John Brahm

[moira finnie]

Is anyone else interested in the films of director John Brahm? I hope you'll post about this interesting director if you are intrigued by his work.

Though his films were rarely credited with much style or substance during his own lifetime, I can't say that I've ever seen a film of his that didn't engage me. Let Us Live (1939), a gentler version of Fritz Lang's You Only Live Once which also had Henry Fonda and a nice sense of the cards being stacked against the working man, was one of his early efforts to get a foothold in the American cinema after he left Europe in the '30s. Both the Brahm and Lang films show up occasionally on the TCM schedule. I hope more of Brahm is someday featured there.

He went on to specialize in some really well done "monster" movies, though they were always something more than that, especially when he had Laird Cregar and a half-decent script and imaginative cinematographer as he did in The Lodger (1944) and Hangover Square (1945)

The Undying Monster[/b] (1942) is a programmer, I suppose, but it has quite a bit of style and a supporting role for a "liberated" woman played by Heather Thatcher that always amused me. My two favorites of Brahm's are the psychological portrait The Locket (1946) with more flashbacks in an hour and a half than Dennis Hopper has ever experienced. It also has a nice variety pack of actors, offering Robert Mitchum & Brian Aherne as well as Ricardo Cortez in one movie. Good thing that Laraine Day is in top form here, as was Nicholas Musuraca, the great cinematographer. The Brasher Doubloon (1947) is one of his least known films, based on Raymond Chandler's The High Window and a movie I've enjoyed recently, (someday I hope it's released again commercially). He may not have been cut out for making detective stories, but he could get some fine work out of his character actors, as he showed in The Brasher Doubloon with Fritz Kortner and Houseley Stevenson and Florence Bates strutting their stuff in this one.

I've just discovered that Brahm's little known film Guest in the House (1944) (aka Satan in Skirts...what a title!) with Anne Baxter, Ralph Bellamy and Aline MacMahon has been put up on Youtube in its entirety. Who knows how long this will remain there--it looks pretty good. Thanks to Bronxgirl for alerting me to this film's presence there.

[youtube][/youtube]

[feaito]

As I wrote on another thread my favorite Religious film when I was a kid was "The Miracle of Our Lady of Fatima" (1952) which Mr. Brahm directed. Sadly I haven't seen other films of his.

[MissGoddess]

Hi Moira! I just saw your post and didn't realize you'd already wrote about and shared the link to GUEST IN THE HOUSE before I made my own thread about it. It's a terrific thriller and Ann Baxter's performance far surpasses her work in All About Eve. The movie is very well done, I just wish we could see a good, clean print of it. I don't have high hopes for the Alpha Video DVD.

[Bronxgirl48]

Thanks, moira. Anne Baxter's Evelyn Heath from GUEST IN THE HOUSE is now my favorite of her performances, and I think her best.
She's so charismatic as that evil creature, you just can't take your eyes off her.

It's been years since I've seen HANGOVER SQUARE but I remember the moody camerawork, and of course Laird Cregar was memorable.

[feaito]

Thanks to all the positive comments I have read on the TCM Boards these last days I'll definitely watch "Guest in the House" on Youtube!

[Bronxgirl48]

feaito, I'd love to hear your reactions to GUEST IN THE HOUSE -- it's a doozy!

By the way, I just found out that THE LOCKET is on YouTube in its entirety as well.

[feaito]

I'll post them here Bronxgirl.

I must admit that I already saw the sexy scene, largely detailed by Frank Grimes at TCM city, in which Ruth Warrick & Ralph Bellamy dance and have a playful tete-a-tete in their bedroom.

[Bronxgirl48]

feito, wait till you see the last reel of GUEST IN THE HOUSE!

As for Grimes, he actually has good taste every now and then, lol.

[feaito]

feaito, I'd love to hear your reactions to GUEST IN THE HOUSE -- it's a doozy!

You nailed it Bronxgirl! It's a doozy!

