The Locket

United States

1946

85 Min

Black and White

1.37:1

English

Currently 3.9/5 Stars.
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CAST Laraine Day, Robert Mitchum, Brian Aherne, Gene Raymond, Sharyn Moffett, Ricardo Cortez, Fay Helm, Katherine Emery, Henry Stephenson, Lillian Fontaine

PROD DES Albert S. D'Agostino, Alfred Herman

SOUND John L. Cass, Clem Portman

Synopsis

The Locket, a 1946 film noir has intrigued audiences for decades with its intricate narrative. Like several other films in the genre, its story is told largely in flashback — psychiatrist Brian Aherne tries to warn Gene Raymond that the woman he’s about to marry (Laraine Day) is a dangerous psychopath. But in the middle of his story, the film switches to a flashback recounting the memories of her previous husband (Robert Mitchum), who then leads the audience into a flashback told by Day. Few films had tried anything as intricate as a flashback within a flashback within a flashback. At the time, audiences often arrived in the middle of a film and stayed until its later showing to pick up on what they had missed. That was impossible with The Locket, however, a fact contemporary critics were quick to point out. For later audiences, however, the film’s unconventional structure has become one of its most distinctive features, helping it to earn cult status. —TCM

Director

John Brahm

John Brahm (August 17, 1893 – October 13, 1982) was a film and television director possibly best known today for directing a dozen of the original Twilight Zone episodes including the now classic “Time Enough at Last”. His films include The Undying Monster (1942), The Lodger (1944), Hangover Square (1945), the film noir The Locket (1946) with Laraine Day, Robert Mitchum, and Brian Aherne, and the Secret Sharer segment of Face to Face. He also directed the 3D horror film The Mad Magician 1954 with Vincent Price and Mary Murphy.

Brahm was born in Hamburg, Germany. He was the son of German actor Ludwig Brahm and the nephew of European theatrical impresario Otto Brahm.

John started his theatre career as a character actor. After World War I, shuttling between Vienna, Berlin and Paris, he became theatre director and was resident director for acting troupes at Deutsches Theater and the Lessing Theater, both in Berlin.

With the rise of Hitler, he first moved to England… read more

Brahm was born in Hamburg, Germany. He was the son of German actor Ludwig Brahm and the nephew of European theatrical impresario Otto Brahm.

With the rise of Hitler, he first moved to England. After working as a movie production supervisor, he got a chance to direct his first film, a remake of D.W. Griffith’s 1919 silent film, Broken Blossoms in 1936, before moving to America in 1937. The German director started in the U.S. at Columbia Pictures and eventually moved to 20th Century-Fox. He directed the ill fated Let Us Live, the true story of two men who were wrongly convicted for murder and almost executed by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, which was embarrassed by the incident and put pressure on the studio to cancel the film. The studio made the film nonetheless, but quietly, with a small budget.

In his book, The American Cinema: Directors and Directions 1929–1968, American film historian and critic Andrew Sarris states that Brahm “hit his stride” in the 1940s with “mood drenched melodramas”, suggesting that Brahm went into artistic decline after this period. Nevertheless, Sarris further notes that Brahm did not lack work, as he made “approximately 150 TV films” during a the 1950s and 1960s, directing numerous episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Brahm’s last full-length film was Hot Rods to Hell. —wikipedia

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Mr. Arkadin

29Oct11

Generally I'm only (or mostly) interested in noir when it exudes some sense of the grotesque and weird. (Kiss Me Deadly and Touch of Evil come to mind.) The Locket, though not as great as those two, achieves this same place--from Day's performance, to the "nested" flashback structure, to the whole wedding day/bridal march sequence (the shot up the veil reminds me of a similar scene in Suicide Club). Pretty great.

Arsaib likes this

Neither/Nor

30Sep11

Laraine Day's paced revelation of a sociopathic negative Cassandra nearly perfects the femme fatale as she castrates her way through society with the bravado of a true pathos, but the finale unfortunately apologies for her behaviour as much as it absolves her. Overall a remarkable study with an ambitious structure.