Le fils du pendu

Although the story could have easily been adapted into a gritty film noir, director Frank Borzage turns it into a dreamlike, and even romantic, saga of guilt and expiation. The plot is simple and uncomplicated. No cynical, wisecracking dialogue; no hard-boiled detectives or double-crossing femme fatales. The small town setting with frequent rural scenes creates a world far removed from the unusual noir cityscape. The love story unfolds with both strong sexual attraction and delicacy. Imbued with a strong atmosphere and vision all its own, MOONRISE resists easy classification. Like THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER, it succeeds in creating a drama of mythic resonance in an American rural setting.

During all his childhood ,Danny had only known ragging.Being the son of a hanged man was not easy when your school pals kept laughing at you.We can comprehend Danny's hate for Jerry Snykes ,the boy born silver spoon in hand ,whose father is a banker .

The resentment had been building up for years.Not only Danny was an innocent victim ,but he also showed compassion for the half-wit,the town youth's punching bag.As grandma says,he is a good guy ,and so was his father,another unfortunate victim of fate .

When Danny tries to join the human race,that is to say when he falls in love with Gilly ,it's too late: "why do you always take me far from the others?" she complains.The scene at the fair could be a respite : this is a place dear to Borzage;you may remember Margaret Sullavan on a carousel in "little man what now? " and there's a similar scene in "Liliom" .But the big wheel is also a trap.

Filmed in black and white ,often in the dark,in a desperate atmosphere ,"Moonrise" is an extraordinary film noir.It nearly matched the brilliance of Borzage's precedent decade.

Moonrise (1948)

A small rural town is the setting for a man struggling with an ambiguous crime he has committed. It's a psychologically loaded movie, and the clues start with the first abstract frames and last through every scene to the end. There is enough simplifying going on to keep it from being a classic or having the inventive flair of some contemporaries (or like "Night of the Hunter" a few years later), but I was impressed again in this second viewing.

One of the strengths here is certainly the mood created by all the richly blackened night scenes, both in the town and in the woods. The camera moves with unusual elegance and boldness through the scenes, or you might say through the shadows. The heightened angles and lack of faces in the first few shots is a sign of the atmosphere to come.

The little known leading actor, Dane Clark, is almost perfect in his role, partly for doing a great job and partly for letting his awkwardness bleed through into the character's. You come to feel his circumstance as an utterly ordinary guy. The sheriff is a restrained character and the man's girlfriend has a wonderful simple presence as well.

The real meat of it all is the trauma this man goes through bearing the guilt of his actions. He isn't so much pursued as just haunted by the thought of being caught. It's like the secret we all have had at some point and we get away with it for awhile, but it wears you out from inside until something has to give. One of his solutions finally it to run for it, and he has one last turning point near the end with his grandmother played by Ethel Barrymore. The folksy philosophy gets a little thick, I suppose, but by this point you go along with it because it's true. And it's not what you might think.

If you don't like old movies this will feel clumsy at times. But if you do already have a hankering for film noir and other crime dramas, even ones with mostly unknown actors, give this a try. And keep your eyes open for some great photography by John Russell, who is as important as anyone in this production. On some level it's truly great stuff.

Really interesting photography and moody music sets the tone in this very stylish, excellent film noir about a troubled, bitter man who has a rather bad temper caused by the treatment he has received over the years based on the hanging of his father for murder. One youth who taunted him in childhood has now become a rival for a young lady he admires and in an act of violence and anger, he ends up killing this bully with a rock. But - during the crime he drops his pocket knife which is picked up by a local man who is deaf and mute.

This film is very dark and atmospheric, full of facial close-ups, shadowy rooms, and an interestingly photographed ferris wheel ride with cop and panicky murderer in separate seats as the wheel goes round and round. Well done performances by all, I thought Dane Clark very convincing in his role - he really comes across as broody and bitter. Ethel Barrymore really good in her small, but effective part as his grandmother and Harry Morgan very memorable as the deaf-mute young man. I saw this film on the big screen and the print looked really great, with very sharp black and white contrast. A first-rate film.

MOONRISE shines. Borzage brings expressionist silent movie technique to bear on what is really more a melodrama than a film noir, a tale of guilt and redemption ultimately close to his romantic concerns. The difference is the degree of psychological angst we have to go through with the protagonist in order to reach it. Borzage's technique brings us into the hero's mind, from the stunning opening (flashbacks within flashbacks) to the hero's guilty visions. That opening is one of the finest I've ever seen, building up an unbelievable pressure in the first couple of minutes of the picture, leading to a thirst for revenge which the hero, and the audience, can spend the rest of the film regretting.