THE MAN ON THE EIFFEL TOWER (1950)

This American, eighty-seven-minute noir mystery released by RKO Radio Pictures was directed 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. Still, it would not be difficult to imagine that this film might have been a celluloid classic in more capable hands. In my astute assumptions, few will bother watching this film. Hench, a few spoilers below.

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 a pair of slacks with 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, medical student wash-out and Meredith's mystery man is Tone. A 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. 

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.