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Ahead of Welles, Othello and the noir prism. "It's good. It's got a murder in it." Immersion for the toast of Broadway (Ronald Colman) means filling an empty self, "a gentleman's gentleman" when acting in fluff but a brooder when tackling heavy roles. Quite the whiplash, remembers the ex-wife (Signe Hasso): "We were engaged doing Oscar Wilde, broke it off doing O'Neill. We married doing Kaufman and Hart, and divorced doing Chekhov." Shakespeare's Moor is a smash for the thespian, yet after the premiere he hears medieval murmurs and bells mingling with cocktail-party chatter. The production takes its toll, his own jealousy increasingly blurs the lines, he can't strangle his leading lady so he locates another Desdemona in a young waitress (Shelley Winters). "I know some parts give me the willies, on the stage and off." A consuming métier, expressionistically seized by George Cukor in his darkest instance of fascination with inner and outer theatricality. The process en toute, rehearsal to opening night right down to the impresarios tipsy at the counter remembered by Brooks in The Producers. (The comedy of Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin's script is played very close to the vest in what is essentially a werewolf story.) Craft and neurosis of the artist, "a kind of an emotional illness" magnified beneath the proscenium's blasting lights. "Don't you want to be a colorful character?" The diner slattern turns unwilling tragedienne, the press agent (Edmond O'Brien) plays detective, even the extra interviewed to play the victim's doppelgänger is eager to show off her impressions. Shadows and mirrors abound, as befits a tale of collapsing mise en scènes, Cukor closes on a hambone's anecdote and applause for a vacant spotlight. "Don't let them say I was a bad actor, huh?" Rivette has an exhaustive overhaul in L'Amour Fou. Cinematography by Milton R. Krasner. With Ray Collins, Phillip Loeb, Millard Mitchell, Joe Sawyer, Charles La Torre, Fay Kanin, Whit Bissell, and Betsy Blair. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |