La Toile d'araignée

This is a very strange film about a mental institution which is operated by Dr. Stewart McIver, (Richard Widmark) and Dr. Douglas Devannal, (Charles Boyer). Stewart is married to Karen McIver, (Gloria Grahame) and they are both having marital problems, she claims he does not pay much attention to her and especially in bed. Meg Rinehart, (Lauren Bacall), is a new employee with the hospital and is divorced and has a young son. All of the staff has their own serious problems as well as trying to take care of some very serious mental patients who require a great deal of attention. It is hard to believe that the main subject in this film is about just plain simple drapes and just where to hang them and this is causing a great deal of problems with the patients and staff. Richard Widmark and Lauren Bacall gave a great performance along with the very sexy gal, Gloria Grahame. This is a very crazy film and it will keep you guessing just how this picture will ever end.

MGM put together quite a stellar cast for The Cobweb, another film in the tradition of Private Worlds and The Snake Pit about an insane asylum and the politics of running the place. After seeing this crowd at work, I'm not sure that the patients haven't taken over the place as they did in that classic Star Trek episode.

Richard Widmark is a new psychiatrist whose new methods allow granting of more freedom of the grounds to the inmates. What Widmark's character might think today of the number of patients walking around completely free today with only our trust that they will take their medications is interesting to speculate. Anyway it puts him at odds with Charles Boyer who is the medical head of the place.

Boyer is a man beset with problems of his own of a personal nature, he's drinking and wrenching around openly, a man going through a midlife crisis and playing it out in front of everyone including all the enemies he's made. Widmark however as a former disciple of his can't quite pull the trigger to get rid of him.

And Widmark is having his own problems, a neglected wife in Gloria Grahame and a fetching Lauren Bacall to tempt him.

But the best performance of the film comes from that grand old lady of the screen, Lillian Gish. She's the civilian record keeper of the place and a politician to the max. She plays off Widmark and Boyer, in fact The Cobweb would have been a better film had she been the central character. There's also a real good performance by Olive Carey as a Ratched like nurse, Ms. O'Brien.

John Kerr, Susan Strasberg, and Oscar Levant are all inmates of the place which is a rather posh establishment for the richer brand of neurotics. You can't imagine Widmark trying his experiments in freedom on the inhabitants of The Snake Pit.

The Cobweb is a film whose parts are greater than the whole effort. It could have been a whole lot better than it was given the talent involved.

This movie, based on a novel, was made when expensive private mental hospitals provided months or years of psychoanalytically-oriented treatment for small numbers of affluent patients. None of today's antipsychotic or mood-stabilizing pharmaceuticals was yet in use. (One scene shows a patient in a hydrotherapy tub - used for sedation.) Dr Devenal, when things are falling apart, ruefully looks at the book he has written – "The Theory and Practice of Milieu Therapy." This was an important movement in the 1950's, proposing that the patient community was a significant element of the treatment. Patient governments voted on many aspects of institutional life and even, at times, on treatment decisions that properly were the responsibility of professional staff. Conflict over new drapes seems today to be a foolish plot element, but, although exaggerated, it fit the context of the time.

I can only figure ace director Minelli got this movie on assignment. Because however much drama is inherent in the screenplay, it gets drained by an uncharacteristically flat visual style. There are no close-ups to emphasize emotion. Instead, the camera remains impersonal regardless what's happening with the characters. Plus the actors basically walk through their parts, excepting a fiery Gish and Grahame. Then too, the scenes simply follow one another without heightening the various dramatic impacts. The overall result is to disengage the viewer from what's on screen, creating what amounts to a limp drama.

As I recall, the movie got promoted on the basis of its marquee cast, including the classic Lillian Gish making her first appearance in a number of years. The large number of names, of course, required the script be extended so that each star would get an appropriate amount of screen time. This results in a number of subplots and an over-stretched 2-hour-plus runtime, way more than the slender who's-going-to decide-the-draperies premise can sustain.

However, unlike most reviewers, I don't object to the running issue of the curtains, ridiculous as it sometimes seems. After all, this is an institution for troubled people including the staff, so they may well obsess over something seemingly as minor as a decoration. Then too, who makes the decision serves as a catalyst for bringing out the various unresolved conflicts among the residents. I just wish the surrounding drama was better written, acted, and directed. Certainly, the talent was there to do just that. Instead we're left with a film that remains obscure for good reason.

Richard Widmark is a psychiatrist in "The Cobweb," also starring Lauren Bacall, Lillian Gish, Charles Boyer, John Kerr, Susan Strasberg and Gloria Grahame. It's quite a cast, especially when you realize that they were directed by Vincent Minnelli.

It's an absorbing story of the patients and the doctors at a mental institution. Widmark has basically taken over from the troubled Boyer - though Boyer retains his title, Widmark's contract gives him more power. Bacall, a recent widow, is a doctor on staff, and Lillian Gish is an administrator. The patient most focused on is Stevie, played by John Kerr. He is making good progress with his recovery, and in fact, some of the better patients are given control over designing their lounge. The sticking point becomes the draperies which become a political football. Widmark's wife, Gloria Grahame, wants to impose herself onto the institution that is taking her husband away from her by working with a board member on the drapes; Lillian Gish wants to save money and go the cheap route; and the patients have their own ideas.

This is a very good drama with good acting from all involved. Grahame is a brunette here and has never been more beautiful, plus she gets to wear some beautiful clothes. She, along with the others, gives a terrific performance.

The one with the best role is Lillian Gish, and she is fantastic. What an actress and what a career. Who could have believed she could play such a perfect bitch? Well worth watching if the plot is a little thin.