The Mad Pianist

Ashamedly, I had another wonderful time with John Brahm’s The Lodger (1944) last week but failed to mention anything about it. I wanted it to marinate and then try to put something together. Nothing ever came, although, I did want to mention that the work of Cregar cannot be understated…he was sensational. Perhaps his short life and career left a legacy unfortunately forgotten. Fox Movie Channel still shows The Lodger and Hangover Square (1945) from time to time, often in the mornings. I wish fresh eyes could see their beauty, elegance, artistry, class. Brahm would go on to direct episodes of The Twilight Zone, much to my pleasure. Both The Lodger and Hangover Square are treasures to me, to be respected and admired. Cregar as Jack the Ripper in The Lodger then as a tormented concert pianist/composer set to write/prepare a concerto that would build him proper acclaim, both films showing his characters beset by psychological and mental maladies that ultimately lead to his demise. Cregar’s face, his eyes, the way he physically puts his “body into” the performance, the wrenching pangs of mental warfare and that seething malignancy that perpetuates both Mr. Slade and George Harvey Bone to do bad things to women mostly is incredible to see endeavored by the man before his untimely death in 1944. Brahm directed him in both of those films, but for me The Lodger is the triumph of both director and star. That’s not to say Thursday evening’s viewing of Hangover Square wasn’t just as worthwhile. Cregar as the hopelessly (and pitiably) in love, Bone, provoked to kill by discordant sound, awakening from the psychopathic fugue without remembering that “lost time” blackout, until therapist for Scotland Yard, Dr. Allan Middleton (George Sanders), eventually convinces him that, while it isn’t his fault, he is dangerous and must realize that safety for the public depends on turning himself in. Linda Darnell, as pub dancer with designs to climb into much better and more respected (and successful) venues, Netta, sees Bone as her mealticket, using his music gifts to further her career. Netta’s attraction to producer, Carstairs (Glenn Langan), inevitably leads to their affair, all the while, leading Bone on so he will produce her more music. The particular weapon, off a curtain with a certain knot tie, is her doom and almost gentle-hearted piano protegy, Barbara (Faye Marlowe). Barbara actually loves Bone and would have made him a good partner, but he’s so influenced and infatuated with Netta he can’t seem to escape her hold until her relationship with Carstairs triggers that malignancy, only needing a specific kind of noise to send him into that “mood”. Hell, Bone tries to strangle his pet cat! The poor cat gets run over by a horse carriage while Bone strangles Netta, so the escape from death was shortlived. Much like in The Lodger—I still wow at those scenes in London when Dr. Slade is on the dark streets attacking actresses mirroring the one that “killed his brother” while the police, often accompanied by the eerie fog, as the camera distances to give us a wide angle of the activity (like pursuing their killer on the loose by marching down streets and alleys, ultimately up buildings, canvassing and traversing where they must) allows us to see the efforts often in vain to catch him—Hangover Square features London nights, moody and oft-foreboding, populated by every sort on both ends of the societal spectrum in terms of wealth and poverty, as Brahm’s camera gives you quite a bird’s eye view. Brahm’s camera inside the concert hall at the end—especially when it burns—as Cregar refuses to abandon the piano as his dream concerto is in full orchestral form, moves about the confines to encapsulate the entire experience in striking fashion. Brahm, in the 40s, is one of the great unsung studio masters. ****/****

As others who are fans of the actor could tell you, a lot of Cregar's magic spell is also in his voice: tender, well-spoken, rich in texture, refined. He doesn't have the tenor of a madman which makes his physical performances that much more impeccable.