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 was thrown his direction, chief 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, suspenseful 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.
Perhaps this
unexplained detail was to establish an abnormal individual. Let the
speculations begin. He taunts Meredith with his commands, and the
viewer is (literally) 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. In a subplot seemingly lifted from a separate movie, Hutton completes an infidelity trio with wife, Patricia Roc, and Jean Wallace. Roc
is quite aware of her husband's affair with the latter, and the ladies
exchange sarcastic barbs, like two sisters who do not
get along.
Mush-mouthed
Laughton plays the pipe-smoking Jules Maigret, a fictional French
police detective created by writer Georges Simenon. Laughton usually steals 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 he 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 against Laughton. The tower is his
sanctuary and a metaphor for being above everyone else. He suggests to
Laughton that, with his seeming lack of evidence, he will never be
caught.
There
are a few exciting moments in the film. The first has a young William Phipps chasing Tone on Parisian rooftops.
The climactic tower scene also makes for good filmmaking, but
suggesting Tone can climb preposterously fast in leather dress shoes on the angled grids of iron is beyond belief. The only thing more unbelievable is having the introverted, first-time tower climber, Meredith, rapidly chase him up the tower in retribution. The ending is not what you might expect
after the killer ascends to the tower’s top platform. Laughton asks him to climb down. Yet knowing Tone’s self-imposed courage and importance, maybe just let him jump.
