Thu 5 Nov 2009
Movie Review – THE MAN WITH THE CLOAK (1951).
Posted by Steve under Mystery movies , Reviews[5] Comments
THE MAN WITH THE CLOAK. MGM, 1951. Joseph Cotten, Barbara Stanwyck, Louis Calhern, Leslie Caron, Joe De Santis, Jim Backus, Margaret Wycherly. Based on the story “The Gentleman from Paris,” by John Dickson Carr. Director: Fletcher Markle.
When I watched this movie late last month, it had to have been for the first time in over 50 years, probably back then as a film on late-night TV. I had good memories of it, and even though I discovered that I’d completely forgotten the basics of the plot line, the memories I had held up fairly well — surprisingly so, in fact.
What I remembered most: Joseph Cotten as a shabbily elegant, almost perfect player of a dissolute poet in Manhattan who befriends a young girl from Paris (Leslie Caron) with a letter from her fiancé to his uncle, whom she’s come to visit. Cotten goes by the name of Dupin in the movie, but we all know better, don’t we? Back in the late 1950s, I’m not so sure I did!
The uncle (an aged Louis Calhern) is almost as close a friend to drink as Dupin, even though he knows it will kill him.
He is equally suspicious of his three servants, primarily Lorna Bounty, his housekeeper (Barbara Stanwyck), a faded beauty whose eyes simply glitter with anger and resentment when she sees the prize for which she’s worked so long (his money) for about to be whisked away by this bravely innocent chit of a girl (another fine performance).
I thought (this time) the setting fine, the dialogue most excellent and the pace slow, but not so much so as to be annoying.
The bit about Dupin finding a missing will (from the actions of a dying man unable to speak or move more than his head) I found not as satisfying as I might have at an earlier age. I may have to read the story again to see if the movie people improved upon it, or the contrary. I suspect the latter.
November 5th, 2009 at 6:38 pm
I love this film, and that heartbreaking final scene as the rain washes away the signature on the IOU Dupin leaves Jim Backus, the bartender. That and the scrap of poetry on the other side “It was many and many a year ago/ In a kingdom by the sea …”
That said it is only a fair adaptation of the John Dickson Carr story, and you have to wonder at the decision about Stanwyck’s singing, but she, Cotton, Caron, and Calhern are all perfect — and Cotton remains for me the finest evocation of Dupin or his creator on screen.
But that last scene does break my heart. I know what an original ‘Dupin’ signature goes for on the collectors market.
November 5th, 2009 at 7:17 pm
David
I don’t disagree with a word you say!
— Steve
November 9th, 2009 at 7:54 am
A little gem:
The perf from Jim Backus for once doesn’t remind me of Mr. Magoo. I also like the clumsy, stumbling, ham-fisted fight near the end; No elaborate punches, falls or table-jumping, just fighting the way you’d expect a couple of amateurs to do it.
Pity Cotton never played an actual hard-boiled PI, he had the battered face and intelligence for it.
November 9th, 2009 at 12:05 pm
Joseph Cotten as a hard-boiled PI? That’s an image that hadn’t occurred to me, but I’d have to agree that it makes a lot of sense.
I wonder how close he came to playing that role, in all of the movies he made.
March 29th, 2012 at 8:57 am
I watched the movie to see a young Leslie Caron. Beautiful. Talented although only a child. They should make a movie about her.