The Guilty

Both somewhat dull and weirdly fascinating, the flick starts with a long voiceover and lengthier flashback to explain how two army buddies, later roommates, (one incapacitated by PTSD, the other attending night school to better himself) get mixed up with a pair of twin sisters of opposite character (Bonita Granville). When one of them suddenly disappears, the investigation begins. Don Castle plays the straight upstanding veteran beside Wally Cassell's nervous wreck, and the two find ways to ward off a cloud of suspicion over their possible involvement in the disappearance. This is a rough-and-ready B movie but all the more authentic for that. Shot entirely in the gloom of night, it's dreary, rain-soaked and confined to about three locations - but the strange relationship between the ex-soldiers and the twins keeps one engaged, as does the whodunnit aspect, which turns out to be overly convoluted. A palpable sense of ennui, existential angst and cynicism runs through the film which, with some excellent use of shadow and light, elevate this low-budget Monogram movie into something very watchable. There's plenty to like here.

It's hard not be a little jaded about this from the outset. For at least a couple decades, kindred features were a nickel a dozen as they starred a dark-haired, white male actor as a protagonist whose voice was grizzled and weary, but not altogether haggard, and who dressed themselves with a long coat and a wide-brim hat. Opening narration has Mike remarking on how this street remains unchanged after so much time, and then we learn he means a mere six months. Then we start to wonder whether it's just us, or maybe either an accident of birth or the intention of contemporary filmmakers, that makes most every actor sound alike and speak with an almost indistinguishably similar cadence and timbre in the 40s (if not also the 50s, and 30s). More substantively, I would argue that the script (not least the narration) and John Reinhardt's direction feel kind of imprecise to me as the minutes start to tick by, if not outright sloppy in places, and all of a sudden I'm not so sure about the prospects of 'The guilty' to hold up over time.

There remain enough issues throughout for me to stand by my initial impression, including sometimes unconvincing treatment of relationships between men and women, or treatment that's even more dubious than it's meant to be, and even something as small as the normal life of protagonist Mike (are we really supposed to believe he's a student?). In fairness, though, maybe I'm too cynical for my own good, for the plot begins to pick up more with a certain phone call a little before the one-third mark. The tension is palpable as the grim drama mounts - and just as importantly, helping to balance out the more questionable choices, there are splendid details along the way that make the narrative feel a tad sharper. Just as much to the point, when the ending rolls around and all is revealed, there's just enough cleverness in Robert Presnell Sr.'s screenplay, adapting Cornell Woolrich's story, to make us want to possibly watch again and see it with a new perspective. I don't think that new perspective alters the indelicacies or lesser first impressions that we get along the way, but when all is said and done this flick shows itself to have a bit more meat on its proverbial bones than one may be inclined to assume from the beginning.

In other regards it's not necessarily a picture to write home about. The acting is good, but doesn't specifically stand out, and much the same goes for the contributions of the crew behind the scenes. Rudy Schrager's music ranges from suitable to arguably overwrought; Jodie Copelan's editing is fine, except for some instances that are perhaps a tad cliché. And so on, and so on. At the end of the day I do like 'The guilty' and I think it's reasonably worthwhile - with the caveat that it's hardly some revelation, and it is probably the type of movie best reserved for a lazy, relaxing day. So long as one can get on board with the more unremarkable and prototypical side of film noir and is just looking for something relatively light, this is good enough to earn a soft recommendation.

