ManiakJiggy This is How Movies Should Be Made

Raetsonwe Redundant and unnecessary.

ReaderKenka Let's be realistic.

UnowPriceless hyped garbage

JohnHowardReid Screenplay: Barré Lyndon. Allegedy based on the 1942 novel by Patrick Hamilton. Copyright 6 February 1945 by 20th Century-Fox Film Corporation. New York opening at the Roxy: 8 February 1945. U.S. release: February 1945. U.K. release: 9 April 1945. Australian release: 12 July 1945. 6,966 feet. 77 minutes. SYNOPSIS: London, 1903. A well-known composer is unaware that he has a split personality.COMMENT: This brilliant screenplay is virtually the unaided work of Barré Lyndon. Only the title, the names of the two principal characters (Bone and Netta) and the idea of Bone's split personality derive directly from the novel. Masterstrokes like turning Bone into a composer, setting the period back from 1939 to the turn of the century, inventing the trigger mechanism of the discordant noise (in Patrick Hamilton's novel, Bone just clicks in and out of schizophrenia without rhyme or reason), plus the film's highly-charged set-pieces (none of which, including the fiery climax, are even so much as hinted at in the book) can be credited solely to Lyndon.All the screenplay's marvelous effects are superbly realized by director John Brahm, who re-enforces their impact with extraordinarily fluid camera movements and highly imaginative compositions.The movie is also most impressively served by its star, Laird Cregar, whose crash diet led to his untimely death at the age of twenty-eight, shortly after this picture was completed. Bone's words, "Music is the most important thing in the world to me!" and Middleton's reply, "You're wrong, Mr Bone! The most important thing is your life!" could have been applied to Cregar himself by simply substituting "acting" for "music". Certainly the weight loss evident in the film has made a remarkably difference to his appearance. His features, flatteringly photographed here by Joseph LaShelle, are actually quite handsome. Allied with his natural acting ability and his magnetic personality, his charisma would certainly have built him into a star of the first magnitude had he survived. I like the soft-spoken voice he adopts here too. There's no doubt the operation of transforming Cregar from character player to major star was outstandingly successful. Only one minor drawback: the patient died. Bernard Herrmann's music score must rank as one of the finest ever composed for a motion picture. Other production credits are equally superlative, yet, oddly, the movie was not nominated by any body for any awards at all. Nor, incredibly, were contemporary critics particularly enthusiastic.

bsmith5552 Following the success of "The Lodger" (1944), Darryl F. Zanuck, never one to miss an opportunity, rushed star Laird Cregar into a sequel of sorts, "Hangover Square". Again Cregar is cast as a schizophrenic dual personality murderer.There's no doubt that he is a murderer as the opening scene has him stabbing an old antique dealer (Francis Ford) to death. Later we see him wandering aimlessly in the turn of the 20th century streets of London. He suddenly regains his senses and has no memory of the past few hours or of the dastardly crime he has just committed.Back at his home we learn that George Harvey Bone (Cregar) is an aspiring composer who is working on a concerto that he hopes will bring him fame. He is working under the tutelage of Sir Henry Chapman (Alan Napier) who just happens to have an attractive young daughter Barbara (Faye Marlowe) who has an attraction to Bone.Bone meanwhile has doubts about his blackouts and seeks the advice of Scotland Yard shrink Dr. Allan Middleton ( a bland George Sanders). Middleton advises him to ease up on his work and go out and have some fun. While watching a music hall revue, he is attracted to alluring showgirl Netta Longdon (Linda Darnell). She sees an opportunity to use George to her advantage by getting him to write songs for her while playing up to him. Unbeknownst to George, Netta has been carrying on with producer Eddie Carstairs (Glen Langan). When George discovers her deception he has another blackout and...........................................One can't help but notice the similarities between the Bone character(s) and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Both have good girl/bad girl relationships and both have mysterious blackouts where they commit violent acts. And of course there is the inevitable comparison to Cregar's Jack the Ripper character from "The Lodger". I personally didn't find him nearly as frightening in this film, bug eyes notwithstanding.Laird Cregar was apparently afraid of being type cast as a murderous villain. With the success of "The Lodger" he saw himself as a leading man and undertook a crash diet between the two films losing 100 lbs in the process. It is quite shocking to see the difference in Cregar's appearance in the two films. The stress on his heart evidently took its toll and he passed away at age 31 before "Hanover Square" was released.

secondtake Hangover Square (1945)In a highly dramatic movie about a musician, it it significant that Bernard Herrmann wrote and conducted the score. Herrmann is the man behind the music for a whole slew of great movies from "Citizen Kane" to "Psycho." He writes with gutsy, vigorous originality, a striking counterpart to that other legendary composer, Max Steiner, who is more clever and graceful in his scoring. Herrmann feels more like a tortured serious composer trapped in a movie world, and it really works.Now throw in one of the handful of best cinematographers of the 1940s, Joseph LaShelle (around this time he did both "Laura" and "Fallen Angel") and you have a sensual film through and through. It's edited so tightly, and the plot with its murders and fires is so highly dramatic, it's breathless and bursting with angst. In a way, it probably isn't so much an escape for war-torn Britain in early 1945 but a reminder of it, a fictional echo of pure chaos and fear.The centerpiece of the movie is a young actor who I knew only from his really compelling role in "This Gun For Hire." This is the unlikely lead man, Laird Cregar, who died just after filming this movie, at the age of 31, due to complications caused by preparing for the part. He was a big man, and did a crash diet to lose 100 pounds (45 kilos) and ended up ruining his health, dying after emergency stomach surgery. An American actor, he fits into this completely British feeling movie partly because he studied and worked in Britain as a young man.But besides all that, it's possible that Cregar was pushing too hard to make the plot work. His attempts at depth and pathos sometimes seem wooden or contrived. Maybe the director is partly an influence, and certainly there are moments where Cregar looks right into the camera and lets his eyes go buggy. So all of it is at least partly exaggerated melodrama, and that's great stuff. This is, in it's mere 77 minutes, an excessive and almost maniacal movie. You might have to see it twice to get some of the fast things going on, but if you can keep the female leads straight as they come and go, the rest should fall into place. Oh, and George Sanders, one of my favorite secondary men in these British movies, is terrific but oddly underplayed, maybe to let Cregar have the spotlight.If you do like this as much as I did, you might want to know that the director, John Brahm, did a number of interesting films, including the terrific "The Lodger" which has some of this same edgy stylizing, and a dozen early "Twilight Zone" episodes. "Hangover Square" is a perfect entry into his style and work. Expect a lot, fast!

dbdumonteil ...and you have a hangover! Freudian movies were countless in the first half of the forties:from "Cat people" to "spellbound" ,and from "secret beyond the door" to "the dark mirror" ,there were plenty of good movies inspired by the good doctor.I do not think that "Hangover Square" is in the same league as the four previous works,but it would be unfair to overlook it.A musician who does not want his art to be mistreated ,in a way.A dissonant note can drive him crazy and ready to commit murder.There are suspenseful scenes ,particularly towards the end when the gorgeous Linda Darnell plays the piano in a concert the high society attends.Bernard Herrmann's score is terrific as ever.He will never be surpassed.