Meurtre à l'aube

You probably don't believe that an obscure English film from 1940 that you've never heard of directed by nobody you've heard of is worth watching. I didn't either until I saw this - what a surprise, it's great!

Let me qualify that 'great.' If you enjoy a good old fashioned gritty, film noir drenched in melodrama without any mushy sentimentality, you'll love this. All the characters are superbly realised with genuine personalities and back stories - they just seem so believable. You can engage with them all and empathise with their tangled and toxic relationships.

Nobody is particularly fun but Michael Redgrave (wearing a flat cap to make him working class!) is constantly cheerful, oblivious to the mayhem he's causing. He's a rather imperfect husband with a pretty wife who becomes infatuated with the wife of a third rate magician. She is played by Sally Gray who is so drop dead gorgeous it's quite understandable. Her husband is Paula Lukas and he's brilliantly over the top as paranoid, insecure utter failure as a magician, husband and man. I'd go as far as saying that this is one of his best roles.

Director Herbert Mason, hardly a well known name, doesn't have any particular style or tricks but succeeds completely in making this totally engrossing. His story was a tried and tested one as this is an English remake of a French film made a year earlier so he had the advantage of knowing the story worked. He really brings his talented cast to life. Lucas and Redgrave are excellent as you'd expect but so is Sally Gray. Whilst she's absolutely stunning, she's also a superb actress.

Although it's very English it has an almost similar feel to those gritty Warner Brothers pre-code movies but with the benefit of a decade's worth of technological advances in filmmaking. Its lack of sugar coating and sentimentality is also refreshing and the likeability of its imperfect characters makes this sublimely entertaining.

This is an amazing thriller mainly consisting of surprises all the way. It starts like a comedy , and the comedy mood seems to be its dominating element, but then enter the abyss of jealousy. Sally Field is the wife of a magician whose life is a tempestuous roller-coaster of failures and redemptions, and into this messy life of an incalculable jealous artist of some diabolical talent (Paul Lukas, fresh from "The Lady Vanishes") comes Michael Redgrave clumsily interfering in what he believes is a murder attempt of Lukas on his wife. Well, Michael is also married, but his wife gets sacked from her job, while Michael gets mixed up with the jealous husband, and it all seems to go really bad for everybody. But you are still in for many surprises.

It's a wonderfully witty film, almost heralding the best moments of Powell & Pressburger and with some definite elements of Hitchcock, the scene at the night club is a highlight, and the theatre scenes with some extras are also hilarious with an expected tragic climax, trigging quite a few catastrophes - but never mind, this is first class entertainment all the way, and afterwards you will feel kind of upside down. The script is by Ian Dalrymple, and I think that's where most of the credit should go. An additional asset, though, is a very accomplished music score by Bretton Byrd.

A remake of a French film made four years earlier called 'Metropolitan' transformed by it's journey across the Channel. The vivid record of prewar London before the railings came down is today naturally the film's main attraction, although the production design of the interiors also contributes it's fair share of atmosphere.

In support of a young and rangy Michael Redgrave are Paul Lukas (who Redgrave had just worked with on 'The Lady Vanishes') and Hartley Power (who Redgrave would later shoot in 'Dead of Night').

This movie was excellently directed and acted, almost flawlessly so. Yet the plot lost focus along the way and created too many ambiguities.

Sally Gray was the primary interest in the film. Though compared to Ginger Rogers, she was more like Veronica Lake. Indeed, at the end she actually appears with her hair in a peek-a-boo style. She looked stunningly beautiful in the film throughout but also gave a superb performance.

The problem is it's hard to justify why she would stay with her husband/partner who showed almost no virtues throughout the film. To make a relationship like that work, the husband should have been written as loving for the most part with a little flaw of temperament. As it is it's hard to see what someone like Vivienne (Gray) could see in him, especially since he seems much older than her and is not especially good-looking. It's true she admires his illusionist artistry, but that's hardly enough to keep a woman attached to a man.

Also puzzling is the man-wife relationship of Michael Redgrave (Peter) and his wife, Pat, played by Patricia Roc. Their relationship is barely touched upon and seems out of place in the film. Moreover, the film apparently sees no problem in Peter's obsession with Vivienne, which actually amounts to adultery (he kisses her passionately) though they have no sex in the film. The failure of the film is it doesn't even address the implications of Peter's double romantic life as if it were of no consequence. Keep in mind the year the film was made, which makes Peter's potentially adulterous affair even more puzzling. Did audiences of the time care?

I also found the brusque ending a letdown. It's an ending that might work in a half-hour Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode, but not in a feature-length movie where we develop an affection for the leading lady.

Finally the subplot regarding Pat's telephone job seems too episodic with the rest of the film.

But one can cast all that aside and enjoy the stunning beauty of Sally Gray, the fine direction, acting, and editing throughout and even some illusionist episodes,

From a train window, crane-driver Michael Redgrave thinks he sees a woman being strangled. What follows is an unusual and effective story involving a magician, his assistant wife and a subtle interplay of illusion and murder. Refreshingly directed by the overlooked Herbert Mason, and well performed throughout (particularly Redgrave and Sally Gray), this small gem benefits greatly from its varied and credible London backgrounds, including music halls (including magic shows), mundane work places not normally seen in British films of the period, and construction work on Waterloo Bridge, under which the National Film Theatre is situated (which is where I last saw this film).