Whirlpool

Part psychological drama, part film-noir. The beautiful wife of the famous psychoanalyst Dr. William Sutton, gets caught stealing an expensive pin from a department store. The infamous astrologer David Korvo comes to her aide but for a price. Through hypnosis, Mrs. Ann Sutton will unconsciously become a party to an elaborate scheme involving murder. What's most interesting about this film is the relationship between psychology and astrology. Are they both pseudo-sciences? Psychological tricksters preying on the weaknesses inherent in the human psyche? Mrs. Sutton suffers from the condition Kleptomania, but is caught between the patriarchal righteousness of her husband, "Stay as you are, as you've always been - healthy and adorable" and the cold cynicism of Mr. Korvo, "A successful marriage is usually based on what a husband and wife don't know about each other." Both Dr. Sutton and Mr. Korvo are bright guys adept at exploiting human weakness in others (especially Ann's), but both fall prey to a shared weakness: wounded vanity. An interesting film that is well worth watching. Jose Ferrer as Korvo is a standout but Gene Tierney seems to have lost her fire and ends up sleepwalking through the film, even when she is not hypnotized.

This is well enough written and well enough directed and shot, Gene Tierney, Richard Conte and Jose Ferrer cannot be faulted and yet there is some a little lacking here. All begins well but I think Ferrer's character is just too horrid and as his role and control over Tierney is increased the fact that he is so unlikeable begins to work against the film. We should have a greater understanding why women fall for this piece of s*** and his confident use of hypnotism. So proficient is he that towards the end his mastery of self hypnosis rather stretches credibility too far. The role of the married woman, her perceived hysteria/mania and the wonders (or not) of hypnotism combine to drive this noirish movie more into what was once called 'a woman's picture'. It is still interesting and holds the attention, especially with regard to the shining performance of Tierney but could perhaps have been trimmed just a little.

Oh sure, Ann Sutton could pay for that pin - or for many other things - but there's something, probably, about the thrill of taking something, very non-chalant out of a store, especially as an unsuspecting adult white woman in the late 40's, and not getting caught. Is it Kleptomania? Perhaps. But the point is, at the start of Whirlpool, Ann gets caught at a department store stealing a pin, and she's in luck that David Korvo is there to help excuse her away - these are false charges after all, she has the money to buy a dozen of these pins, right - but there's a catch to her being let go: not so much for money, at least it seems at first. She tries to pay him, but for five thousand, p-shaw. No, he wants to get at her mind, to find what it is that made her do this thing... but it will lead to murder.

Gene Tierney and Jose Ferrer play Ann and Korvo, and they're both excellent here. Even a one and a half note character (not quite one, maybe, almost two dimensional, if it tried) like Ann's husband Bill gets a solid performance out of Richard Conte, to the point where we really feel for their marriage, and see the conflict very plain as soon as Ann 'turns' on to her 'nothing's the matter' tone of voice to her husband after she comes home and tells the maid that there's something very wrong and she must speak to her husband soon as he gets home. Is she crazy? Has she been driven mad? She's no femme fatale really - she is in what seems to be a fairly happy marriage (though at one critical point she'll say otherwise in a very tense confessional). But she is flawed and interesting, and that helps.

It's especially good that this character is so strong, as well as Korvo being an equally strong, conniving villain, and we know he's a villain from basically minute one but the fun is seeing how he does things like slip a glass with the lady's fingerprints into his jacket while she's away for a minute from the lunch table. But there's a couple of plot holes here that are jarring - one is more character-based and comes in the third act, it felt like a scene was missing that involved convincing a particular character to give Ann one more chance, and there was a connective tissue from the convincing to her not in prison - and I have to wonder how much they cut out of the book. It seems like a lot. Not to mention the notion of how completely tight the hypnosis can be, just how air-tight a plot can be (that we don't really see be suggested by the way) for Ann to go out in her car and get those records and then for that other thing to happen.

