THE DARK CORNER

New Zealand Listener, Volume 15, Issue 384, 1 November 1946, Page 32

THE DARK CORNER

(20th Century-Fox)

URELY it is time that some of the psychiatrists who are being kept so busy ~ by the film-producers these

days turned around and had a good look at some of the film-producers themselves, to discover just what complex or neurosis it is that makes them turn out so many films with the emphasis on sadism and violence. I have just been reading George Orwell’s essay on "Raffles and Miss Blandish," in which he discusses the unhealthy and socially dangerous trend of much current literature towards the worship of "power" and the glorification of individual ruthlessness. It seems to me than an equally good subject for an essay could be found in a similar trend which is (continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) apparent in many films these days; and I think the conclusion which might be reached in it is that certain aspects of the Fascist outlook which a war has just been fought to eradicate have been seeping unnoticed into the cinema. This, however, is not the occasion for such an essay. But if it ever gets written I think you are likely to find The Dark Corner mentioned along with such other pictures as The Postman Always Rings Twice, The Blue Dahlia, and Confidential Agent, as an example of a type of screenplay in which displays of violence, brutality, and moral irresponsibility are exploited far more openly and with much less restraint-and with much less condemnation-than they were before. By contrast, such human virtues as decency, fidelity, gentleness, and mercy seem almost outmoded. Actually, apart from this flaw, The Dark Corner is a workmanlike thriller, directed with a good feeling of suspense and some artistic lighting effects, and with acting wl.ich is often a little better than merely competent. It has Mark Stevens as one of those private detectives who are a law more or less unto themselves (though the Law keeps a watchful eye on him, since he is a jail-bird out on probation); Lucille Ball as his attractive and useful secretary; William Bendix as a gunman gorilla who spends most of his time bashing-up or getting bashed-up; and Clifton Webb as a menace from the top-drawer of the social register. Mr. Webb isn’t used here to as good advantage as in Laura, but he is a stage actor who knows all the tricks of his trade. To soften slightly what may have seemed like a rather harsh opening to this review, I should add that the police in the film are treated much more sympathetically than usual. They are not, as is so often the case on the screen and in literature, just inverted gangsters themselves.