This
American, eighty-seven-minute noir mystery released by RKO Radio
Pictures was directed, after a fashion, by Burgess Meredith. He also
stars along with two other high-caliber actors, Charles Laughton and
Franchot Tone. The original director, Irving Allen, gladly departed
after a barrage of tomatoes were thrown his direction, chief of among
them, Laughton. The film was somewhat of a team effort as it was
co-produced by Tone and Allen. A minor but noticeable point, there
are no French-speaking actors within a three-mile radius of the
Eiffel Tower. Even a local newsboy speaks perfect English. The fine
music score by Michel Michelet provides appropriate themes,
especially the first ascent up the tower. Ansco Color's overall burnt
sienna murkiness certainly degrades the enjoyment of this
complicated, suspense thriller with a disjointed story and jarring
edits. It would not be difficult to imagine that this film could have
been a celluloid classic.
The
story begins with a mousey Meredith, again wearing thick eyeglasses,
a prop that may have made an impression on him. There is at least
one other film role where he is cast with “coke-bottle” lenses,
though his most noted role was as the bookworm in the television series, The Twilight
Zone. Similar to that episode, his lenses get broken after
stumbling, this time over a corpse in the dark. Out of the shadows
appears Tone from the waist down in shoes or feet wrapped in burlap.
Sympathetically giving the director some leeway, perhaps this
unexplained detail was to establish an abnormal individual. Let the
speculations begin. He taunts Meredith with his commands and the
viewer is in the dark as to their connection or why Meredith is at
this location. Leaving behind numerous fingerprints and a pair of
broken spectacles, Meredith is arrested for the murder.
The
manic depressive, egocentric intellectual and medical student
wash-out, Tone is the creepy sociopath responsible for the corpse,
the wealthy aunt of the spineless Robert Hutton, who nervously paid
to have it done. As a “favor” to tie up any loose ends, Tone also
kills the aunt’s maid, hoping to pin both murders on the
unsuspecting Meredith. Blackmailing Hutton for a chunk of the
inheritance is also part of his scheme. Hutton completes a triangle
with wife, Patricia Roc, and Jean Wallace. Roc
is quite aware of her husband's affair with the latter and the ladies
share sarcastic barbs back and forth. Like two sisters that do not
get along. The infidelity trio goes everywhere together. This subplot
seems lifted from a separate movie. When all is said and done, there
are three murders committed by Tone.
Mush-mouthed
Laughton plays the pipe-smoking, Jules Maigret, the fictional French
police detective created by writer Georges Simenon. Laughton appears
to steal every scene with facial expressions and body language,
sometimes humorously, as in the handwriting analysis scene regarding
Tone’s notes. He does not believe in Meredith’s guilt so arranges
his prison break to have him tailed. To Laughton’s ire, his men
lose him after he jumps from a bridge into the river. I guess it
never occurred to them to follow his slow swim along the river’s
bank and wait for him to come ashore. Laughton methodically goes
about his investigation while Tone taunts and mocks his progress.
First in phone calls and messages, then in person, in the tower’s
open-air restaurant. Dining together, we first witness Tone’s
eccentricity with his diatribe upon Laughton. The tower is his
sanctuary and metaphor for being above everyone else. He suggests to
Laughton, with his seeming lack of evidence, he will never be
caught.
There
are a few exciting moments in the film. The first has the young
character actor, William Phipps, chasing Tone on Parisian rooftops.
The climactic tower scene also makes for good filmmaking but
suggesting Tone can climb preposterously fast on the supporting grid
of iron is beyond belief. The only thing more ridiculous is having
Meredith chase him up the tower in retribution. As a first-time tower
climber, the introverted Meredith shows no fear in leather dress
shoes and new spectacles. The ending is not what you might expect
after the killer ascends to the tower’s top platform. Laughton,
understanding Tone’s self-imposed courage and importance, tells
Meredith to come down. Tone is not worth the trouble. Let him jump.
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