Whirlpool isn't weak tea by any means, but I have to think Preminger, despite some clever camera angles and the usual flair for hardcore film noir as a director (the tension in that final scene is really terrific, especially how a character hides just until a certain moment) would have had some trouble without this cast. Thankfully, Tierney gives this character credibility and she makes her fragile, torn and frayed, and when she's in her hypnotic trances it's like she's walking on air. I even liked the one/two scene turn by Barbara O'Neil (Constance Collier also has some good lines). Not something to rush to see, but it's a fair follow-up for the director and star from Laura - more of a B-side if one were to screen them back to back

An interesting and divisive film noir thriller directed by Otto Preminger and written by Ben Hecht (under the blacklist pseudonym Lester Barstow) and Andrew Solt. Adapted from the novel "Methinks the Lady" written by Guy Endore, the film Stars Gene Tierney, Richard Conte, José Ferrer, and Charles Bickford. Arthur C. Miller is the cinematographer and David Raksin, under the watchful eye of Alfred Newman, provides the music.

The plot sees Ann Sutton (Tierney), the wife of a successful psychoanalyst (Conte), arrested for shoplifting since she has some kleptomania issues. Just when it seems Ann is about to be thrust into a world of scandal, she is saved by smooth-talking hypnotist called David Korvo (Ferrer). Korvo, however, is not what he seems to be, and Ann soon finds herself involved in blackmail and murder and her marriage on the brink of collapse. Confused and emotionally torn, Ann is unsure whether or not she has committed a crime. It looks bleak unless her husband or the police can get to the bottom of the murky mystery.

Combining a psychological thriller core with overt melodramatics, Whirlpool has still to convince many of the film noir hoards as to its worth. Some critics find the concept of the story silly and hard to take, whilst others have gone a step further to suggest that Preminger and Hecht have merely remade Hitchcock's Gregory Peck starrer Spellbound (Hecht on screenplay duties there too) from four years earlier. Either way, and putting a noirish sheen on a Hitchcock movie is no bad thing by the way, Preminger's movie is a compelling little piece of cinema. The central theme of hypnosis as a weapon gives the film a dark edge and Preminger nicely portrays a world containing sympathetically flawed characters. While in the form of Ferrer's oily slick Korvo, film noir gets a most intriguing Mabuse/Freudian like villain of high entertainment value.

Tierney doesn't have to do much here, asked to portray confusion and a almost constant state of hypnotism, she delivers well enough whilst always remaining innocently sexy. Conte's woodenness as the husband oddly benefits the story, while also worthy of a mention is the ever watchable Charles Bickford as Lt. Colton, a thinking man's copper, Bickford keeps it serious as the daftness of the plot threatens to submerge and unhinge the drama.

Frowned upon by big hitting American critics, the film found support from notable Frenchies Rivette and Godard. It seems that like myself, they also liked the quirky and creepy nature of the beast. 7/10

A woman is taken terrible advantage of by a hypnotist in "Whirlpool," a 1949 film starring Gene Tierney, Jose Ferrer, and Richard Conte, directed by Otto Preminger. Tierney is the wife of a successful psychiatrist who is caught shoplifting. She is helped by Ferrer, a hypnotist who steps in during her interrogation. He works with her to help her solve some of her problems, but he adds some other hypnosis as well.

This isn't a great Preminger. The acting is good, but the script is weak. First of all, is it really possible to hypnotize someone that completely? I don't know. What I do know is that it's absolutely against all ethics to talk about a patient with anyone as freely as Conte does. Since a good deal of the plot hinges on his breaking of that doctor-patient privilege, the story doesn't hold up.

Gene Tierney is her usual beautiful self. This is not, however, a role that plays to her strengths as an actress. She's sympathetic but doesn't explore the range of the role enough. She more easily played an icy or feisty type. In those days, as actresses neared 30, studios became less interested, and Tierney found herself in roles which she was not particularly right for - or that wasted her talent just to fulfill her contractual obligations. Ferrer is excellent as the oily hypnotist, keeping his voice even when he was saying the most outrageous things. Conte is very good as well as Tierney's husband.

All in all, this was interesting to watch, but it could have been much better given the talent behind and before the camera.