Mirage

I rented this in honor of Walter Matthau - and he was the liveliest part of this film - the screen really came alive when he was on screen. I love Greg Peck - but he was pretty low key in the part, maybe a little too much so. Diane Baker was quite good - her career was really on an upswing when she made this film - wonder why she didn't become a bigger star.

Definitely an entertaining movie - with some nice twists and turns to keep you interested all the way to the end.

Sharing not a passing resemblance to The Manchurian Candidate from three years before, this is a sadly neglected thriller that would have been a classic if the director's credit read Hitchcock instead of someone HUAC blacklisted at the time. It couldn't have been any better too, with Hitch involved. There's really nothing the movie sets out to do that it doesn't do pretty damn well. The fights are clumsy and 15 years too old-fashioned, like something taken from a film-noir and edited in the same awkward fashion, but other than that the movie is a rousing success. Dmytryk's career took a massive blow after the fifties and his decision to finally cooperate in order to be released from prison earned him the contempt of subsequent Hollywood people, but a good ten years later, the director of still had it in him to deliver a stonecold classic with Murder My Sweet.

Gregory Peck is David Stillwell, an accountant working for a NYC firm who realizes he can't remember anything from his life the past two years. The movie opens in a blacked-out skyscraper where he meets with a mysterious young woman who seems to know him. She then disappears in the subbasements of the building. When he searches for these basements the next morning, they're not there. That's just a taste of the hallucinatory mindgames the film has in order for the viewer.

Wisely photographed in clear black and white, with an intriguing premise and plot that will have fans of conspiracy thrillers salivating at the prospect of paranoid twists and turns, this is a minor gem that deserves to be rediscovered from the cracks it slipped through. There is a plot hole regarding these basements and where they really are after all but if we accept the psychological explanation of Peck's condition (it's only a movie after all), it's a smooth ride. The multiple flashbacks of the ending and the way Dmytryk handles them is something to see.

Edward Dmytryk may have been poaching in Alfred Hitchcock territory in directing Mirage, but I can hardly see how Hitchcock could have done the film any better. In fact I'm convinced that Gregory Peck was cast in the lead on the strength of his performance in the Hitchcock classic Spellbound, the parts are so similar.

Gregory Peck when we first meet him is making his way down the stairs of a skyscraper that has sustained a blackout. As people talk to him who seem to know him he answers with the appropriate small talk, but he doesn't remember anything other than his name. At the same time, a prominent foundation leader, Walter Abel, plunged to his death from that skyscraper and of course the Peck's amnesia and Abel's death are connected. But in this case the whole point of Mirage is remembering how. And Peck better remember soon because people like Jack Weston, George Kennedy and House Jameson keep trying to kill him.

As in Spellbound, the amnesiac Peck has a woman friend trying to help him. But there was no doubt about Ingrid Bergman's loyalty to Peck in trying to unravel his situation there. Diane Baker has the same function in this film, but there is some doubt as to whose team she's actually playing on. Similarly there is Kevin McCarthy who seems a friend at first, but later on we're not so sure. McCarthy has a key role in bringing the whole affair to a climax.

The ruthless villain of the piece is Leif Erickson who started in films playing the fathead rival to whomever the hero was in a film. As he got older, directors saw greater potential in him and used him in a lot of more serious parts, mostly villainous and this one is one of his best.

Although I think the film is great, Gregory Peck kind of fluffed it off, my guess is also that his role is too much like the part he did in amnesia. But he did according to the Michael Freedland biography of Peck, recommend to Eddie Dmytryk that he cast Walter Matthau in the role of the private detective who Peck goes to. Peck also consults Robert H. Harris a psychiatrist and both the shrink and the gumshoe come to the same conclusion that Peck really doesn't want to remember his recent past, possibly because of some trauma. Matthau's role in Mirage was one of his best character roles prior to getting stardom with his Oscar winning performance in The Fortune Cookie. Harris is also quite good, in fact he's my favorite in the cast.

Although the similarities between Spellbound and Mirage are too obvious to overlook, one should not belabor the obvious. Mirage is a fine enough suspense thriller to stand on its own. And Alfred Hitchcock would not have minded being mistakenly credited with directing it.

This is a terrific film well done from all aspects. The use of flashbacks are a great touch as an amnesiac, played by Gregory Peck, desperately tries to figure out his predicament and piece together the last 2 years of his life. Matthau is great, as always, as the PI trying to help him out. The scenes in the Psychiatrist's office alone are worth the effort to see this film.

I've always had great affection for this film, ever since seeing it in a theatre as a teenager.

First, a major innovation in thrillers - flashbacks done as direct jump-cuts into the actual flow of the film (no wavy lines or warped visuals to announce to the audience that they're seeing a flashback) This movie demanded that you keep up with what was unfolding and trusted you to figure out what was past and present.

Peter Stone's script - sharp, thrilling and funny, very much like Ernest Lehman's work on "North By Northwest" and Stone's own work on "Charade" and "Arabesque".

The villains...priceless...the grumpy, elderly hit-man who accosts Peck in Central Park...brilliant idea. Jack Weston's wisecracking hit-man..(a seemingly jolly joker, who lets his mask drop briefly in a pivotal scene with Peck) And of course, George Kennedy as Willard, a rampaging psycho who nurses grudges against victims who dare to defend themselves. I almost forgot Kevin McCarthy as the quintessential sniveling corporate toady.

A true classic....and a total crime and injustice that it's not on DVD yet.