Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Old Dude, Old Movies - "The Two Mrs. Carrolls"

First, a few things about me:

One, I'm retired.  Yep, done with work, thank God.  Two, I'm divorced.  Three, I am a bit of an insomniac.  

Since I have lots of free time & I don't sleep through every night, I find myself awake at weird hours. So, I dial up different movies and other shows previously recorded.

In this installment of O.D.O.M., is a movie I saw recently, "The Two Mrs. Carrolls" (1947), starring Humphrey Bogart and Barbara Stanwyck.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0039926/

Spoilers:


Overall, I liked the movie.  I am a huge Bogart fan, and post-Casablanca he delved into a wider variety of lead roles.  Here, he plays a villain, a bit driven and closed-off, possibly psychotic. Stanwyck was a versatile, highly capable lead actress.  In this movie, her character was more vulnerable than some of her more familiar roles.


A revelation was the young Ann Carter, as Bogart's daughter from his previous marriage.  She was very comfortable in front of the camera, and almost too self-possessed for one so young.


Alexis Smith, as Bogart's latest love interest, was luminous.  In her scenes with Bogart, she held her own quite nicely.  I enjoy her work, in this and other movies like "Hollywood Canteen" (where she had a cameo as herself).


One thing that struck me was how Bogart played the villain role.  While wooing Stanwyck's character in the beginning of the movie, he seemed more well-rounded, more human.  There was a connection between the two characters that seemed real.  As he proceeded, he seemed more one-dimensional.  In subsequent scenes, we get little explanation as to why his personality changed for the worse.  


As a non-critic movie buff, there are other roles of his I enjoyed more.  I would watch this movie again, though.

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