Wednesday 28 June 2023

Obsession (1949 Edward Dmytryk)

Dmytryk was in England briefly after serving prison time in the US as one of the HUAC 'Hollywood Ten', and directed this independent thriller, which is quite nuts. A doctor (Robert Newton) is fed up with his wife's continuing infidelities and decides to murder her latest BF and hide the evidence. (She's 'Storm', Sally Gray, and he's Phil Brown.) Which is a bit bizarre to start with - wouldn't you bump off the wife? So he imprisons the BF in a ruined building (plenty of those about) for four months, all the while bringing in daily a hot water bottle containing acid, that he fills a bath with.

Story involves a dog, but not in the cleverest way, and the film often doesn't make sense but is reasonably engrossing and picks up when laid back superintendent Naunton Wayne gets (slowly) involved.

Intriguingly, the score is by Nino Rota.

Dmytryk became a film professor and wrote a series of books - including On Filmmaking / Acting/ Writing / Editing. In the course of checking that out, I discovered that in 1969 a copy of Alice in Wonderland was published, illustrated by Salvador Dali!



This was one of Gray's last films (she married a Lord and retired). She was also in Green For Danger and They Made Me a Fugitive.

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