Meurtre à l'aube

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).

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.

Nifty little film with a surprise ending!

Michael Redgrave is on his way to work via train when he sees what looks like a murder in an apartment window. When he goes to investigate (with a cop in tow) it turns out to be something else altogether.

He meets a magician (Paul Lukas) and his beautiful wife/assistant (Sally Gray) and gets involved in their lives (and unhappy marriage). As he gets pulled into their lives, he becomes more and more attracted to Gray. Meanwhile, his own wife (Patricia Roc) is having her own problems at work.

What starts out as the act of a good Samaritan turns into a meandering tale of intrigue. This one never quite goes where to expect it o. Worth looking for.

Redgrave, Gray and Lukas are all especially good in this one. It's a wonder that Sally Gray wasn't scooped up by Hollywood.

Michael Redgrave is on the train to his job as a crane operator. He sees at a window Paul Lukas killing Sally Gray.

It's a great start for a movie, and it was used before. LADY IN DISTRESS is a remake of the French METROPOLITAIN. I'd like to offer you a comparison of the two movies, but I've never seen the earlier film. I do know that Michael Redgrave is miscast as a working stiff who rides around in taxicabs. Sally Gray, on the other hand, impresses me as more than eye candy with a sullen expression for the first time. She's very good as the unwilling femme fatale who drives her husband, stage magician Lukas, crazy with jealousy, talent manager Hartley Power, sad with hopelessness and Redgrave mad with the possibilities of a magical night.

There are many early noir elements in this movie, filled, as it is, with Gallic fatalism, and can be viewed as an important step in its evolution. It's just not a film noir in itself.

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').