Rage in Heaven (1941) - film review

England, 1936.  After a chance meeting, Phillip Monrell invites his old college friend Ward Andrews to his grand family home.  On their arrival, they meet Stella Bergen, who has been recently hired by Monrell’s mother as a secretary.  Against his will, Monrell agrees to take over the management of the family business, a thriving steel foundry, and Stella gladly accepts his proposal of marriage.  Even though he knows that Stella is attracted to his old friend, Monrell offers Andrews a job as his lead engineer.  But Monrell has a dark and terrible secret: he suffes from paranoid delusions.  Convinced that Andrews intends to take Stella away from him, Monrell plans to murder him...

Rage in Heaven is a chilling, masterfully constructed psychological thriller that is apparently based on a novel by James Hilton but appears to owe more to Daphne du Maurier, with its obvious echoes of Rebecca and My Cousin Rachel.  The film was directed by W.S. Van Dyke, one of Hollywood’s most versatile filmmakers and a former assistant to the great film pioneer D.W. Griffith.  Van Dyke’s mise-en-scène has an unmistakable Hitchcockian feel to it, an impression that is reinforced by the moody film noir-style photography and a haunting score, both of which  resound with menace and powerfully underline the rampaging paranoia that is slowly devouring the central protagonist.

The film is superbly well-cast, with Robert Montgomery turning in one of his more compelling and disturbing performances as the mentally deranged husband who succumbs to paranoid jealousy.  Ingrid Bergman not only illuminates the film with her charm and beauty, she also brings an arresting combination of feminine vulnerability and steely resolve to her portrayal, just as she would do in her subsequent Hitchcock collaborations, Spellbound (1945) and Notorious (1946).  Equally captivating is George Sanders, cast against type as the hero of the piece, for once a sympathetic and romantic portrayal which, perhaps for the first time, reveals the actor’s extraordinary range as an actor.  Oskar Homolka proves to be a shameless scene-stealer at the film’s dramatic climax - whilst his portrayal of an eccentric psychiatric doctor is entertaining, it does somewhat undermine the seriousness of the piece, reducing it to farce in a few pivotal scenes.

Although Rage in Heaven stands up remarkably well today, it is a relatively minor entry in the career of W.S. Van Dyke, who is better remembered for his films in The Thin Man series and the superb San Francisco (1936), an early disaster movie that was noted for its stunning special effects.  Affectionately known as One-Take Woody, for the speed with which he was able to turn out films, Van Dyke directed ninety films including genres as diverse as westerns, musicals, thrillers and period dramas.  He may not have been the most well-regarded of Hollywood filmmakers, but films like Rage in Heaven leave us in no doubt that he was a highly accomplished film director, and one blessed with a strong visual sense, which he no doubt acquired whilst he was learning his trade way back in the silent era.

© James Travers 2012

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