Hangover Square (1945) - film review

In the early 1900s, the well-known English composer George Harvey Bone is working hard to complete his magnum opus, a piano concerto dedicated to his fiancée.  The stress of this undertaking causes Bone to experience strange lapses in which he wanders around the streets of London, unconscious of any act he may perform.  After one such lapse, he is convinced that he killed a man, but a friendly doctor at Scotland Yard establishes his innocence.  At a tavern, Bone meets an ambitious young singer Netta, who is quick to exploit his interest in her.  Infatuated with Netta, Bone begins writing songs for her which will make her name.  But when he asks Netta to marry him, she turns him down in favour of another man.  This rejection brings on another of Bone’s lapses.  In a trance-like state, the composer returns to Netta, intent on murdering her...

Between The Lodger (1944) and The Locket (1946), his two best-known films, director John Brahm helmed this supremely atmospheric noir thriller, adapted from a popular novel by the English writer Patrick Hamilton.  Although the action takes place in gas-lit bars and concert halls of London at the start of the 20th century, rather than the more familiar noir territory of dingy neon-lit backstreets of a 40s American metropolis, the film has all the ingredients of the classic film noir thriller, and is easily one of the most compelling and disturbing the genre has ever given us.  The confined shadow-draped sets, skilful use of the subjective camera and some suitably nasty plot developments ensure that Hangover Square is a film that any film noir aficionado will want to see.

Brahm’s direction is as slick and effortless as ever and brings the maximum amount of tension and menace to every scene.  There is a distinctly Hitchcockian flavour to Brahm’s mise-en-scène, particularly in the gripping denouement in which the camera sweeps around a concert hall as though it were spinning a web around its doomed protagonist.  The Hitchcockian feel is reinforced by Bernard Herrmann’s spine-chilling score, which includes an exquisitely sinister piano concerto  played at the climax of the piece, almost as an exorcism of the dark forces that have somehow taken control of the main character’s destiny and driven him straight into the abyss.

The film is supremely well cast, with the stunning Linda Darnell proving her worth as the definitive femme fatale.  Laird Cregar brings poignancy, charm and menace to his character, an English composer with a split personality that has echoes of his earlier portrayal in Brahm’s equally moody The Lodger.  To make his character appear more romantic, Cregar subjected himself to a crash diet immediately before making the film, something that had disastrous consequences.  After a stomach operation, Cregar suffered a fatal heart attack, cutting short a promising Hollywood career at the age of 31.  Hangover Square was released just a few months after his death and testifies that his untimely departure was an immense loss to cinema and the acting profession in general.

© James Travers 2012

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