is lost in this deft telling of a poor deranged woman who needs to imagine an alternative reality for herself.

Sgt. Johnny Meadows (William Terry) and Dr. Leslie Ross (Virginia Grey) are "Strangers in the Night" when they meet on a train. During his time fighting his war injuries, Johnny fell in love via mail with a Rosemary Blake, whom he tells Leslie he's en route to meet.

Leslie doesn't tell him that he's met the very strange old Mrs. Blake (Helene Thimig) who seemed very put off that Leslie was a doctor, and a pretty one at that. In those days apparently a woman doctor was very unusual and off-putting.

Johnny visits Rosemary, but she's away. Instead he meets her mother and, while looking at Rosemary's portrait, he faints, still weak from not only his injuries, but an accident that occurred during the train ride. When the doctor is called, Leslie arrives. When Mrs. Blake realizes that Johnny and Rosemary know one another, she is visibly upset.

Mrs. Blake is odd, but the woman working for her, Edith (Edith Barrett) is a total wreck. She actually comes to see Dr. Ross, wanting to tell her something, but can't seem to get it out.

However when Johnny realizes that he's fallen for Leslie in Rosemary's absence, Mrs. Blake takes action.

This is quite a story, with Grey an absolutely beautiful, radiant young woman. I only have seen her as she was twenty years later, still beautiful but not as young. She is charming as the doctor.

Directed by Anthony Mann, Strangers in the Night is an atmospheric, absorbing film, short but entertaining.

Grey's story is a sad one - she had an on and off relationship with Clark Gable, and when Gable married someone else post-war, Grey was devastated and never married herself.

William Terry is affable as Johnny. Helene Thimig makes a terrifying Mrs. Blake.

Recently Released on Blu-ray, this Obscure Anthony Mann Film has been in the Shadows of His Top-Tier Film-Noir and James Stewart Series of Westerns.

Moving on From the 1950's Mann Chose Big-Budget Historical Epics Popular in the Early 60's like "Fall of the Roman Empire" (1964) and "El Cid" (1961).

So the Trifecta of Film-Noir, the Neo-Realist Westerns, and Behemoth Blockbusters, Pushed this Little Film to the Back of the Pack in the Mann Filmography.

It's a Strange One that Features a Gothic, Psychological, Demented Story of a German-Accented, Cripple (Helene Thimig) well in Her 80's, Suffering from Numerous Disorders of the Freudian Nature.

She Dominates this Bizarre Movie as She is a Force of Nature Trying to Control the "Regular" People in Her Spinning Out-of-Order, Out-of-Sync Orbit.

Played Today it has a Familiar Vibe Utilized in many B-Movies and TV Anthologies.

Not So in 1944. It Displays its Unnatural Universe of Secret Worships and Devastating Dementia with Things Modern Audiences can Hardly Relate.

Pen Pals, Huge Painted Portraits over the Fire-Place, and Misdirected Manipulation by an Old Hag Destroyed by Nature's Unwillingness to Cooperate with Her Demands.

Virginia Grey as a Doctor Confronting Her Peers and Patients Double-Takes because of Her Profession does add a Modern Twist to the Feminine Mystique.

Edith Barrett as Ivy, the Live-In Spinster Companion Forced to Bow and Curtow to the Dynamic Personality of the Old Woman is Simply Superb in a Difficult Role.

A Wicked and Wonderful Movie that has Finally been Given its Due.

I'm actually surprised that this movie hasn't resurfaced as a kind of cult classic in recent years of the digital age. We are all familiar with social media and what "catfishing" is. Strangers In The Night is a wonderfully eerie catfishing tale as it would have taken place in the 1940s before social media. In a way the movie was ahead of its time. For being just under an hour long, though, it sure does have a lot of story packed into it. There's also a feminist element to it (female doctor).