Le masque arraché

"Sudden fear" is everything a good thriller should be.An inventive use of the recorder (an antique today!);The "revenge is a dish best eaten cold" subject masterfully treated;The "flashforwards" in the conditional tense -the "accidents" ,"Irene's schedule"-;the things which seem banal and which play a prominent part in the story:the clock,the wind-up toy,the mirror,all contributes to building a film full of suspense .The three leads ,Joan Crawford , a wealthy lady getting old and thinking she 's found true love,Jack Palance ,not the romantic lead of her play but a disturbing character ,and Gloria Grahame at her bitchiest are terrific.

Like this?Try these.......

"Sorry wrong number" Anatole Litvak 1948

"Dial M for Murder" Alfred Hitchcock 1954

"Les Diaboliques" Henri Georges Clouzot 1955

"Sleep my love" Douglas Sirk 1948

There are some very good features to this thriller that make up for its occasional flaws. Joan Crawford is very good in a role that gives her a chance to do a lot of different things, and the story builds up suspense effectively, to the point where you share in the anxiety and fear of her character. Those strengths make up for the implausible and occasionally unsatisfying plot turns.

Crawford's role gives her a chance to start off as a supremely confident, comfortable playwright, whose dream world is then transformed into a nightmare. She does quite a convincing job of taking her character through the joys, fears, and other turns that she experiences. It is largely thanks to her performance that the suspense build-up works especially well. By the time that the lengthy cat-and-mouse game in the last half of the movie begins, you are really thinking and feeling along with her. The crisis is built up skillfully, though again at the cost of some credibility.

This works very well the first time you see it. Watching it over again, it is easier to see through the less credible plot devices and other small flaws. But none of the flaws detract from Crawford's fine leading performance. Overall, it's a pretty good thriller and certainly well worth seeing once.

Joan Crawford is an heiress and a famous playwright. During rehearsals, she insists that Jack Palance be fired: It's not that he isn't a good actor. He just doesn't have the matinée idol looks, she maintains. Before we know it, the play has been successfully launched and she is on a train back to San Francisco. Who should kind of turn up on this train but Palance? He and Crawford play poker and she falls in love with him. OK, it seems: He wasn't right for a Broadway Don Juan. But for an unmarried lady of a certain age like her, he has just what it takes.

The fact that Crawford and Palance (the actors) have no chemistry isn't a problem. In a way, it works in the movie's favor. We know he hasn't forgotten the humiliation she put him through. We know she thought him not so hot to begin with.

Gloria Graham is used well as his girlfriend. They're kind of rough with each other too. He speaks of breaking all her bones, rather casually and almost endearingly.

Once Crawford and Palance have married, the suspense heats up. It's a highly suspenseful film -- well written and well directed. Palance is nimble in his role and Crawford is at her very best too. My problem with it is that I've seen it a few times and the print has never been good, which is a problem in the dark scenes toward the end.

But compare this with other movies Crawford was making at around the same time. "Torch Song" is one of the most outrageously ludicrous star vehicles of all time. "Queen Bee" is pretty funny, too -- unintentionally, of course. "Female on the Beach" ... In all the others, men come from miles to fall at Joan's feet. (Speaking of feet, "Sudden Fear" seems, for whatever reason to have more than a usual number of close-ups of its stars stockinged feet and her shoes.) No one has ever seen anyone so beautiful as Crawford in these movies. Maybe this made sense at the time but it doesn't now. She was near 50. Inthose days, this was like being near 65 for a woman.

In "Sudden Fear," she is an old maid. No one comments on her appearance one way or another. She is rich and successful but it doesn't seem that we're meant to view her as a great beauty. What we have instead is a beautiful movie -- quite possibly her best.

It seems that the first impressions are really the most lasting. No matter how seriously we take that into account, a slightly similar conclusion could arise at the encounter of a playwright Myra Hudson (Joan Crawford) with an actor she auditions. Lester Blaine (Jack Palance) does not appear to be HER idea of a romantic leading man, "he just looks romantic but does not sound so." What is more, his notion about an oil painting of Casanova leaves confusing riddle within her mind and yet...she will soon stand before the dilemma to make up her mind and stick to it no matter what price she is going to pay.

Like Joan Crawford did not, initially, prefer Jack Palance as her leading man in the motion picture, Myra Hudson did not fancy Lester. Changing her mind, however, occurs inevitable. Myra soon utters romantically "Without you I have nothing!" And yet, is the truth about him disguised behind a romantic smile? Will sudden fear occur to disillusion Myra and rescue her from sudden murder?

When I have recently viewed this wonderful film noir, I felt it was the right time because I had already got to know the greatest films of the genre, not superior ones but similar ones. What I mean by that are the films directed by the master of suspense, Alfred Hitchcock. When seeing SUDDEN FEAR, you had better be acquainted with some of Hitchcock's best films because then, you may realize that SUDDEN FEAR has so much in common with the gem of noir. It's Hitchcock's fertile theme and Miller's stylish bravura. From the characters, objects, undertones, certain details, doom-filled atmosphere to the unique charm of San Francisco and the utterance that seems to be the core of Hitchcock's suspense: "This place is so perfect for an accident." Let me broaden some aspects of David Miller's picture which make us see it as one of the greatest representatives of its genre in the purest form.

