May 04 2009
Past Perfect
Old movies always make me wish I lived in the past. Come to think of it, the news does that, too. Anyway, last night’s entertainment was The Reckless Moment (1949), starring the beautiful Joan Bennett and the always suave and charming James Mason. Bad guy, good guy, or a mixture of the two, you gotta love him.
A Columbia picture – with the original Columbia lady, back when she was a total babe instead of the hideous “updated” one – the credits included my favorite of all time (“gowns by” – in this case, Jean Louis) and went on to inform me that the screenplay is based on “The Blank Wall”, by Elisabeth Holding.
I’m a huge Holding fan, and cannot understand why she’s so unknown. I have almost all of her books, most in the Dell double book edition, where you read one story, then turn it over and get a whole ‘nother one, usually with lurid covers. But don’t let that put you off. She is a mistress of suspense, in the grand tradition of Patricia Highsmith and Ruth Rendell (though antedating them by many years), where a person makes a fatal mistake and his/her life spirals out of control.
The movie is in glorious black and white, and I have to say, if I really could live in the past, it might be in the 1940s. The cars and clothes are great, everything’s stylish, and there are important things like electricity and hot running water. Sure, there’s the dreary war, but there’s always a dreary war. At least things looked good.