Round Up 1945, Part One: La Fiancée Des Ténèbres

According to the IMDB, of the 715 films made in 1945, 35 fall under the headings of fantasy, horror or science-fiction. They are:

Adán, Eva y el diablo
An Angel Comes to Brooklyn
Blithe Spirit
Blondine
Dead of Night
Fog Island
Hangover Square
He Who Died of Love
House of Dracula
Isle of the Dead
La fiancée des ténèbres
Las cinco advertencias de Satanás
Linnaisten vihreä kamari
Manhunt of Mystery Island
One Day with the Devil
Pillow of Death
Sortilèges
Strange Confession
That Witch Came from Yesterday to Today
The Body Snatcher
The Frozen Ghost
The Horn Blows at Midnight
The House of Fear
The Jungle Captive
The Phantom Speaks
The Picture of Dorian Gray  
The Purple Monster Strikes
The Spiral Staircase
The Vampire's Ghost
The Woman in Green
They Came to a City
Woman Who Came Back
Wonder Man
Yolanda and the Thief
Zombies on Broadway 

A couple of these are Val Lewton pictures (Isle of The Dead and The Body Snatcher), and you may be surprised (not to say disgusted) to find that I'm not going to be dealing with them individually. Lewton was working with Boris Karloff at this point, and while the three they made together are all fine pictures (and well worth investigating, particularly if you're fascinated by the Lewton oeuvre as a whole), they aren't as near and dear to my heart as the earlier products of his RKO B-horror unit.

Besides, their quality is known: they certainly don't need my endorsement, and I need to start being more selective here (I now realise I shouldn't have given The Leopard Man its own entry, either). What will be getting an entry? The lesser known (and, yes, Lewtonesque) Woman Who Came Back, for one. But first, what else of interest was going on in '45 that I don't know about?

As usual, neither IMDB or AMG have any information on the Mexican Adán, Eva Y El Diablo (Adam, Eve and The Devil) or El Que Murio De Amor (He Who Died of Love), apart from the year they were made and who was involved in making them, so do they even exist anymore? I don't know. Likewise the French language Blondine (which, according to AMG, actually dates from 1943). Another casualty of the war?

David Lean's version of Noel Coward's Blithe Spirit is definitely among the living, and well worth seeking out. It's been a long time since I saw it, but it's an acknowledged classic and anything featuring the wonderful Margaret Rutherford (star of four delightfully comic Ms. Marple mysteries, among other things) as a spirit medium is automatically of interest. Rex Harrison plays the cynical novelist who enlists Rutherford's aid when he accidentally summons up the spirit of his first wife (Kay Hammond) who then refuses to go away. The exorcism does not pan pan out, and evenutally his second wife dies, too, and Rex finds he's got two spectral ex-spouses on his hands. You can see the trailer below. Funny: I'd forgotten this film was in colour.

Is Dead Of Night the first horror anthology? It's considered among the very best, anyway, and we can probably thank it for the raft of truly wretched imitators that have appeared in its wake ever since. There's a truism that says horror works best in a short story, so if there's one cinematic form that should, by all rights, work, it's the horror anthology, but it rarely ever does. (UK television's Shades Of Darkness is a rare exception, featuring, among other quality episodes, the best ghost story ever committed to film, The Intercessor, based on the chilling and heartbreaking novella by May Sinclair.) However, I have to admit that the reviews make Dead Of Night sound quite appetising, even the long-since-rendered-a-tired-cliche ventriloquist tortured by his dummy story. The framing sequence of the story-tellers assembled in an isolated country house, though they know not why, nervously entertaining one another with stories, reportedly works as something other than a weak device. And, too, I like the sound of haunted golf courses and haunted Christmas parties. Five stories, four directors, and it would be nice to see this dodge really work for a change. Add this one to the list. Here's the opening scene:

Now that the time comes to read up on John Brahm's Hangover Square, I find that I can't generate much enthusiam for the idea of seeing it. Reviews seem to agree that it opens with a stylistic flourish, but settles down after that, which leaves you in the company of a a pscyhotic composer played by Laird Cregar, who is experiencing deadline pressure for the composition of his latest concerto and is driven to murder by distracting noise. I suppose its conceivable that a film with a plot like that one could succeed on pure stylistic verve alone, and they say Cregar is very good in his final role, but I can't see seeking this one out. On the other hand, the only way to see Brahm's The Undying Monster and The Lodger is to purchase the box set that also contains Hangover Square, so...

But, oh ho! Now, this is what I'm talking about! La Fiancée Des Ténèbres (Bride of Darkness), a French film during the Occupation, with director Serge De Poligny under constant scrutiny from an official charged with making sure no more anti-German propaganda snuck through. Lensed in the fascinating and picturesque Carcassone region of the heresy-prone birthplace of courtly love South of France, it involves a woman cursed to bring death to her lovers, whose father, believing himself to be the last of the Albigensian bishops, is looking to revive the Cathar faith.
James Travers, at filmsdefrance.com, calls it "utterly chilling", an "unsettling mix of neo-realistic photography and fairy-tale like settings... an impressive example of the fantasy genre in French cinema of the 1940s. Although little known, it is an extraordinary work of cinema," and crowns these effusions by dubbing it a "curious melange of Jean Cocteau’s La Belle Et La Bête and the cult 1976 horror film The Omen." And while we all try to imagine what that could possibly look like, I will just add it to my list of must see movies. What are the chances I will be able to track it down? Pretty slim...