Beware, My Lovely

Mel Dinelli , whose contributions to the movies include the intelligent scripts to the minor classics "The Window " and "The Spiral Staircase" wrote a play called "The Man " which ran on Broadway and provided the source material for this entertaining minor thriller . Ida Lupino plays a widow in small town middle America ,shortly after World War one ,who gives a job as house cleaner to a vagrant ,played by Robert Ryan ,unaware that he is a psychopath ,with a tendency to memory lapses ,and a history of killing his former employers as well as having a major persecution complex. It is not too long before she is being held prisoner in her own home and in mortal fear of her life .

Crisp direction from Harry Horner and two coiled spring performances by the estimable leads keep interest and tension high . Only a strident and conventional score ,replete with skittish strings and discordant brass ,plus a somewhat rushed ending mitigate against a higher rating.

Gripping and enjoyable all the same with both stars confirming how undervalued they still are.

Beware, My Lovely is an experimental studio film from the early fifties and was directed by a man, Harry Horner, better known for his set designs. Robert Ryan plays a handyman who is hired by Ida Lupino to do some housework for her. The problem is that he is a psychopathic murderer and doesn't know it. Miss Lupino is an empathetic soul and tries to win Ryan over, to little avail. He is not the sort of man compassion could help or cure. Thus we have an interesting situation of two people who basically mean well, but one of them can't do well because there is something wrong with him. He suffers periodic blackouts during which he commits acts of violence, which he later forgets.

Essentially the effect Ryan has on Lupino is that of the hunter and his prey, or in another sense a sadist. The audience finds out early on that Ryan is a mad killer, but it takes Lupino much longer. Thus we must live with this knowledge as we watch poor Miss Lupino try everything in her power to 'win' Ryan over in order to make things work, get the job done, get on with life. But getting on with things isn't in Ryan's makeup, as he is incapable of any but the most rudimentary forms of normality, and as soon as there is an opening his paranoia asserts itself.

As a study in mental illness the movie isn't too impressive. What it's superlative at is showing the effect of major mental illness, with dangerous psychopathology in the mix, and its effect on a normal person. In this regard the film is realistic and compassionate, though relentlessly logical in that we know Lupino can't 'fix' Ryan, yet we want her to. The result is that, if one is willing, one can get extremely involved in this film emotionally if one can put aside, so to speak, its melodramatic structure.

Horner shows us, gradually, the layout the Lupino house , a forbidding gothic monstrosity that never feels like a home. We become familiar with staircase, kitchen and pantry; and we come to know which windows Miss Lupino can use for an escape and which ones she can't.

I saw this film yesterday for the first time, and I guess it shows that one's opinions of beauty (and the caliber of acting) really are in the "eyes of the beholder." I decided to write this "review" for one primary reason: The writer of the first review referred to Ida Lupino's role as that of "a homely widow." Homely? If Ida was "homely" in this film, then my taste in women must be flat ass backwards. I thought she was gorgeous, quite possibly the best I've ever seen her look. The other reviewers with whom I strongly disagree are those who criticized the acting. Say what you will about the film (it undeniably had it's flaws as well as its strengths), IMHO, the acting of the two principals was absolutely spectacular. Robert Ryan's expressions changed almost by the second as he slipped into, and out of, reality. And Ida was magnificent from beginning to end. I agree that the ending was a major disappointment. My immediate reaction to it was to say to myself, "THAT'S the end?" Nevertheless, the experience of watching those two performers play off each other for an hour and a half is definitely one that I would strongly recommend.

Howard Wilton is a troubled man, driven by an anger he can barely control far less understand and plagued by blackouts and spells of amnesia. Finding a dead body in his pantry, he flees the scene and boards a train to continue his nomadic life. He takes a job at the home of widower Helen Gordon as a cleaner but soon finds himself feeling mocked and judged by Helen and others. When he breaks loose, Howard holds Helen in the house, with her fearing for her life from this irrational stranger.

I was attracted to this film because the title suggested a tough detective film noir – something that was backed up by the description of the film as such on this very site. Very quickly though I realised that this was down to some people's assumption that anything that is black and white and tough gets called a "noir" but I was not disappointed because this domestic thriller is driven by two very good performances. The film starts well with Howard quickly being marked out as unbalanced at best as he runs in fear and disgust from the very crime that he has committed; it isn't long before we see this end result starting to develop again in his new house. The plot is simple in this regard but it is the delivery that keeps it tense, with the confines of the house adding to the feeling of claustrophobia and lack of an escape route. It isn't outstanding stuff but what makes it work as well as it did was a pair of strong performances from the famous lead actors.

Ryan has the hammy role but manages to play it just right, delivering the complex character well while also convincing me that he could neither explain or control what he was doing. Lupino is as good as always and it is her palatable fear and confinement that gripped me and really made me buy into it. The support cast are ample but really Ryan and Lupino are hardly off the screen and it is the film's strength that they are all that it needs to do the job.

Overall this is not the film I was expecting but it was still very enjoyable and effective. The story is mainly kept within the house, upping the tension and the story is well delivered by two strong performances that make the film well worth seeing.

Ida Lupino is trapped in her own home by crazy Robert Ryan in "Beware, My Lovely," a 1952 film from RKO. Lupino and Ryan did three films together and worked well as a team, both being consummate professionals and strong performers.

In this film, based on a Broadway play called "The Man," Lupino is a World War I widow who rents out a room in her home. She's very active and well-liked in her community and though her husband has been dead for two years, she's not ready to move on. The man who rents her room goes on vacation, and Lupino hires Robert Ryan to help her with some heavy-duty cleaning in the house.

He's friendly enough to start, but later terrorizes her, locking her in the house, and not allowing her to answer the phone or the door, as he grows violent and more out of touch with reality.

The character played by Ryan is shown in the beginning of the movie running away when he discovers a dead body in another house he's working in. It isn't clear whether or not he's the killer, since he seems surprised to see the body.

He might be a split personality, as when his personality turns ugly toward Lupino, he seems to have no memory of his activities when he comes out of it. He doesn't know that he has the keys to Lupino's house in his pocket and doesn't know why he has tickets to a party that he bought from young children who came to the door.

"Beware, My Lovely," is a very suspenseful film, and the two leads give terrific performances. The tension builds to a very high level and ends in a way you're not expecting.