Review #1364: Bluebeard.Cast:
John Carradine (Gaston Morrell), Jean Parker (Lucille Lutien), Nils Asther (Inspector Jacques Lefevre), Ludwig Stössel (Jean Lamarte), George Pembroke (Inspector Renard), Teala Loring (Francine Lutien), Sonia Sorel (Renee Claremont), Henry Kolker (Deschamps Lutien), Emmett Lynn (Le Soldat), and Iris Adrian (Mimi Roberts) Directed by Edgar G. Ulmer (#797 - People on Sunday, #803 - Detour, and #943 - The Man from Planet X)
Review:
Surprise, surprise, Onward will be delayed, since I could not view it in time before movie theaters began their temporary closure in light of the coronavirus. In any case, time to move on to continuing the tribute for the month.
Who better to deliver low budget noirs than Edgar G. Ulmer and Producers Releasing Corporation? The two almost seem made for each other. The film was inspired by famous French folktale Barbe bleue (written by Charles Perrault), first published in 1697 that told of a wealthy man who had a habit of murdering his wives. The story has been adapted to numerous media over the years, from a 1901 film by George Melies (among at least six other adaptations) to opera to ballet. Ulmer had first come to Hollywood in 1926, having worked as a stage actor and set designer in Austria (living in Vienna after being born in Olomouc, Austria-Hungary, now considered part of the Czech Republic). He would go on to a distinguished career with films in four different decades. His first directorial efforts were People on Sunday (1930), a production written by Billy Wilder that Ulmer co-directed with Robert Siodmak before moving on Damaged Lives (1933), an American/Canadian exploitation film about diseases. His one main studio film in The Black Cat (1934) was a huge box office hit. However, he was relegated to doing films for Poverty Row studios because he had an affair with Shirley Kassler, who was married to a relative of a studio head before divorcing him for Ulmer. She would later serve as script supervisor on most of the films that followed from Ulmer, spent primarily with ethnic dramas and low budget studios like PRC, which had been founded in 1939 to do low-budget fare that could be used for double bills while never spending more than $100,000 for productions, which worked for 179 films in seven years total before being acquired by Eagle-Lion Films (which later disbanded in 1950).
With a shooting schedule of six days, it is a triumph of Ulmer that this film noir (written by Arnold Lipp, Werner H. Furst and Pierre Gendron) turned out so well for what it does, a decent little gem. One must be impressed by how he made a spellbinding experience with a standout performance from Carradine, a prolific presence given a chance to deliver chills. He has quite an alluring power to him, trapped with obsession that makes it worthwhile to spend time with. Parker keeps up with him just fine, an innocent yet manageable counterpart. Asther does fine with making some authority seem to mean something without being completely washed away by Carradine and Stossel makes for a sniveling secondary aspect of the film count. One has an inkling of where the film is going to go (crime doesn't pay, or at least that's the lesson one is meant to get from films of the era), but it doesn't mean the methods are going to be cut and dry, where Ulmer makes something out of what would've likely been just another B-movie. It is an interesting experience at 72 minutes, a movie that is stagy but watchable when it needs to be that overcomes cash-strapped foundations with a can-do cast headlined by Carradine in generating interest in something that makes for a solid public domain pick. It's the journey that counts, and this one is helped by Ulmer in getting its foot in the door.
Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.
