RAGE IN HEAVEN

New Zealand Listener, Volume 6, Issue 132, 2 January 1942, Page 11

RAGE IN HEAVEN

(Paramount,

AGE in Heaven has nothing to do with joy in heaven, and there’s no suggestion of sinners repenting. The title comes from Milton’s

"Heaven hath norage like love to hatred turned" and the story from {fa long way from) James Hilton’s novel of the same name. So Hollywood cannot strictly be said to have discovered Milton, and we may have to wait some years for that technicolour version of Paradise Lost. I enjoyed Rage in Heaven, But then I like shudders and I like George Sanders, and both took up quite a lot of the hour and a half. Those who are used to George as the villain, nasty and all too exciting, may be a little disappointed at finding him nice but not exciting, but I thought his portrayal of Ward Andrews was strong, silent, and convincing. The theme is not strikingly original to one who has read his Shakespeare. Robert Montgomery appears (in what would have been the title role if this had been Shakespeare) as the husband, whose distrust of his own ability and deep-rooted inferiority complex lead him to suspect his wife and his best friend of unfaithfulness. Gradually the madness grows upon him, and we see him change, before our eyes, from a Bertie Wooster to an Othello. But this is no sudden change. Robert Montgomery does it merely by a sight blurring of the speech, a tightening of the facial muscles. Then we know that the moon is waxing and that Othello has the upper hand of Bertie. According to the authorities, Robert’s madness waxes and wanes with the moon, so it’s no wonder that he should find Ingrid Bergman’s facial contours disturbing. I myself do. She plays Desdemona to Montgomery’s Othello with a shy grace and charm that is completely bewitching. And in _ her Garboesque hands (which she uses to advantage) the part of Stella is no mere ingenue role. She takes it and makes of it something more, yet at the same time manages to go on looking as if the schoolroom were only a year behind her. Perhaps it would have been easier for her if M.G.M. had _ plumped for Shakespeare straight away, for in that case the dialogue would have given her more scope. In spite of the fact that Christopher Isherwood (junior partner of Auden and Isherwood) was responsible for it, we notice a certain blatancy. There are long periods, for instance, when Miss Bergman has to repeat, several times each, "You know that it’s you I love," "After all, I married you,’ "Why can’t we be happy together?" And "Let’s start all over again." The fact that she manages each time to sound as if it were the first time anybody had ever said anything like that is sufficient proof that Ingrid Bergman is a fine actress. I’m sure that the three main characters enjoy themselves quite a lot. You feel that Robert Mantgomery really loves being English and ghoulish at the same time, and it must be a nice change

for George Sanders to get all the cheers instead of all the boos, to say nothing of the woman. As for Miss Bergman, she wears gorgeous gowns (by Adrian) and trails up and down ancestral staircases, and what more can any woman ask? The settings are both dramatic and~ photogenic. There’s the ancestral mansion with wainscoting, wide staircase (see above), and silver candlesticks on the dining table. Then there’s the steel works (owned by Robert Montgomery of unsound mind), with shots of palatial offices, humming workrooms, and of molten metal going past in handy trucks just below the platform where you take your friends to sightsee. The minor characters who provide the comic relief tend to be caricatures rather than characters. Clarke, the butler, is portly and passionless. Higgins, the manager, is melancholy and methodical. On the other side of the Channel (part of the action takes place in France) they’re allowed to let themselves go rather more (but then foreigners are funny, aren’t they?). So we find Oscar Homolka looking like G. K. Chesterton and performing with the exuberance of a two-months old puppy.