A film
review by Bosley Crowther for the NY Times, March 21, 1941.
At a time
when the world is already sufficiently concerned with paranoiacs, MGM has oddly
seen fit to create yet another - and a thoroughly unsympathetic one - in its
new film, Rage in Heaven, which
opened at the Capitol yesterday. True, the depredations of this wholly
fictitious marplot (a person who mars or defeats a plot, design, or project by
meddling) are comfortably confined to the screen - and that is a blessing, at
least. But why he should ever have been invented, why he should have been so
clumsily conceived and why Robert
Montgomery should have been chosen to play him is hard to understand.
Certainly,
the picture itself fails to offer any adequate justification. For the story
which is told is that of a wealthy young Englishman named Philip Monrell who,
for reasons never clearly explained, is a hopeless manic depressive. He has
spells when the moon is full; he wishes to take his own life. And then, for
another reason which is never sufficiently based, he marries his mother's young
secretary Stella (Ingrid Bergman)
and presumably intends to reform. But always in the back of his brain gnaws the
canker of disease. He suspects his wife and his best friend Ward Andrews (George Sanders) of being in love and
against him; he bullies his business associates; things go from bad to worse.
Finally he takes his own life in a manner which appears to be murder at the
hand of his old friend, and the end of the story is devoted to the freeing of
the latter and the wife.
The basic
fault, of course, is that the emphasis of the drama is confused. At first the
intention seems to throw sympathy to the sick man, to solve his pathetic case.
But nothing of the sort is accomplished; he grows progressively worse. Suddenly
he's tossed overboard and attention is directed to his victims. The whole thing
becomes a futile mix-up without dramatic point. The screenwriters, Christopher Isherwood and Robert Thoeren, who adapted the film
from a novel by James Hilton were
apparently quite as confused as the miserable, neurotic hero (or hero that
should have been). As the wife, Ingrid Bergman plays with a warm and sincere
intensity which is deeply affecting, and George Sanders takes the friend in his
usual self-assured stride. But Mr. Montgomery in the focal role is inclined
toward a deadpan deliberateness which grows monotonous. Obviously it isn't
altogether his fault, but he never really suggests a mental crack-up. He is
just a fellow with a mean disposition - a pointlessly diabolic wretch.
It has
been reported from Hollywood that Mr. Montgomery was compelled to play this
role as discipline for some things he
said in public about motion pictures. That may be an explanation for the
general obtuseness of the film, but it seems like a desperate device. There is
such a thing, you know, as cutting off one's nose to spite's one's face. And,
in turning out Rage in Heaven, MGM
hasn't done itself any favors.
Labels:
drama, Ingrid Bergman, thriller
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