Obsession | |
---|---|
Directed by | Edward Dmytryk |
Screenplay by | Alec Coppel |
Based on | A Man About a Dog by Alec Coppel |
Produced by | |
Starring | Robert Newton |
Cinematography | C. M. Pennington-Richards |
Edited by | Lito Carruthers |
Music by | Nino Rota |
Production company | Independent Sovereign Films |
Distributed by | General Film Distributors |
Release date |
|
Running time | 96 minutes |
Country | United Kingdom |
Language | English |
Obsession, released in the United States as The Hidden Room, is a 1949 British crime film directed by Edward Dmytryk. [1] It is based on the 1947 novel A Man About a Dog by Alec Coppel, who also wrote the screenplay for the film. [2] Obsession was entered into the 1949 Cannes Film Festival. [3]
Clive Riordan, a wealthy London psychiatrist, learns that his wife Storm is romantically involved with Bill Kronin, an American. He resolves to exact revenge on both by committing the perfect murder of Kronin.
After kidnapping Kronin at gunpoint, Riordan keeps him prisoner for months in a hidden room while authorities mount a search for him. Riordan reveals to Kronin that he plans to kill him and dissolve his corpse in an acid bath. Riordan's plot appears to be succeeding until Superintendent Finsbury from Scotland Yard visits the doctor's office, enquiring about the case and hinting that he knows what Riordan is doing, as he has received information from an anonymous letter. A three-way battle of wits ensues. Finsbury tries to solve the case with policework and psychological tactics, claiming that as a police officer, he has the advantage over murderers, who are nearly always amateurs and make mistakes. Kronin desperately seeks ways to save himself.
Alec Coppel wrote the story as a play when he was living in Sydney during World War II. He adapted it into a novel while travelling to London. Coppel titled the play and the novel A Man About a Dog , [4] but in the United States, the novel was titled Over the Line.
The play opened in London in April 1946 [5] and the novel was published in 1948, although many critics commented that the novel felt similar to a play. [6] [7] Another production of the play was staged in London in May 1949. [8]
Film rights were acquired by the British producer Noel Madison. He also bought the rights to two other thrillers, Four Hours to Kill by Norman Krasna and The Last Mile by John Wexley. [9]
The film's director Edward Dmytryk, had recently left Hollywood following his appearance before the House Un-American Activities Committee. [10] He travelled to England in mid-1948 and was granted a work permit by the Ministry of Labour under the foreign directors' quota agreement between producers and the film industry's trade unions. He signed a contract to direct the film with Nat Bronstein of Independent Sovereign Films on 1 October 1948. [11]
Filming took place near Grosvenor House and Coppel's home, which was converted into a temporary dressing room. [12]
Dmytryck went over the script with Coppel at a hotel at Lake Annecy. He later said Bronstein wanted a part in the film for his opera singing girlfriend, Marushka, and the producer was upset when one could not be found. [13]
Dmytryck says Robert Newton had to place a £20,000 bond guaranteeing his sobriety during production which went for 30 days. The director says Newton only started drinking on the last day of filming. [14]
The plot involves disposing a body by dissolving it in acid. Because this appeared to have similarities to the case of the murderer John Haigh, the British Board of Film Censors initially refused to grant the film a certificate and its release was delayed. [15]
Variety wrote that that the film is slow-paced at first but becomes suspenseful. [16] The New York Times called it "a first-rate study in suspense and abnormal psychology." [17]
In 1993, Kendal Patterson of the Los Angeles Times described the film as an early predecessor of Fatal Attraction . [18]
Crossfire is a 1947 American film noir drama film starring Robert Young, Robert Mitchum and Robert Ryan which deals with the theme of anti-Semitism, as did that year's Academy Award for Best Picture winner, Gentleman's Agreement. The film was directed by Edward Dmytryk and the screenplay was written by John Paxton, based on the 1945 novel The Brick Foxhole by screenwriter and director Richard Brooks. The film's supporting cast features Gloria Grahame and Sam Levene. The picture received five Oscar nominations, including Ryan for Best Supporting Actor and Gloria Grahame for Best Supporting Actress. It was the first B movie to receive a Best Picture nomination.
Naunton Wayne, was a Welsh character actor, born in Pontypridd, Glamorgan, Wales. He was educated at Clifton College. His name was changed by deed poll in 1933.
Edward Dmytryk was a Canadian-born American film director and editor. He was known for his 1940s noir films and received an Oscar nomination for Best Director for Crossfire (1947). In 1947, he was named as one of the Hollywood Ten, a group of blacklisted film industry professionals who refused to testify to the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) in their investigations during the McCarthy-era Red Scare. They all served time in prison for contempt of Congress. In 1951, however, Dmytryk testified to the HUAC and named individuals, including Arnold Manoff, whose careers were then destroyed for many years, to rehabilitate his own career. First hired again by independent producer Stanley Kramer in 1952, Dmytryk is likely best known for directing The Caine Mutiny (1954), a critical and commercial success. The second-highest-grossing film of the year, it was nominated for Best Picture and several other awards at the 1955 Oscars. Dmytryk was nominated for a Directors Guild Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures.
