High Wall

Robert Taylor in High Wall finds himself accused of wife Dorothy Patrick's murder. A head injury resulting from service as a pilot in the China-Burma-India Theater has rendered him susceptible to blackouts. When Patrick is strangled Taylor is a prime suspect, especially after he's caught racing from the crime scene.

It's a legal conundrum he's in. That head injury may just make him temporarily insane and Taylor's committed to a mental institution. There he meets psychiatrist Audrey Totter who's committed to rehabilitating him and loving him, not necessarily in that order in a given time in the film.

Though the story tends to go into the melodramatic the cast, especially Taylor give fine performances. I'm sure Taylor's background in the Navy during World War II helped him appreciate the plight of returning veterans like himself. Look also for great performances by Herbert Marshall as Patrick's boss and Vince Barnett as a blackmailing janitor with arthritis.

High Wall was Taylor's second film upon returning to MGM and it marked a step up from his first film Undercurrent. It still holds up well today.

I am surprised that this film was never given its due credit for its strengths while its weaknesses have been highlighted.

It is obvious to a casual viewer that the performance of Robert Taylor is superior to most of his other films that exploited his physical attributes more than his innate talent. Taylor would have been a good material for intelligent directors but unfortunately few worked with him. Director Curtis Bernhardt, with European experience behind him, utilized the range of emotions that he could extract from Taylor and the usually "wooden" Taylor emerges as an intelligent, purposeful individual.

The obvious weaknesses is the science of psychotherapy, brain surgery and truth serums that are presented in the film, which we now know are antiquated and incorrect. Bernhardt has been criticized for his apathetic depiction of mental asylums in the film. All of this is correct but what would you do in the Forties if that is what you knew of the subject at that time.

Director Bernhardt to me is the person to be most admired in this movie, not actor Taylor. Take the sequence of the visit of the asylum staff to the house of the mother of the lead male character. You see the milk bottles and the newspapers outside the door. You have no response to the doorbell. Then you see a child peeking from behind the curtains and meekly opening the door. No word is spoken. The dead mothers feet are shown to us. Cut to another sequence. That is great cinema--good understanding of psychology, and deliberate underplaying of emotions by merely using visuals and editing the shots without resorting to emotional dialog.

The second most interesting facet of the film is the script. The rain used in the film (couldn't have been from the original play) adds so much to the atmosphere of the film. The sequences in the restaurants and bars, however short, are highlights of the strong script.

The editing, antiquated as it looks nearly 60 years after the film was made, is noteworthy for its crispness and relevance. The camera-work, exploiting shadows on frosted glasses and dark alleys, is equally remarkable.

Curtis Bernhardt could have been proud of this work despite its weakness for researching the subject inadequately. Handsome Taylor can be credited with a handful of good performances and strangely all of those performances had him playing anti-heroes. This is is one of those few.

The former WWII pilot Steven Kenet (Robert Taylor) is captured by the police after driving his car off the road into a river with his deceased wife. He confesses that he killed his wife and is sent to a psychiatric hospital for medical evaluation. Kenet has a brain injury from the war that provokes amnesia and the justice department needs to know whether he may be charged of murder or not. Dr. Ann Lorrison (Audrey Totter) is assigned to treat him and offers a surgery to cure him but refused by Kenet. When Kenet is visited by the super of the apartment building where the boss of his wife lives, he insinuates that Willard I. Whitcombe (Herbert Marshall) killed his wife in his apartment. Now Kenet wants to recover his memory and accepts to be submitted to a treatment by Dr. Lorrison.

"High Wall" is a film-noir combined with melodrama and romance. The lead story is not bad, but the romance of Kenet and Lorrison has no chemistry and is hard to believe. The black-and-white cinematography is wonderful and the happy-ending is acceptable. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Muro de Trevas" ("Wall of Darkness")

THE HIGH WALL gives Robert Taylor a chance to demonstrate that he was a very capable actor and much more than just a pretty face. Audrey Totter, as a psychiatrist who decides to help him prove he did not kill his wife, makes a strong impression opposite him. And Herbert Marshall is quietly effective as a mysterious man who knows the truth.

All of it is directed in brisk film noir fashion by Curtis Bernhardt with the accent on dark shadows and rainy streets to give it the proper noir atmosphere.

Rather than tell the plot, I'll just say that the story moves swiftly and keeps the viewer absorbed from start to finish. It's a well-paced thriller that makes use of psychiatric trends that may date the film today--but it's all done with such authority that whatever script contrivances are present don't really matter. It's intense and absorbing all the way in true film noir style. Taylor has seldom been more convincing as the distraught bomber pilot trying to find out whether he killed his wife or not.

Robert Taylor is Steven Kenet, accused of killing his unfaithful wife in "High Wall," a 1947 film noir also starring Audrey Totter and Herbert Marshall. In our first glimpse of Steve, he's in a car with a dead woman careening down the road to get rid of her. The problem is, due to a brain injury suffered during the war, he can't remember what happened. He is institutionalized for psychiatric evaluation to see if he can stand trial as a sane person. Audrey Totter is Ann, the psychiatrist who takes in Steve's small son as well as works with her patient to try and uncover the truth. Herbert Marshall plays his dead wife's boss.

After World War II, Hollywood began to explore mental and emotional disorders and the use of psychiatry to unlock the traumas of the mind. "Possessed," "Spellbound," and "The Snake Pit" are just a few of the dozens of films employing the use of psychiatry, mental hospitals, and/or psychotropic drugs. In "High Wall," the psychiatry seems to be more of a plot device than something that is actually used to help the patient. It's there to provide flashbacks. Meanwhile, the Taylor character, once he has surgery, has a mind of his own and is constantly slipping out or in the psychiatrist's office window, hiding in her car, and visiting the scene of the crime. The biggest problem is that the character of the murder victim is never developed, and the reasons for her behavior are never made clear. Nevertheless, the film manages to hold one's interest, has a great atmosphere and a couple of really shocking moments. There are also some very funny bits throughout, including a scene where Steve meets the public defender.

This is one of Robert Taylor's best performances. After "Johnny Eager," one of Hollywood's biggest heartthrobs began to play more complex roles and more bad guys. It was a good move; he played them very well. He doesn't get much support from Audrey Totter, who turns in a dull, somewhat cold performance in an attempt to be a professional woman. She doesn't give the role a lot of shading. Herbert Marshall seems somewhat miscast and is too lethargic for a role that requires some emotional range.

Very watchable for handsome Taylor's excellent performance.