Bonita Granville was an extremely talented younger actress, as was clear from 'The Beloved Brat' (1938) and the four Nancy Drew films she made, for instance. She had a special charm and directness which was most refreshing. Here she is, somewhat older, playing identical twins in an extremely low-budget noir thriller produced by her husband Jack Wrather. The sets are so cheap, it seems as if a puff of wind would blow them down, and they are bleak as well, perhaps on purpose to make the atmosphere one of desolation. She is certainly cast against type, since the main twin whom she plays is a bad girl, and Bonita was famous for being a sweetie pie. However, it works, and she proves she can be as sultry and venomous as any gal if she wants to, and she does want to. The two guys are Don Castle and Wally Cassell, which reminds me that Louis Ferdinand-Celine wrote a novel the English title of which is 'Castle to Castle', not bad for this situation, if we change it to 'Cassell to Castle', as one twin passes between the two guys. This is a very powerful and effective noir story with its twists and grisly side. As it is 1947, there is a guy suffering from serious shell-shock, holding his face in his hands and saying: 'I'm going to crack up completely again, like I did the first time'. There are desperate undercurrents of insane jealousy and passion, a disappearance and murder, seething resentments and kisses that are more like football touchdowns, they are so rough. For something made for ten dollars, this is a really good thriller. The voice-over narrative works extremely well, and the whole thing is a knockout if you can forgive the fact that somebody along the way forgot about the need for production values. Anyway, there's Bonita, and you even get two for the price of one.

In 1946, Olivia De Havilland donned monogram brooches and identity necklaces to take the dual role of good and bad twins Ruth and Terry in Robert Siodmak's The Dark Mirror. The following year Bonita Granville followed suit, as good and bad twins Linda and Estelle, in Monogram's sub-basement adaptation of a Cornell Woolrich story. Of the two, The Guilty is the creepier, more haunting movie, taking a place of dubious honor amid the nether reaches of film noir.

Mustachioed Don Castle shares his walk-up flat with his superior from army days, Wally Cassel, who's a little unstable owing to a head injury sustained in combat. They're involved in a complicated foursome with the twins; when one of the fellows breaks up with one of the girls, the other takes up with the ditched sister. But the insanely jealous Estelle keeps playing one guy off the other; she wants both and her sister to have neither. One night Linda disappears; later her body is found on a rooftop, in a barrel of gravel (she was too big to shove down the incinerator shaft). Police investigator Regis Toomey encounters a baffling maze of alibis and false clues (Castle is on the hunt as well), until the movie ends with climaxes within climaxes.

All this takes place in but three sleazy sets: The men's apartment; that of the twins, their mother and a long-time boarder (John Litel); and a corner bar from which most of the story is narrated in flashback. A few forays into the dark, deserted streets only enhance the claustrophobia, the obsessiveness of Woolrich's nightmare vision. (And his obsessive fiction reuses the same themes and gambits over and over; there are parallels here to the same year's The Fall Guy, which resembles The Black Angel, which...).

Granville, of course, will ever be the screen embodiment of Nancy Drew, from the four programmers she starred in as the teenaged sleuth during the late '30s. Her career started to sputter in the next decade; for one thing her girlish exuberance didn't blossom into womanly glamor. But she developed a tough, no-nonsense, very-'40s face (not unlike Ann Savage's). Her noir appearances were limited to a small (but meaty) role in The Glass Key and a leading one in the low-budget Suspense. It's a shame, because grew up into quite a good bad girl.

Don Castle is sharing a cheap room with his ex-lieutenant from the army, Wally Cassell. Castle is studying on the G. I. Bill. Cassell drinks a lot. Each is dating Bonita Granville, but it's all right, since she's twins in this movie. One is nice, the other is nasty. Then the nice one gets murdered, and detective Regis Toomey is on the case.

This being derived from a Cornell Woolrich story, it's surprising the guys aren't twins also; it would have saved on actors' salaries, although the process shots might have eaten up the difference. Miss Granville -- soon to become the wife of Jack Wrather, the producer of this movie -- is doubled by showing the back of another actress, or having her voice come from offscreen.

Of course, many odd possibilities arose in my mind. Did one sister kill the other, and then masquerade as the victim? What is John Litel doing in the cast? I started out confused, and even after the ending, I was still confused, because this was directed by John Reinhardt, who liked to throw in every film noir trope whether it should be there or not. Always watchable for the sake of Woolrich's sick symbolism, it's not one of the best noirs I've seen.