Robert Guy Newton was an English actor. Along with Errol Flynn, Newton was one of the more popular actors among the male juvenile audience of the 1940s and early 1950s, especially with British boys. Known for his hard-living life, he was cited as a role model by the actor Oliver Reed and the Who's drummer Keith Moon.
Constance Vera Browne, Baroness Oranmore and Browne, commonly known as Sally Gray, was an English film actress of the 1930s and 1940s. Her obituary in The Irish Times described her as "once seen as a British rival to Ginger Rogers."
Ronald Egan Randell was an Australian actor. After beginning his acting career on the stage in 1937, he played Charles Kingsford Smith in the film Smithy (1946). He also had roles in Bulldog Drummond at Bay (1947), Kiss Me Kate (1953), I Am a Camera (1955), Most Dangerous Man Alive (1961) and King of Kings (1961).
Ronald Grant Taylor was an English-Australian actor best known as the abrasive General Henderson in the Gerry Anderson science fiction series UFO and for his lead role in Forty Thousand Horsemen (1940).
Christopher Columbus is a 1949 British biographical film starring Fredric March as Christopher Columbus and Florence Eldridge as Queen Isabella. It is loosely based on the 1941 novel Columbus by Rafael Sabatini with much of the screenplay rewritten by Sydney and Muriel Box.
Bitter Springs is a 1950 Australian–British film directed by Ralph Smart. An Australian pioneer family leases a piece of land from the government in the Australian outback in 1900 and hires two inexperienced British men as drovers. Problems with local Aboriginal people arise over the possession of a waterhole. Much of the film was shot on location in the Flinders Ranges in South Australia
Mine Own Executioner is a 1947 British psychological thriller drama film starring Burgess Meredith and directed by Anthony Kimmins, and based on the novel of the same name by Nigel Balchin. It was entered into the 1947 Cannes Film Festival. The title is derived from a quotation of John Donne's "Devotions", which serves as an epigraph for the original book.
The Calendar is a black and white 1948 British drama film directed by Arthur Crabtree and starring Greta Gynt, John McCallum, Raymond Lovell and Leslie Dwyer. It is based on the 1929 play The Calendar and subsequent novel by Edgar Wallace. A previous version had been released in 1931.
Madness of the Heart is a 1949 British drama film directed by Charles Bennett, produced by Richard Wainwright for Two Cities Films and starring Margaret Lockwood, Maxwell Reed, Kathleen Byron and Paul Dupuis. The screenplay was written by Charles Bennett, adapted from the novel of the same name by Flora Sandström.
Mr. Denning Drives North is a 1951 British mystery film directed by Anthony Kimmins and starring John Mills, Phyllis Calvert and Sam Wanamaker. Alec Coppel wrote the script, adapted from his own 1950 novel of the same title. An aircraft manufacturer accidentally kills his daughter's boyfriend and tries to dispose of the body.
Woman Hater is a 1948 British romantic comedy film directed by Terence Young and starring Stewart Granger, Edwige Feuillère and Ronald Squire. The screenplay concerns Lord Datchett, who, as a consequence of a bet with his friends, invites a French film star to stay at his house but pretends to be one of his employees while he tries to romance her with the help of his butler. When she discovers his subterfuge, she decides to turn the tables on him.
Snowbound is a 1948 British thriller film directed by David MacDonald and starring Robert Newton, Dennis Price, Stanley Holloway, Herbert Lom, Marcel Dalio and Guy Middleton and introducing Mila Parély. Based on the 1947 novel The Lonely Skier by Hammond Innes, the film concerns a group of people searching for treasure hidden by the Nazis in the Alps following the Second World War.
Alec Coppel was an Australian-born screenwriter, novelist and playwright. He spent the majority of his career in London and Hollywood, specialising in light thrillers, mysteries and sex comedies. He is best known for the films Vertigo (1958), The Captain's Paradise (1953), Mr Denning Drives North (1951) and Obsession (1949), and the plays I Killed the Count and The Gazebo.
Kenneth John Warren was an Australian actor.
A Boy, a Girl and a Bike is a 1949 British romantic comedy film directed by Ralph Smart and starring John McCallum, Honor Blackman and Patrick Holt. The film's art direction was by George Provis. The film concerns the romantic escapades and adventures of a Yorkshire cycling club.
Nathan Bronsten (1904–1975), or Nathan Bronstein was an American-born British writer and producer. He trained as an engineer.
A Man About a Dog is a 1947 thriller novel by the British-Australian writer Alec Coppel. Driven to distraction by his wife's repeated affairs, her husband decides to kidnap her latest lover and commit the perfect murder, only to be thwarted by a dog.