Rating: 3.5/5
Hooptober 5.0 | 8/32 | Anniversary Film 7/10 | Decades 6/6 | 40s
Mifanwy Conway wakes up to a startling laugh. Her husband asks her if she’s alright.
Yes, just that bad dream again.
The following morning, their daughters ran through the house screaming. Mifanwy lay awake, her eyes distant — that subtle resentment of getting what a different version of her wanted.
She travels to London after receiving a telegram. She keeps it secret from her husband and the tears it causes her. On the train, she thinks to herself a convenient summary:
How respectable they think I am, and I, happy. I, with my beautiful home, the perfect husband, and wonderful children. How shocked they’d be to learn my secret in London. I’m going to see my lover… His dreadful letters coming more frequently, threatening to break apart my home. If only I could tell my husband.
She goes to Madame Tussauds and meets the artist Paul Mangin — or rather, a waxwork figure of him. Through a flashback to seven years before, we learn of Paul’s obsession with Mifanwy — he believed they had been lovers in a past life.
Mifanwy’s journey takes us into the darkness, a world of jealousy and murder.
This movie is Terence Young’s first, co-written by producer Rudolph Cartier and Edana Romney, who stars as Mifanwy Conway. The film is a stunning blend of film noir and Gothic themes, the black and white a chiaroscuro cloud etched in the confidence of dream logic, reminiscent of Jean Cocteau.
Mifanwy and Paul are the epitome of #notLikeTheOtherGirls, defining themselves on a series of negations that can only permit ideals.
Critics hate Edana Romney’s performance, but she comes across as the sort of weirdo who would find Paul’s fixations attractive and let him define her.
Christopher Lee shows up as an associate of Paul named Charles. He doesn’t have lines, but his 6 ft 5 frame is hard to miss.
The film isn’t thrilling throughout, but its texture and mood are enough to appreciate. As a first film, this shows a tasteful restraint that would define Young’s James Bond movies.