The TORMENTED LEADING CHARACTER, Myra Hudson played brilliantly by Joan Crawford, highlights something truly ahead of its time. As an executive producer of SUDDEN FEAR, Ms Crawford allows viewers to get into her inner psyche and provokes a progressive approach: we psychoanalyze her as a character! Nothing like a linear storytelling, forget it! Yet, something that talks about a psychological world. We psychoanalyze her 'professional eye' in the theater scene, her coldness melted on a train at the match game that becomes as mysterious as the manipulative flirts, her 'blind confidence' in wedding Lester, the seeds of doubt that are being slowly planted from the moment he does not answer her phone. As a matter of fact, this is a purely genius scene when viewers-observers, unlike Myra herself, are granted a signal: "something is wrong about him." As a result, we differ from Myra, we feel suspicion earlier than her and, consequently, wait for her disillusion. When the unbelievable shock comes in her library and she confronts the reality, her behavior is utterly unpredictable: she does not resort to a state of blending fantasy with reality but remains cold and disguised both to us and to the people around her. In that respect, isn't she a typical Hitchcock's leading lady? Apart from one difference - she is not a blonde. Nominated for Oscar, Joan Crawford offers us a pure masterwork of acting.

JACK PALANCE, who replaces Ms Crawford's initial wish of casting Marlon Brando or Clark Gable, is truly surprising as a leading man. The fact we are not used to him in such a highlighted performance that combines a doe-eyed romanticist with a secret fox makes the effect even more memorable. An important fact here to state is that Lester is equally appealing in the psychoanalyzing approach as Myra. His pretense at the beginning, his patronizing behavior on the train, his look at hands, and his gradual 'promotion' in Myra's eyes beautifully depict an ambitious type. Later, his vitality and efforts are, somehow, focused on two women: Myra and Irene. When Myra begins to be his object of wealth's desire, Irene becomes his object of lust's desire. She is a 'blonde of lust.' Their scheme is a realization of their sexuality - something very Hitchcock-like where crime goes with sex. "Kiss me hard..." Note the love scene at the fireplace in the summerhouse and the way it is shot. Oscar nominated for Best Supporting Actor, Jack Palance appears to give a performance beyond our expectations.

Another great aspect that makes the genre so engrossing and absorbing is the use of objects that manipulate our perceptions and the cinematography that builds the atmosphere. Staircase scenes that purely recall STRANGERS ON A TRAIN and many great noir genres. And the objects including the clock that reveals heartbeat, the phone that disturbs the chain of emotions and rises fear, and, above all, the DICTATING MACHINE that becomes, in a way, another character of the story. The nightmarish fantasy seems to recall SPELLBOUND. The atmosphere is immensely powerful as the secret is partly revealed by the dictating machine ("I know a way") and Myra's reaction being one of the most natural and daring we can encounter. Mind you the realism (she vomits and we deduce it). Charles Lang's cinematography reaches the climax in the shots of interiors where everything seems to be overwhelmed by torments: images are combined with various sounds from the clock ticking to screaming and morose silence.

For a number of reasons, SUDDEN FEAR is a surprisingly modern entertainment, its age makes it a unique achievement on its own and the one that will never be duplicated thanks to top rate performances, haunting cinematography, plenty of daring ideas. A really ambitious and insightful production. One and only in its riveting entertainment!

I've lately been listening to a series of blogs on Joan Crawford's career and so was directed to this film noir for which she was Oscar nominated. It turns out to be a terrific thriller with la grand dame Joan in her element as the rich middle-aged heiress who in her spare time knocks out hit plays on Broadway. While casting her new play she rejects for the lead part a young actor (Jack Palance in an early role) much to his disappointment but when they later share a train journey back to San Francisco, romantic sparks surprisingly seem to fly between them and before long Crawford's Myra Hudson apparently has the one thing missing from her comfortable but incomplete life, a loving husband. Or so she thinks. At one of the couple's house parties, an attractive young woman (Gloria Grahame) appears who we soon learn is actually Palance's girl-friend and before long they've cooked up a plan to get rid of the millionairess Joan, leaving all her lovely money to Palance as her grieving widower for them to spend.

Only problem is that Crawford plans to change her will as soon as her lawyer comes back to town after the weekend, donating the bulk of it to charity and so greatly reducing Palance's expected bounty. So Palance and Grahame hurriedly devise a plan to murder Crawford over the weekend but accidentally and inconveniently for them as it turns out, record their plan on Joan's dictaphone recording machine for her to later hear, much to her horror. When she accidentally breaks the recorded disc of the evidence, it seems to her the only way to save herself is to devise a cunning plan of her own to eliminate her would-be murderers. Like the playwright she is, Myra's own plan is carefully crafted but naturally things don't exactly go to plan leading to a tense, exciting dead of night climax on the dark deserted streets of San Francisco.

This is one of those noirs with a too-fantastic plot which could fall apart at any moment but builds up such a head of steam down to taut atmospheric direction, a strong Elmer Bernstein soundtrack and top acting by the three leads (Palance was Oscar-nominated too), that you're swept along with each unlikely turn of events until the fraught conclusion which returns Joan to a darkened apartment with a gun just like it did Mildred Pierce years before only this time she's looking out for herself and not her selfish daughter. She's great in this, her expressive face often shown in close-up reminding us she started in silent movies. Palance is surprisingly good as the fawning, oily-slick husband and Graham as ever is good value as the pushy, tarty mistress egging Palance on.

Making good use of San Francisco's exteriors, Joan's extensive wardrobe and in a key-scene, a mechanical toy-dog, this is a great fast-paced noir led by a star performer in one of her last but best leading roles.