Sleep, My Love

Claudette Colbert wakes on the train bound to Boston. She has no memory of anything beyond going to bed the previous evening. In South Station she runs into college chum Rita Johnson, and her friend, Robert Cummings. Meanwhile, Claudette's husband, Don Ameche, is reporting her as missing to the police. He seems relieved when he gets her phone call. But there's more.

It soon becomes clear this is a rather sinister film noir, with Ameche gaslighting Miss Colbert so he can have her committed. It's a slow, deliberate movie, and quite creepy, with director Douglas Sirk getting in early potshots at the well-to-do. Mary Pickford is credited as the presenter, and her husband, Charles "Buddy" Rogers is one of the producers. It's a topnotch noir, one of the last Miss Pickford produced.

Sleep, My Love (1948)

OK, it's a no brainer. I love Claudette Colbert, I love this post-war period, and I love Douglas Sirk, the director. So it only figures that this unfolds in a delicious way.

The closest film to this is "Gaslight," which George Cukor makes into something more intense and memorable than this. But "Gaslight" is burdened by a kind of contorted plot--the reasoning behind the fake madness is some crazy lost jewel. This one, by fortunate contrast, is a really believable plot, and Colbert is faced with a very normal plot of a husband out to drive her away.

There are some weaknesses--the husband's girlfriend is pretty stiff, the Chinese pal is decent but sort of tacked on, and the overall development of things is too linear for a second viewing. But as a straight up drama, from start to finish, it's really strong. And a surprise for me was how charming in a low key way was Robert Cummings, the white knight of the story. Colbert's husband was played by the more famous Don Ameche, who is fine, though you get a sense he's going through the paces of a part, something he wasn't quite invested in.

The director is famous for his later dreamy, drippy soap opera movies that are quite something on their own terms, but this is good, and an important one to see if you like his work. For me, above all, is just another great Colbert appearance. First rate in many ways.

In maybe the only time he was a villain on screen Don Ameche uses his dapper charm against type playing a coldblooded man who is trying to drive his very rich wife Claudette Colbert out of her mind. Ameche has been thoroughly seduced by a sultry Hazel Brooks otherwise he'd probably stay a rich kept husband, it's Colbert who has all the bucks in the family.

As part of his plan he has George Coulouris who took a patent out on sinister and who is a photographer in real life going in the guise of a psychiatrist. That and some psychotropic drugs administered and a little amnesia have Colbert thinking she is indeed ready for the rubber room.

Sleep My Love is a combination of Gaslight and Dial M For Murder and the comparisons are obvious since Bob Cummings plays the same kind of role in both films, the sympathetic friend who gives the heroine a shoulder to cry on. He's a bit more proactive in this film than in the Hitchcock classic as he figures out slowly that Colbert is not just imagining things.

Keye Luke has a role of companion 'brother' to Cummings. In fact Colbert and Cummings attend his wedding during the film. What was nice here was that his role was stereotypical in no way. Luke was not constantly make a mess that Charlie Chan would have to straighten out.

As much as the stars give good performances, you will remember Hazel Brooks from this film more than anyone. How a sexy woman like that never had a major career one can only wonder.

Arise My Love was a United Artists release and produced by one of the founding mothers of the studio Mary Pickford. A role she might well have played in the later stages of her career. And Hitchcock himself couldn't have done better with the suspense.

Slick suspenser from United Artists. Courtland (Ameche) has an elaborate plot to kill his wife, Alison (Colbert), get her money, and shack-up with mistress Daphne (Brooks). Good thing Bruce (Cummings) takes a covert romantic interest in Alison otherwise she'd be toast. The material may be derivative but director Sirk knows how to smooth out the rough spots, maybe too much so. The suspense never really kicks in. I suspect that's because Ameche's too bland to generate needed menace. (Perhaps he was looking to modify his nice guy screen image, but not too much.)Thus bad things happen to a drugged-up Alison, but in serial fashion without the driving dark force behind it. Instead Coulouris (Vernay) conveys what evil sense there is. As a result, the narrative builds, without intensifying.

Nonetheless, the movie has its moments—the train's sudden passage that had me clutching my chair, the sudden shattering of the office door, the plunge through the corkscrew staircase. But most memorable to this noir fan is Hazel Brooks. She's the most commanding spider woman I've seen in years of viewing. Icy, majestic, sensual, no wonder Courtland conspires to dump the ordinary-looking Alison. I love that scene where she sits, bare legged, in an elevated queenly chair while commoner Courtland supplicates from below. I wish there were more bio on her all-too-brief career.

All in all, it's decent noir but minus the character edges to make it memorable.

Alison Courtland (Claudette Colbert) wakes up in the middle of the night on a speeding train, she has no idea how she got there...

Staring Claudette Colbert, Robert Cummings, Don Ameche, George Coulouris, with support coming from Rita Johnson & Raymond Burr. Directed by Douglas Sirk, adapted by St. Clair McKelway (Cy Endfield & Decla Dunning uncredited) from a novel by Leo Rosten, scored by Rudy Schrager and Joseph Valentine provides the cinematography.

Practically brushed aside by its director, pulled from pillar to post by the genre assignment police, and called everything from a woman's melodrama to a psychological film noir, Sleep, My Love is a film that one could easily be led to believe is just not very good, or at best, confusing. Nether of the last two statements apply as far as I'm concerned.

Firstly it has to be said (since every amateur reviewer in the land has done thus far) this is closer to the likes of Gaslight (Re: Thornton Square et al) than any femme/homme fatale driven piece of cinema. Secondly it should be noted that it's no surprise Sirk turned his nose up at the finished film, because it's a far cry from the "woman's" pictures that would make and solidify his career. What we get is a tight, if formulaic, story, that is mostly acted competently and is filmed quite excellently with an expressionistic bent by Valentine.

Very early on in the piece we are privy to just what is going on, something that those who crave a mystery element may find an irritation. But here's the thing, the atmospherics on offer are enough to carry the viewer through to the finale, where, we await the outcome of the villainous dalliances that have made up the plot. Along the way we have been treated to a number of potent scenes, such as the rushing train opener and a balcony hold your breath moment. Then there's the house itself, wonderfully moody with its looming staircase, it's constantly swathed in shadows as Valentine utilises it to the maximum to make it an imposing character all by itself. In fact fans of shadow play should love the goods here since the film is 98% filmed with shadows.

There's some issues (naturally). Ameche is weak as the treacherous husband, and when one finds that the hulking and deathly sullen eyed Burr is underused, one can't help think that the film would have greatly benefited from those two swapping roles. Hazel Brooks as the "other woman" is also badly underused, an annoyance since what little we do get hints at a sizzling and murky affair that begged to be fleshed out more in the noir tradition. And boy what a pair of legs did our Hazel possess!

It's a damn fine film in spite of the little itches, one that deserves a bit more support than it actually gets. As for what genre it does belong to? Well psychological melodrama filmed in a film noir style sits about right one feels. 7.5/10