C*i*g*a*rTheJoe wrote: ↑December 3rd, 2023, 6:06 pm
Here is a Cornell Woolrich based film that unfortunately completely changes the entire setup of the novel.
The 1943 novel takes place in New York City, The 1946 film adaptation unfortunately moves everything to Los Angeles. That wipes out the entire searching The Bowery flophouses for "Heartbreak" sequence. Though, interestingly enough Heartbreak shows up in the film as a song on a record.
In the novel the main protagonist is a woman Alberta Murray. The first inkling that something is wrong is when her husband stops calling her by his pet name for her, "Angel Face." Then she finds a solid gold powder compact engraved "To Mia from Marty," in Kirk's overcoat pocket. Kirk tells Alberta that he found it on the street. When the next day it is gone, and she asks about it, Kirk tells her that he took it to a jewelers and left it there when the jeweler told him it was just a gilt metal fake. Suspicious because she noticed a "14 k," Alberta visits the jeweler who tells her Kirk was never there. Alberta now suspects her husband Kirk's infidelity with Mia Mercer, a woman of somewhat loose morals whose real profession is left to the imagination. Woolrich describes a publicity photo of her as a scantily clad "attraction," at a place called Dave Hennessey's The Hermitage. Probably a topless showgirl or a stripper. (In the film the name Mia Mercer is changed to Mavis Marlowe and she is now a nightclub singer).
Alberta, after finding a valise and two of Kirk's suits missing, thinks her husband is going off on a weekend trip with Mia.
Alberta decides to go and do something about it. She sleuths out Mia's address from The Hermitage and goes to confront her in person. Mia lives in a posh apartment that has various pieces of bric-a-brac festooned with her initials MM. When she gets to Mia's apartment building she finds the door to Mia's unlocked and Mia in her bedroom laying on the floor, suffocated to death with a pillow. While the threat to her marriage is now defunct, Mia, worried about any scandal connecting Mia to her husband Kirk, grabs Mia's address / telephone book. Leaving the apartment Alberta notices on the way out, that the front door didn't lock because someone, the murderer, jammed a matchbook with a single letter M on it's cover, into the doors lock mechanism. It prevented the bolt from engaging.
Alberta rushes back to her home and frantically tries to get ahold of her husband at his office, to warn him about going to Mia's. It's already too late. When Kirk gets to Mia's the murder has already been discovered, and he is arrested by the police. Various witness statements place Kirk at Mia's apartment many times.
The trial is quick, Kirk is found guilty, and ever loyal Alberta armed with Mia's address book decides to try and find the real murderer before Kirks execution date. In the address book there are four "M's".
Marty ----- Crestview 6-4824
Mordant ---- Atwater 8-7457
Mason -- Butterfield 9-8019
McKee ---- Columbus 4-0011
So the rest of the novel is about Albert's quest to find the killer and exonerate her husband.
The film switches the action from New York to Los Angeles then of course drops the whole Bowery search, all of Dr. Mordant and the drug dealing angle altogether, and combines alcoholic Marty "Heartbreak" Blair and socialite Ladd Mason into pianist/composer Martin Blair. Alberta and Kirk Murray in the novel, are changed to Catherine and Kirk Bennett. Mavis Marlowe (Mia Mercer in the novel) changes from being a slutty playgirl to a slutty blackmailer aka the Black Angel of the film title) The film also expands a police captains role.