I watched it and yes the print is terrible, but oddly enough it did not spoil my enjoyment of the film. The copy I saw on youtube seems to have missing some parts of the film. I checked at imdb.com and apparently there's a 121 minutes copy of the film. I bet that the one I saw on youtube was around 100 minutes long, the one used for video release.

I do not know if the purpose of the beginning of the film was to make us -audience- believe that Evelyn (Anne Baxter) was a frail creature or not, because I immediately realized she was a phony; an insane phony. In a way Evelyn is sort of reminiscent of Joan Fontaine's characters in "Born to be Bad" and "Ivy"; in the first movie she's spoiled and manipulative but in the latter her spoiled nature borders with lunacy. I liked when Jerome Cowan's compared her entrance to that of Sarah Bernhardt on stage!

The film is very entertaining and absorbing and benefits from a very talented cast and a variety of characters. The best performances are in my opinion those given by Aline MacMahon and Ruth Warrick, who underplay their roles smartly and Ralph Bellamy who for once does not play the other man, but the subject of Evelyn's obsession and fixation. He has a great chemistry with lovely miss Warrick, a very attractive woman and a most talented actress.

Anne Baxter gives a fine portrayal of the insane, sick Evelyn, but sometimes she was a little bit "too much" for my taste, can we say a perhaps OTT? The ending was quite abrupt and OTT too. But in all it's a splendid Noirish thriller and melodrama.

It also has an eerie quality which compares in that aspect with such films as "Gaslight", "Rebecca", "Suspicion", "The Uninvited" and "And There Were None", which come to my mind.

I don't know why, but I suspect that the 121 minutes version is superior. This, if I am correct in that the 100 minutes version is the one available on youtube.

[Ollie]

There are so many directors I'm ashamed I've not known 'by name' but only by films, and Brahm's one of those that has so many good films in my collection, so many that I watch any time but never realizing it's a John Brahm film.

[moira finnie]

The Miracle of Fatima (1952), which you can see below in its entirety, came late in the director's film career, just before he brought his dramatic gifts to television for his bread and butter. This was an "A" level production for John Brahm, with a modicum of what Victor Mature used to call "making with the holy", Hollywood style and great skill on the part of the filmmakers, particularly Brahm. The director brings the same flair for working with crowds that he demonstrated in the Guy Fawkes Day sequence in Hangover Square (1945) to the scenes of dangerously unruly crowds hellbent on looking for a miracle here. The film is beautifully crafted by all hands, with an exceptional soaring score by Max Steiner, the master of such music for films.

Set in Portugal in 1917 during the worst upheavals of WWI, Frank Silvera is very interesting as an inquisitor of the children involved, played by Lucia dos Santos (Susan Whitney) and her cousins Francisco Marto (Sammy Ogg) and Jacinta Marto (Sherry Jackson). It has a good script (with the requisite anti-Communist bent) by James O'Hanlon and noir boy, Crane Wilbur. There are some realistic touches that show the hysterical sideshow atmosphere that surrounds such events, which, oddly, reminded me of Wilder's Ace in the Hole. Ultimately, though, there is it will either move you or not, depending on your point of view and your faith. If you are a person who is wonders about questions of an eternal nature of any kind, and the possibility of miracles, you may be moved. Others may not, but it is a good show for them too. Btw, Gilbert Roland steals the film as a most humane agnostic who tries to protect the children from the world's reality. He gives the secular audience something to focus on and many laughs and ultimately, considerable drama. You also might want to see if you can spot Mae Clarke in an uncredited bit part.

[youtube][/youtube]

[moira finnie]

This is just a heads up to those of you who may enjoy seeing what many regard as John Brahm's finest--Hangover Square (1945) with Laird Cregar, George Sanders and Linda Darnell, which is on at 8 PM ET this evening, September 1st on TCM. This movie is the first of many, kicking off the Bernard Herrmann month with one of that composer's most dramatic scores. (Of course, last week we had a chance to see Brahm's fine version of The Lodger too, again featuring his friend and protégé, Mr. Cregar.)

You can read more about the Herrmann lineup and this memorable movie here.