The Two Mrs. Carrolls (B or 3/4 stars)
Humphrey Bogart & Barbara Stanwyck star in 'The Two Mrs. Carrolls' (directed by Peter Godfrey), a crime/suspense drama made in 1945 but released in 1947 for 2 reasons: 1) it resembled 1944's Gaslight too much. And 2) Bogie's popularity was at an all-time high in 1947. Bogart plays Geoffrey Carroll, an artist who meets & falls for Sally Morton (Stanwyck) while up in Scotland. Things seem swell until Sally discovers that Geoffrey is married. He convinces her to stay with him because he divulges that his ailing wife is near death anyway. But really, Geoffrey is a psychotic man who had been slowly killing his spouse by lacing her nightly glass of warm milk with poison.
He sends his precocious young daughter Beatrice (an impressive Ann Carter) away to school and, while she is away, his wife dies. He immediately marries Sally & all seems swell again. But a few years pass & Geoffrey begins to work on an "Angel of Death" portrait of Sally, this time after having become uninspired by Sally and because he has now fallen in love with his attractive neighbor, Cecily (lovingly b*tchy Alexis Smith). And, as has happened before, Sally starts to grow weak from her own daily warm nightcaps. But Geoffrey overplays his M.O. when he again tries to send young Beatrice away to school. Sally starts to suspect that her artiste husband is a serial killer. Melodrama & a somewhat nail-biting climax ensue.
I love the dark subject matter of this film noir. Murder & infidelity have always been fascinating plot elements, & 'The Two Mrs. Carrolls' executes them both in fine fashion. I liked the gothic production design; that London mansion is spectacular. The black-&-white cinematography obviously lends to this film genre. The soundtrack is punctuated with strange echoes, distant bells, howling winds, thunderclaps, banging windows ... all of which lend to the creepy proceedings. But what makes this movie works as well as it does is the cast -- a cast that audiences in the 1940s would salivate over. Because 'TTMC' is short on action/thrills & heavy on mood, we call upon Bogie & Stanwyck to pull the weight; and they do.
Bogart plays Geoffrey with an effective "this guy ain't right in the head, is he?" demeanor. Right from the start (before we knew he was a wife killer), I could tell something wasn't normal with him. It's interesting to watch him become less inspired with each wife & more paranoid about the state of his twisted psyche ... leading to his prophetic portraits of doom. Best in show is Barbara Stanwyck. I just totally bought her love for Geoffrey, her naivete, her humanistic moments with Geoffrey's daughter, & then the slow encroaching fear as she starts to put 2 & 2 together about her nutty husband (culminating in the scene when she sees the demonic depiction of herself in Geoffrey's latest portrait ... great scene). I also liked Alexis Smith as the imperious society girl who decides to seduce Geoffrey. And I loved Anita Sharp-Bolster the peevish housemaid who can't enter or exit a room without uttering a barb or acerbic sentence about someone or something.
So yeah, no one (including me) will say that 'The Two Mrs. Carrolls' is the greatest motion picture of its time. There are some pacing issues; as mentioned, it is VERY talky. Most of the plot is revealed in dialogue. The story is good, but somewhat slight, so the film could have been a tad shorter. There is suspense, for sure, but not the intensity you'd expect of a film like this. The charisma of Bogie & Stanwyck takes this thing far. So having said all of that, 'The Two Mrs. Carrolls' - while not greatly remembered - is still one of those good old-fashioned black-&-white movies that might catch one's attention while flipping through the channels on a lazy Saturday afternoon (which is exactly what happened to me). I enjoyed it on that level.
He sends his precocious young daughter Beatrice (an impressive Ann Carter) away to school and, while she is away, his wife dies. He immediately marries Sally & all seems swell again. But a few years pass & Geoffrey begins to work on an "Angel of Death" portrait of Sally, this time after having become uninspired by Sally and because he has now fallen in love with his attractive neighbor, Cecily (lovingly b*tchy Alexis Smith). And, as has happened before, Sally starts to grow weak from her own daily warm nightcaps. But Geoffrey overplays his M.O. when he again tries to send young Beatrice away to school. Sally starts to suspect that her artiste husband is a serial killer. Melodrama & a somewhat nail-biting climax ensue.
I love the dark subject matter of this film noir. Murder & infidelity have always been fascinating plot elements, & 'The Two Mrs. Carrolls' executes them both in fine fashion. I liked the gothic production design; that London mansion is spectacular. The black-&-white cinematography obviously lends to this film genre. The soundtrack is punctuated with strange echoes, distant bells, howling winds, thunderclaps, banging windows ... all of which lend to the creepy proceedings. But what makes this movie works as well as it does is the cast -- a cast that audiences in the 1940s would salivate over. Because 'TTMC' is short on action/thrills & heavy on mood, we call upon Bogie & Stanwyck to pull the weight; and they do.
Bogart plays Geoffrey with an effective "this guy ain't right in the head, is he?" demeanor. Right from the start (before we knew he was a wife killer), I could tell something wasn't normal with him. It's interesting to watch him become less inspired with each wife & more paranoid about the state of his twisted psyche ... leading to his prophetic portraits of doom. Best in show is Barbara Stanwyck. I just totally bought her love for Geoffrey, her naivete, her humanistic moments with Geoffrey's daughter, & then the slow encroaching fear as she starts to put 2 & 2 together about her nutty husband (culminating in the scene when she sees the demonic depiction of herself in Geoffrey's latest portrait ... great scene). I also liked Alexis Smith as the imperious society girl who decides to seduce Geoffrey. And I loved Anita Sharp-Bolster the peevish housemaid who can't enter or exit a room without uttering a barb or acerbic sentence about someone or something.
So yeah, no one (including me) will say that 'The Two Mrs. Carrolls' is the greatest motion picture of its time. There are some pacing issues; as mentioned, it is VERY talky. Most of the plot is revealed in dialogue. The story is good, but somewhat slight, so the film could have been a tad shorter. There is suspense, for sure, but not the intensity you'd expect of a film like this. The charisma of Bogie & Stanwyck takes this thing far. So having said all of that, 'The Two Mrs. Carrolls' - while not greatly remembered - is still one of those good old-fashioned black-&-white movies that might catch one's attention while flipping through the channels on a lazy Saturday afternoon (which is exactly what happened to me). I enjoyed it on that level.