So, we’re a week into November. I’ve had my post-October break, but my fingers are itchy to get to a new review done, so it’s time to start the Noirvember season! I’ve decided that moving forward I’m going to only give a brief synopsis instead of full plot. This way it’s easier to avoid spoilers, should keep my reviews under 1000 words and you can find the full plot on Wikipedia anyway, so you can always check their if interested.
For my first movie found the perfect transition from Horror to Noir by finding a film that shares aspects of both. This is “The Red House” from 1947. The horror aspects aren’t strong enough to justify it as a horror, but it’s pretty close to that line and by being there it moves to the fringes of what counts as Noir too. Interestingly Wikipedia has declared it a horror, but IMDB lists it as Drama/Film-Noir/Mystery with no mention of horror. Having seen it now I’m going to say IMDB was closer there but it shows how it’s not clear cut.
There’s A Red House Over Yonder.
The movie is written and directed by Delmer Daves, who also directed the Bogart/Bacall classic “Dark Passage” that same year (1947) along with the classic western “3:10 to Yuma” (Which is marginally better than the surprisingly good remake). He also wrote the screenplay for “The Petrified Forest” way back in 1936, which is one of my favourite movies of that decade. The movie is based on the novel by George Agnew Chamberlain and stars Lon McCallister in a very typical role for him (Good natured country boy) along with Allene Roberts and the legend and Film Noir regular Edward G. Robinson.
The story revolves around Nath (McCallister) who is helping out at a local farm thanks to his friend Meg (Roberts). The farm is owned by Meg’s adopted father Pete Morgan (Robinson). Pete warns Nath not to go near a certain area of the forest on his land, but he and Meg become curious about it and so keep looking for this mysterious “Red House” that is meant to be there. As they get closer, Pete becomes more unstable and the petty criminal he hired to keep people off his land becomes more aggressive to those trespassers. Ultimately the secret of the red house will be revealed and the lives of all involved will not be the same.
The Tell-Tale Heart.
Performance wise Robinson unsurprisingly steals the show. While he is more famous for his roles in Gangster movies, the Noir era gave him a chance to explore more complex characters with a bit more vulnerability. His role here is pivotal and it is his character and his internal that makes the movie a Film Noir. Like many of the genre the story is really about how dark secrets of your past eventually catch up to and sometimes destroy you. It’s one of those elements that instead of fighting against the Hays code, embraces it. Crime does not pay, but Noir is often based around a characters attempts to delay their inevitable fate.
Pete Morgan has carried his secret with him since Meg was a child, but not just in his tainted soul but in a very physical form. He could have destroyed The Red House and with it all evidence of his crimes, but instead he left it there as a constant reminder and he must have known one day his secret would come to the surface. The truth is there is a definite Streisand effect here. Should someone stumble upon the house it wouldn’t mean anything to them, but his determination to keep people away from it naturally made them curious. Pete’s mental stability weakening every step along the way, with him slipping and calling Meg “Genie” (Her mothers name) several times. When Meg finally stumbles upon the place she found it strangely familiar. Ultimately Pete ends up confessing his crime.
Bad Prints and Good Natures.
The problem is that Pete is not the movies lead. Really it is a joint lead of Nath and Meg, but they are fairly straight forward good natured country girl/boy archetypes. Not characters that really lend themselves to film noir. Though Nath initially being in a relationship with Tibby does give his story a mild Noir twist since she is very much the type of woman that would lead a man onto the wrong path, though ultimately that doesn’t happen and instead she gets herself get in to more trouble than she bargained for with her infatuation with outlaw Teller. Nath and Meg are basically the outsiders in this dark world, which is really where the film starts to bend towards Horror, but only a little as there is no intentional malice with all this.
Another thing to note with this movie is the poor quality of the physical film print. Although most of the 1940’s Film Noirs I’ve seen have been well preserved and and pretty high quality every now and then you come across a movie that has obvious seen significant degradation. Sometimes it doesn’t impact the movie experience, but this movie has a lot of scenes that you can barely see anything in between the lighting and the film degradation. The trouble is I have to judge it on the film as it is now, because it’s not like you can hop in a time machine and go and watch this back in the day.
Conclusion
This would have been a much better movie had it focused more on Robinson’s Pete Morgan and less on Nath and Meg. This is basically a tell tale heart story and for that kind of thing you really want to focus on the person hearing the knocking (or in this case screaming). Not to mention, this is Edward G Robinson we’re talking about and he had top billing anyway, so it seems a missed opportunity. The story is interesting though so between that and Robinson’s performance it just about hits a 6/10.
You must be logged in to post a comment.