Written by Harry O. Hoyt
Directed by Steve Sekely
U.S.A., 1944
Surrounded by friends and colleagues and sharing drinks, psychologist and criminologist Charles Finch (Lionel Atwill) shares his thoughts on a recent adventure that involved two lovers, the brilliant Dr. Dwight ‘Brad’ Bradley and state attorney’s secretary, Mary Kirk Logan (Jean Parker). The two met at a party one night but, unbeknownst to most, Mary and her younger sister Suzy (Marcia Mae Jones) owe a gangster a lot of money in a dirty blackmailing scheme. On the night when the thug comes to Mary’s apartment for a large payment, he is somehow murdered by a nasty thump on the head, despite that Mary had locked herself in her room. Now the dishevelled woman is guilty of killing the loan shark and awaiting the electric chair…with Brad being the state executioner! Finch must work quickly to overcome the odds and sniff out the real culprit behind the murder in order to avoid a disastrous end to Mary and Brad’s romance.
Lady in the Death House is prototypical B-movie material. In fairness, many movies from the era that qualify as film noir were intended to be just that, but whereas a hefty number of other motion pictures successfully rose above their originally perceived status to become venerable in the eyes of historians and aficionados, Lady in the Death House makes a particularly strong case that it is exactly what the studio had in mind: a short, cheaply made pseudo-thriller that offers just enough to keep the audience’s attention for a little under an hour. While it accomplishes said objective, it does so with some important caveats to consider.
Stories told via framing devices are a tricky proposition, highly dependent on the nature of the framing device employed. One that strongly suggests or outright reveals the plot’s outcome runs the risk of nullifying whatever dramatic tension the rest of the film attempts to build up. Lady in the Death House commits the cardinal sin of making it quite clear, albeit not explicit, that Charles Finch’s tale ends on a positive note, thus robbing the picture of a lot of its potential richness. Why certain filmmakers believe this to be a productive, viable way to tell a cinematic story is anyone’s guess. They must firmly believe that the other pieces to the puzzle are so strong, so effective at communicating drama that they can pull off the coup unscathed.
Unfortunately, that is not the case with director Steve Sekely’s film, based on a peculiar script from scribe Harry O. Hoyt. There are a handful of elements that reek either of utter nonsense or desperation, resulting in an endeavour that fails to live up to what little promise it could afford to muster. For starters, the character of Suzy, Mary’s younger sister, is constructed in such a way that it becomes extremely difficult to consider her anything other than a plot device as opposed to a fully fleshed personality with cogent thoughts and realistic emotions. It is hinted at that she has a lover who may or may not have played a role in the eventful evening when their harasser came demanding for cash. While it is understandable that her emotions towards a lover would put her in a testy spot under the present circumstances, her refusal to divulge any morsel of intelligence that could save her own sister from the execution chair is astounding. When, late in the picture and on the evening when Mary is about to walk to her death, she tells Finch that perhaps she will reveal something the next morning, the viewer fully understands that Suzy is nothing more than a tool at the disposal of the filmmakers whose only purpose is to artificially boost tension.
Another questionable aspect to the film’s drama, although not one as dunderheaded as Suzy’s role, is Brad’s role as state executioner. This means that he is the one that will pull the switch that shall send his lover from this life into the next. On face value it is ripe for drama, although when thinking about Brad’s position for a moment, it sounds completely ridiculous. The film states that, when not working at the prison, Brad researches the potential to revive dead tissue. Is that his reason for wanting to remain executioner? Will his job in some way grant him easier access to Mary’s toasted cadaver? More critically, he has yet to actually develop a method of reviving the tissue. At the the time of the story of the movie it is still no more than a dream, an ambition. What makes him think he’ll be able accomplish his goal before it’s too late? For that matter, the film never shows him perform any research while Mary awaits her execution, which itself does not bode well for a possible extension of their presently ill fated romance. To put it bluntly, the whole subplot of Brad’s medical research is both ill conceived as it is used.
While Lady in the Death House suffers from some considerable script related issues, some praise should be awarded to its cast members, all of whom put in very nice performances. Some are a bit on the theatrical side of spectrum, such as Marcia Mae Jones as Suzy, but on the whole the actors involved have excellent charisma and rapports with one another that help sustain the movie from beginning to end. Lionel Atwill is effortlessly charming and whimsical as Charles Finch. He’s very nosy and curious about the world, but in such a way that makes his personality very infectious rather than annoying. Jean Parker, while relegated to second fiddle during the picture’s latter half given her imprisonment, is sweet and witty as Mary. Even Douglas Fowley, despite that his role is a little bit weird, gives it his all as the man whose world is about to fall apart by killing his own lover.
The acting in Lady in the Death House is just good enough for some viewers to find it worth their while. It isn’t as if the movie is overly long, clocking in at a scant 55 minutes, so the risk of feeling as though one’s time was completely wasted is not a factor. Even so, it is difficult to argue in favour of some very odd, clumsily constructed dramatic beats. Notwithstanding a few exceptions, at their core movies are about stories, and this film’s story is simply not very well told. It would akin to hiring great theatre actors and asking them to partake in a second rate play. The show might be nice to look at and to hear, but nonetheless plagued by a bad core. Lady in the Death House looks pretty, but is sentenced to mediocrity for a bevy of annoying contrivances.
-Edgar Chaput