Film Review
The indefinable bleak poetry of Edgar G. Ulmer's films reached its
zenith in the films he made in the 1940s, in particular his films noirs
which are now highly thought of and among the most unsettling of this
era, despite being made on a virtually non-existent budget with an
incredibly high turn around.
Bluebeard,
although a period piece set in Paris of the 1800s, has as great a claim
as any of Ulmer's films to be a film noir. Its shadowy,
doom-laden composition (to which the legendary cinematographer Eugen
Schüfftan put his signature) and oppressive design lend it an aura
of contained menace which permeates every scene, broken only by the
flashes of horror which erupt when the killer shows himself and
succumbs to his demonic impulse. As a study in man's dual nature,
the film is startlingly vivid and chillingly eloquent.
One of the more impressive films that Ulmer made for the Poverty Row
studio Producers Releasing Corporation (PRC),
Bluebeard owes its visual impact
mostly to the imaginative set design (contributed by Ulmer himself),
which employs detailed matte shots and false perspective with
considerable artistry for such a low budget production. It's not
a realistic representation of 19th century Paris that
Bluebeard offers, but rather that
of a dark and dreamlike fairytale, crude but hauntingly expressive with
some stark Gothic underpinnings. You'd never guess that the film
was shot in less than a week (typical of Ulmer's work for PRC).
The lighting and camerawork are not only supremely effective, they also
include some dazzlingly inspired expressionistic touches, such as an
extended flashback filmed entirely with skewed camera angles and, most
weird of all, a slow tracking shot filmed at an angle in a way that not
only conveys the mental derangement of the main protagonist but also
places us at the centre of his warped being.
And who better to play the split-personality protagonist than John
Carradine, a prolific character actor whose range of roles is the stuff
of Hollywood legend? Carradine is as well suited for playing the
gentle and seemingly inoffensive puppeteer Gaston Morrell as he is the
deranged killer that he becomes when the impulse to destroy takes
over. The actor cited this as one of his favourite roles and it's
easy to see why - it allowed him to portray two completely different
personas, each stemming from the same flawed yet believable character,
an artist whose obsessive search for beauty has led him to surrender
his soul, Faust-like, to the Devil that hides in each of us.
(Allusions to the Faust legend permeate the narrative in many subtle
and not-so-subtle ways, and you wonder if Ulmer considered himself a
latterday Faust, forever locked in an unbeakable pact with the less
reputable of Hollywood studios.) There's something inherently
sinister about Carradine's understated performance that convinces us he
is the fearsome Bluebeard well before we have reason to suspect as
much, and when the mask of gentility falls to reveal the monster
beneath, helped by some truly terrifying close-ups, the effect is not
just shocking but something that is bound to induce nightmares.
Carradine was
never this
frightening in his horror films for Universal.
Bluebeard has a similar
atmosphere and poetry to Ulmer's earlier horror masterpiece
The
Black Cat (1934), although, lacking the resources of
Universal Studios, it hasn't the polish and visual impact of that
film. The pace of
Bluebeard
is lethargic in the character-led first half but soon picks up after
the mid-point and builds to a gripping climax as the mystery is
unravelled and the police net tightens around the killer. As in
virtually all of his films for PRC, Ulmer exploits the artistic freedom
he has to the fullest extent and, in doing so, he crafts a distinctive
entry in the horror genre that is as creepily unnerving as it is
visually enticing. It's also a film that eerily prefigures
the psycho-thriller of a much later era. Edgar G. Ulmer
wasn't only a maverick apart in his own time, he was also ahead of his
time.
© James Travers 2015
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.
Film Synopsis
Paris is caught in a grip of terror. Several young women have
been murdered, their bodies dumped in the River Seine, and the police
search in vain to find the killer who has been dubbed Bluebeard.
Meanwhile, a failed artist Gaston Morrell earns a meagre crust
entertaining crowds with his puppet show. At one of his
performances he meets dress designer Lucile, who agrees to make some
new costumes for his puppets. That same evening, Morel strangles
his partner Renée when she questions him as to what became of
all the models who posed for him. One of Morel's paintings ends
up being sold by art dealer Jean Lamarte to a duke, who promptly has it
displayed at a public exhibition. The fact that the woman in the
painting was one of Bluebeard's victims immediately arouses the
interest of the police. The greedy Lamarte accepts a generous
commission for Morel to paint another portrait, not knowing it is bait
to flush out the serial killer. Against his better judgement,
Morel agrees to undertake the painting, but when he realises he has
fallen into a trap he is forced to kill again. Suspecting that
Morel may be the killer, Lucile confronts him and he feels impelled to
tell her the tragic story of his life. Now that Lucile knows his
secret, she too must die...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.