The Line He Was Born To Say
“I’ve always had a suppressed desire to see a grave opened up… especially at night. It’s exciting.”
Peter Lorre in THE VERDICT.
This was Don Siegel’s first film as director, and Lorre and Sidney Greenstreet’s last together. Siegel noted with amazement that Greenstreet was always on time, letter-perfect, knew his lines and everyone else’s, whereas Lorre didn’t even know which studio he was in — and yet they were magnificent together.
Very nice mystery with top smarm from George Coulouris. The look is more Warner house style than Siegel grit, with striations of glossy black shadows and fog fog fog — Hollywood England with a German expressionist tilt. I’d seen it years ago on VHS, so I was keeping half an eye on Fiona, who hadn’t, to see if the twist ending would work. It did. “Oh, I don’t want Peter Lorre to be the killer, he’s too much fun!” Is that a spoiler? Watch it and find out!
Buy: The Verdict (1946)
March 26, 2012 at 12:53 pm
I love this film – particularly for the clearly delineated love the Lorre and Greenstreet characters have for each other.
March 26, 2012 at 1:03 pm
I particularly love Rosalind Ivan in this flick.
March 26, 2012 at 1:40 pm
Yes — the whole cast is terrific, and it’s nice to see Lorre and Greenstreet’s final film showing them so close.
Joan lorings is exciting, too.
With her matching roles in Ivy and The Suspect, Rosalind Ivan was obviously the go-to dame for gaslight melodrama. I see that the episode of Inner Sanctum she’s in is called The Pillow of Death, and that makes me very happy.
March 26, 2012 at 3:29 pm
Haven’t seen this and it sounds fantastic! A most unusual start for Siegel.
March 26, 2012 at 3:33 pm
It’s a complete joy from start to finish, and gets its ending exactly right, I think. The plot, when broken down afterwards, doesn’t quite make sense, but it holds together long enough to deliver its entertainment payload.
Fiona: “Is Peter meant to be some kind of… louche playboy in this?”
Me: “Yep.”
Fiona: “GREAT!”
March 26, 2012 at 4:33 pm
Not even mildly related to Lorre/Greenstreet, I was at an academic conference this weekend — the Society for Cinema and Media Studies garanto-gathering in Boston — and one speaker woke me right up when she quoted your good self when she was talking about William Wyler’s final film, The Liberation of LB Jones. She cited your Senses of Cinema piece, although she rather mangled your last name.
March 26, 2012 at 5:21 pm
Excellent! Was it the line equating Lee Majors to the zoom lens, or the bit about Lola Falana’s “fearsome dramaturgical machete”?
March 26, 2012 at 5:25 pm
It was the “fearsome dramaturgical machete.” In fact, that’s what gave the game away — even though she kind of swallowed your surname and omitted the “i” I immediately thought, no-one else writes things like that!!! Her paper was basically centered on the idea that LB Jones is a proto-blaxploitation movie.
March 26, 2012 at 7:20 pm
Well that’s precisely what it is. A great curtain call for Wyler.
March 26, 2012 at 7:22 pm
Other white directors involved in Blaxploitation include John Berry (Claudine) and Jules Dassin (Uptight)
March 26, 2012 at 7:26 pm
It would be amusing to think Wyler started the trend. Although we might have to give Melvin Van Peebles credit for that, since Wyler’s film was not a hit. He really went out to make something to offend everybody, and was pleased he succeeded.
March 26, 2012 at 7:27 pm
David E — that was the speaker’s contention. I haven’t seen the film, but her use of clips from the film and subsequent blaxploitation films was thoroughly convincing even if the paper itself could have delved deeper. It was a very interesting panel; someone else spoke about Detroit 9000 as a blaxploitation film for whites, with different advertising campaigns and trailers for different audiences.
March 26, 2012 at 9:13 pm
Fascinating. I was at a little academic conference a while back but didn’t come away with anything much to report.
March 26, 2012 at 10:52 pm
Lorre’s got a great line in this. Don’t know if it was improvised, but I’d like to think so. It goes something along the lines of – POLICEMAN – “A scream was heard from a window.” LORRE – “Windows don’t scream.” (I may have misquoted but you get the idea)
March 27, 2012 at 3:11 pm
Just saw it last night. Little cracker of a movie. Would never of guessed it was a Siegel.
March 27, 2012 at 3:21 pm
The Warner style is a very pervasive thing — some filmmakers could make their particular sensibility felt through it, and some, like Curtiz, exemplified it, but even when the house style completely subsumes the filmmaker, the results are often very good indeed, given a good script and cast.
March 28, 2012 at 10:49 am
A favourite scene from The Verdict:
Victor Emmric: “I wonder how many mistakes he’ll make?”
Supt. George Edward Grodman: ” He’s already made one; he’s misjudged the size of my britches!” Greenstreet then shifts his large rear end to black out the frame.
On a separate topic, I recently watched Pasolini’s documentary films “La rabbia” and “Comize d’amore”. They are good. Pasolini had a natural talent for the documentary as he was a writer before turning to film.