Edgar G. Ulmer's BLUEBEARD (1944)
Posted: May 3rd, 2008, 2:08 pm
The queasy hybrid genre concoction that is Edgar G. Ulmer's BLUEBEARD (1944), an unholy marriage of film noir and horror, will air once again on TCM this Monday, May 5.
Those unfamiliar with the pleasures to be found in the demented visual poetry of Edgar G. Ulmer, whose most notorious film, DETOUR (1945) has fascinated cineastes the world over for decades, will find much to enjoy in BLUEBEARD.
Emerging from PRC (Producer's Releasing Corporation), the same poverty row studio responsible for DETOUR (as well as several other Ulmer classics) it tells the haunting story of Gaston Morrell, a Parisian artist and puppeteer (magnificently played by John Carradine) who, after painting the portraits of beautiful women, finishes the job by strangling his models to death. Morrell seems genuinely tortured by this hideous compulsion but in true noir fashion, is powerless to do anything about it. The problem becomes even more complicated when he falls in love with Lucille (Jean Parker), a beguiling young seamstress who seems fated to become Morrell's next victim.
Filmed in one week on the dank and murky back lots of poverty row, BLUEBEARD is a prime example of Ulmer's peculiar genius for turning nearly nothing into something of profound and lasting beauty. Creating a brilliantly stylized Paris under such financially limiting conditions was pair pour le cours for Ulmer and his production designer (and uncredited cinematographer) Eugen Schufftan. Schufftan had worked some fifteen years earlier with Ulmer on MENSCHEN AM SONNTAG (PEOPLE ON SUNDAY) (30) and would do so again on STRANGE ILLUSION (45), CLUB HAVANA (45) and THE WIFE OF MONTE CRISTO (46) --- all for PRC. Among the many other films photographed by Schufftan are G. W. Pabst's L'ATLANTIDE (32), Marcel Carne's LE QUAI DES BRUMES (PORT OF SHADOWS) (38), Rene Clair's IT HAPPENED TOMORROW (44), Robert Rossen's THE HUSTLER (61) and LILITH (64) and Jack Garfein's SOMETHING WILD (61). Clearly it is no accident that BLUEBEARD achieves such a distinctly expressionistic look and feel; it is the product of committed artists whose work, before and after, establish them as supreme cinematic stylists.
BLUEBEARD was produced by poverty row pioneer Leon Fromkess who would achieve additional notoriety in the 1960s as the producer of two of Samuel Fuller's most provocative noir films, SHOCK CORRIDOR (63) and THE NAKED KISS (64).
And finally, it has often been noted that John Carradine cited BLUEBEARD as his favorite role in a long and prolific career. It is easy to understand why. He rarely, if ever, had the opportunity to be so prominently featured at the center of a film, one that would allow him to channel his obsessively melodramatic histrionics into a character that blended so perfectly with his environment. A performance as mesmerizing as the film itself.
Those unfamiliar with the pleasures to be found in the demented visual poetry of Edgar G. Ulmer, whose most notorious film, DETOUR (1945) has fascinated cineastes the world over for decades, will find much to enjoy in BLUEBEARD.
Emerging from PRC (Producer's Releasing Corporation), the same poverty row studio responsible for DETOUR (as well as several other Ulmer classics) it tells the haunting story of Gaston Morrell, a Parisian artist and puppeteer (magnificently played by John Carradine) who, after painting the portraits of beautiful women, finishes the job by strangling his models to death. Morrell seems genuinely tortured by this hideous compulsion but in true noir fashion, is powerless to do anything about it. The problem becomes even more complicated when he falls in love with Lucille (Jean Parker), a beguiling young seamstress who seems fated to become Morrell's next victim.
Filmed in one week on the dank and murky back lots of poverty row, BLUEBEARD is a prime example of Ulmer's peculiar genius for turning nearly nothing into something of profound and lasting beauty. Creating a brilliantly stylized Paris under such financially limiting conditions was pair pour le cours for Ulmer and his production designer (and uncredited cinematographer) Eugen Schufftan. Schufftan had worked some fifteen years earlier with Ulmer on MENSCHEN AM SONNTAG (PEOPLE ON SUNDAY) (30) and would do so again on STRANGE ILLUSION (45), CLUB HAVANA (45) and THE WIFE OF MONTE CRISTO (46) --- all for PRC. Among the many other films photographed by Schufftan are G. W. Pabst's L'ATLANTIDE (32), Marcel Carne's LE QUAI DES BRUMES (PORT OF SHADOWS) (38), Rene Clair's IT HAPPENED TOMORROW (44), Robert Rossen's THE HUSTLER (61) and LILITH (64) and Jack Garfein's SOMETHING WILD (61). Clearly it is no accident that BLUEBEARD achieves such a distinctly expressionistic look and feel; it is the product of committed artists whose work, before and after, establish them as supreme cinematic stylists.
BLUEBEARD was produced by poverty row pioneer Leon Fromkess who would achieve additional notoriety in the 1960s as the producer of two of Samuel Fuller's most provocative noir films, SHOCK CORRIDOR (63) and THE NAKED KISS (64).
And finally, it has often been noted that John Carradine cited BLUEBEARD as his favorite role in a long and prolific career. It is easy to understand why. He rarely, if ever, had the opportunity to be so prominently featured at the center of a film, one that would allow him to channel his obsessively melodramatic histrionics into a character that blended so perfectly with his environment. A performance as mesmerizing as the film itself.