Whirlpool (1949)
Whirlpool on the IMDb
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20th Century Fox - Fox Film Noir.
Gene Tierney, Richard Conte, Jose Ferrer,
Charles Bickford in an Otto Preminger film. Another entry from the
affordable 20th Century Fox noir collection (I paid just $7.47 on sale on
Amazon.com), and another excellent selection for the series. Features are
the bare-boned regulars, a trailer for this film, a group of trailers for other
movies available in the series, and the highlight (though I haven't had the
opportunity to listen to yet) is an audio commentary from Richard Schickel.
A dark mystery-noir that's heavy on dialogue (script by Ben Hecht and Andrew Solt), especially from Ferrer, and includes some nice little touches from Preminger such as the segue out of the scrolling opening credits and interesting but unobtrusive close-ups and fades in and out of scenes. The story is made all the more solid by the fine acting and it twisted enough to have me guessing incorrectly at a couple of key moments.
Gene Tierney stars as Ann Sutton, wife of psychoanalyst Dr. William Sutton played by Richard Conte. Ann comes off as a little bit dumb and a whole lot gullible as she easily falls prey to hypnotist/con artist David Korvo, hammed up a bit by Jose Ferrer, leading to her implication and arrest on a murder charge. Charles Bickford is excellent as Lieutenant Colton who starts out convinced of Ann's guilt, but is sensitive to her husband's opinions on the case and willing to give him just enough leeway to try and prove his wife's innocence.
There are a few other characters who crop up earlier in the picture, most notably murder victim Theresa Randolph, played by Barbara O'Neil, but the entire 97 minutes more or less belong to the four main characters who basically share an equal amount of camera time throughout--at the start it looks like another Gene Tierney vehicle with Jose Ferrer as male lead, but they eventually give way to Conte and Bickford who control the pace at the middle of the film and then all four are brought together by film's end. If you're a fan of any of these four actors you won't be disappointed, though Gene Tierney fans may be expecting a little more on-screen time for her disturbed Ann Sutton. Still, what she gives here is quite good.
While the film is trying to cash in to some degree on the emerging shrink craze, especially in pitting the respected psychoanalyst Sutton against quack hypnotist Korvo, the characters are layered enough to make the film stand-out. Ann Sutton is not completely innocent nor completely crazy -- she is a thief, more accurately a kleptomaniac, as the first few minutes of the film reveal. She also has some father issues that translate to her relationship with her husband, William Sutton. And Doc Sutton stands behind his wife, then begins to turn when he senses that she's lying to him, but never completely loses faith in her.
Whirlpool is no Laura, but having watched a good deal of 40's noir I would say that it's probably towards the top of the second tier of these films. And if you liked (or even loved) Laura, you most likely will enjoy Whirlpool. Similar pacing, another group of interesting characters, well-filmed by Preminger. Just not quite a great film like Laura certainly is.
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