LADY IN THE LAKE

New Zealand Listener, Volume 17, Issue 421, 18 July 1947, Page 32

LADY IN THE LAKE

(M-G-M)

OTH the films’ reviewed this ‘week are based on novels by Raymond Chandler and both of them feature Mr. Chandler’s private detective

hero, Philip Mariowe, a rugged individualist with few moral scruples who, impersonated by Dick Powell in Murder My Sweet and by Humphrey Bogart in The Big Sleep, has already participated in a much ‘greater amount of violent crime than comes the way of the average screen character. In the new films, neither the author nor his' hero show any marked divergence from ‘type; so far the stories themselves go, both Lady in the Lake and The Brasher Doubloon are hard+hitting, formalised "whodunits," cluttered with corpses and reeking with red herrings. But it is the treatment of Lady in the Lake which sets it apart and proves that something new can still come out of Hollywood. Mere novelty is not enough in itself to justify high praise, though it may merit attention. And it must be admitted that a complicated crime story is by no means ideal material for the imaginative experiment which Robert Montgomery carries out in Lady in the Lake (he is the director as well as the

star), Something more straightforward would, I think, have been better sufted to Montgomery’s highly subjective method of narration: nothing less than the virtually complete identification of the audience with the hero who tells the story. Montgomery achieved this by acting the part with the camera strapped to his shoulders; so that, in effect, the camera-lens becomes the eyes of the hero and the audience looks at everything from his,viewpoint. Apart from an introductory sequence ene Montgomery, as. Private De ve Marlowe, sits at a desk and introduces ‘himself, and a similar sequence about half-way though, we never see the hero except when ‘reflected in a mirror or as a hand opening a door or lighting a cigarette. His voice we hear throughout, of course, taking part in the dialogue, talking tough to the tough heroine (Audrey Trotter) and to the other characters of various shades of criminality, in the manner expected of Mr. Chandler’s Mr. Marlowe. As I say, a simpler story might have been better to launch this innovation. The camera "I" technique attracts so much of one’s attention that it is not always easy to follow the tortuous plot (involving a scheming woman editor, a missing wife, and at least four cases of

homidde). If you try to concentrate on solving the mystery, as you are invited to do, you cannot appreciate fully the ingenuity of the direction: if you concentrate on the technique you may lose your way in the story. ; For my own part, I was more interested in the technique. It is, of course, not entirely revolutionary. Several other movies have used the camera in this way to gain a momentary effect: but Montgomery is the first Hollywood director to have employed it throughout a film with such whole-hearted enthusi-asm-with the result that when the hero is hit with a knuckle-duster the audience itself seems to be taking it on the chin, and when the heroine is in affectionate mood she advances with parted lips and kisses the camera full on the lens. Though this is probably as close as most ‘of us will ever get to being kissed, by a Hollywood star, the technique as a whole has certain disadvantages, and I share the qualms of William Whitebait (of The New Statesman) who, in expressing the hope that the idea would not be generally adopted, declared that he would hate to see the world through the eyes of Lassie, or Rita Hayworth, or Frank Sinatra. All the same, despite the horrid prospect thus opened before us, Robert Montgomery, while not wholly successful, deserves to be congratulated on the imagination and enterprise which he has shown in his first big assignment as a director.