La mujer de blanco

Gothic, eerie, studio vision of what a Wilkie Collins novel should and would look like, The Woman in White manages to successfully transcend the written page and give the viewer a good, old-fashioned mystery with some excellent performances and some crafty direction. Though the trimming/cutting/changing of the novel is awkward at times(sometimes even downright blunt), the script does manage to convey the basic premise of the story about a mysterious woman shrouded at night who asks a walking stranger for the time and then tells him that she is being hounded by forces she cannot explain. The walking stranger, an artist on his way to a new job, is then introduced to a household of unique personalities and a woman who could be the exact double of the woman he met on the road. This is a Victorian mystery all the way and the script is heavily aided by the skill of Godfrey the director. Swirling fogs, moonlit nights, and the ever-engaging, ever-looming, ever-massive presence of one Sydney Greenstreet make it more than what is could and would have been without them. Greenstreet gives a wonderfully droll, pernicious, charming portrayal of Alessandro Fosco, the primary villain in the piece. His Fosco is witty and yet can make a wicked look faster than any actor I have seen. Greenstreet and his agile bulk glide in oily joy from one scene of menace to another. Watching him smugly and contemptuously speak condescendingly to each and every character was great fun. Greenstreet is ably aided by some other equally memorable turns: Agnes Moorehead in a brief role as his wife, beautiful Alexis Smith as Marian, Eleanor Parker in dual roles, John Emery as a British blighter in the Terry-Thomas tradition, and John Abbott creating a minor comedic gem as Frederick Fairlie with all his "problems." Gig Young is the male lead and even though he probably is miscast he does do a decent enough job and does not detract in any way. The Woman in White is not a great film but a very good film with some wonderful atmosphere, skilled direction, and the indomitable Sydney Greenstreet. Should you, could you, would you need more than that? In the words of Greenstreet himself, "Ha, ha, Hmm - I should think not. Most definitely not. Ha. Hmm."

This is one of those exquisitely crafted, though flawed in spots, old movies that you can just lose yourself in. Great sets, costumes, dialogue and photography (excellent atmospheric use of shadows). Sydney Greenstreet, along with Lee J. Cobb probably the finest character actor in the history of film, gives a typically extraordinary performance. He marches through his scenes with that famous bored superiority, and revels in always being the most intelligent person in the room. He makes no secret of his disdain for the transparent notions and motivations of those around him, and delights in always having the last scathing word. Gig Young, as the leading man, is handsome and dashing enough for the role; but he has a funny, crooked way of talking that always makes you feel like he should be playing big city 1950's newspaper reporters. In other words, he's somewhat miscast, but not fatally so. Eleanor Parker plays the title character delicately and memorably - it's hard to understand how such a beautiful and talented actress isn't as well remembered as some others.

It loses steam about 2/3 of the way in and climaxes a little clumsily, but on balance this is an above average effort with much to recommend it.

A long term plan to get the fabled Fairlie inheritance starts to go awry the second visiting artist and art instructor Gig Young comes to the Fairlie estate in Great Britain. He runs into the Woman In White, a rather strange young lady and then a coach with people in it looking for same. He decides to pretend he knows nothing.

Our heiress Laura Fairlie and the mysterious Woman In White are both played by Eleanor Parker. Almost up to the end I had trouble figuring out exactly what the relationship was between the two Eleanors so I will not say. It's half the fun of watching the film.

There's a pair of villains in the piece Sidney Greenstreet playing Count Fosco, playing him with the same avuncular malice as Casper Guttman. He's a scientist with a title like Baron Von Frankenstein. But rather than experimenting with dead bodies, Fosco prefers to work on the mind with chemicals and intimidation. He's getting a big payoff for arranging the marriage between Parker the heiress and a rapacious no account count John Emery. The only friend the heiress has in the house is companion Alexis Smith.

My favorite in the film is John Abbott who is Parker's father who has the constitution of a napkin and makes Adrian Monk look hale and hearty with all his phobias. Greenstreet and Emery intimidate him rather easily.

Second favorite is Agnes Moorehead who is the countess Fosco and with very little dialog, but much facial expression is the picture of a woman scorned.

This Victorian Gothic drama has one fine cast of scene stealers all working overtime for your enjoyment. The end is unforgettable.

Notice how fluidly the one-and-only Sydney Greenstreet moves his prodigious bulk across drawing-room floors, like a greedy shark among stumbling minnows. No movie with him can be ignored, especially one that showcases his heavyweight talent. Here, as Count Frasco, he schemes ruthlessly to cheat hapless Eleanor Parker (in a dual role) out of her family fortune. And he does it with such style and civilized malevolence. Without him, the film would amount to little more than a well-mounted and occasionally engaging Gothic mystery. With him, it appears better than it is.

Except for a few grotesque close-ups of Greenstreet, director Godfrey films the scenes in straightforward fashion, as though they come straight from the pages of the Collins book. Thanks, however, to Warner's art department and set designer, the visuals come across as generally atmospheric and evocative of the period. Nonetheless, someone should have told composer Max Steiner that not every scene needs scoring, especially when the notes sound as if they thunder from the bottom of a well. Then too, the script should have made better use of the great Agnes Moorehead (just count her lines), one of the few actresses with enough gravitas to go toe-to-toe with the formidable Greenstreet. You just know at first glance, she's no one to mess with.

Somehow, I kept wishing Val Lewton ("Cat People", "Seventh Victim") had gotten hold of the material first. This movie could have used his eye for combining the literary with the uncanny, which would go beyond atmosphere to cast a much-needed hypnotic spell, particularly in Anne's outdoor scenes (the actual woman in white). As things stand, the movie's an okay entertainment, with a chance to view some of Warner's leading contract players, circa 1948.

One of the quintessential novels of the Victorian era, 'The Woman in White' features sensational aspects that were common to books originally published in weekly installments - in this case, false identities, secrets, crime, and adultery. It also includes the belief in mesmerism, with the evil Count Fosco exerting mind control over many characters, as well as the practice of committing those who were troublesome to one's plans - usually women - to asylums, both of which were real trends in the 19th century. It was highly popular in its day, with a readership approaching 100,000 copies a week.

Unfortunately, the movie adaptation from 1948 is a mixed bag. It stumbles early with the initial meeting of the 'woman in white' by a man on a road at night. Wilkie Collins' friend Charles Dickens considered it to be one of the most dramatic descriptions in literature, but in the film, there is no ethereal shock, and it comes across as a pretty simple meeting. The film captures the dress and language reasonably well though, and there are a couple of excellent performances - Sydney Greenstreet as the mastermind Count Fosco, and John Abbott as Frederick Fairlie, lord of the estate, who is demented, highly eccentric, and fragile. Some of his lines early on to his beleaguered servant Louis are quite funny. I should also say that Eleanor Parker is also fine in her dual role, and Alexis Smith is pretty good as her cousin too - so there are no issues with the cast.

There are two main problems as I see it, and the first is with the story itself, which asks the viewer to swallow a somewhat convoluted plot with some pretty big coincidences. What worked in installment form, or even in the published novel in 1860, is hard to translate successfully to film. The second issue is in cinematography, and overall tone. While it has a few nice moments, it's just not striking or tense enough, starting with that scene on the road at night, and continuing on through the movie. The result is that you've got a story teetering on the edge of being creaky, filmed in a way that pushes it over that edge. Watch it for the performances, or if you're a fan of the novel and want to see an old film version, maybe to compare it to the 2018 BBC mini-series version.