Retrospektive 2018

Bewitched

Arch Oboler
USA 1945
65 min
V'18

BEWITCHED war das mit Spannung erwartete Regiedebüt von Arch Oboler, der als Enfant terrible des Hörspiels mit Orson Welles verglichen wurde. Die Hollywood-Einladung erfolgte zwangsläufig, Oboler adaptierte zum Einstieg sein eigenes Hörspiel „Alter Ego“: Eine Frau wird von einer rätselhaften inneren Stimme geleitet, die sie zwingt, eine mordbereite neue Identität anzunehmen. Bemerkenswert sind Bronislau Kapers schwermütige Filmmusik, Phyllis Thaxter in der Hauptrolle sowie die von Radiostar (und Noir-Kultfigur in spe) Audrey Totter mit verbitterter Eloquenz gesprochene, unheimliche innere Stimme.

Mit THE MARK OF THE WHISTLER

 

BEWITCHED is an audaciously stylized psychodrama that marked the keenly anticipated directorial debut of Arch Oboler, a brilliant enfant terrible of radio drama whose popular horror series LIGHTS OUT and scandalous Adam and Eve parody—with none other than Charlie McCarthy and Mae West in the biblical roles—earned him regular comparison with Orson Welles. Oboler accepted the inevitable invitation to Hollywood where he worked successfully as a screenwriter before directing this striking adaptation of his own celebrated radio play “Alter Ego”. “There are dark corners of the human mind we know nothing about ...” confesses an eminent psychiatrist, as BEWITCHED flashes back to study the strange symptoms of his most enigmatic patient, a beautiful bride-to-be possessed by a dark inner voice that compels her to violently reject and destroy her glittering debutante life by fleeing to the other side of the tracks and adapting a new but dangerously unstable identity. Especially effective in viscerally evoking the young woman’s struggle are the moody score by underappreciated Polish émigré composer Bronislau Kaper and the embittered inner voice hissed with demonic fury by radio actress turned noir vixen Audrey Totter. (Haden Guest)

With THE MARK OF THE WHISTLER

Credits
  • Phyllis Thaxter - Lucy Morgan
  • Edmund Gwenn - Mr. Jordan
  • Addison Richards
  • Henry H. Daniels Jr.
  • Kathleen Lockhart
  • Francis Pierlot
  • Sharon McManus
  • Arch Oboler
  • Charles Salerno Jr.
  • Bronislau Kaper
MGM
16 mm
bw
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