Customer Reviews

Beware My Lovely [VHS]

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Beware, My Lovely was one of Hollywood's "little" pictures, relegated to programmer status, but highlighting art director Harry Horner's talent for set design, and two of filmdom's less publicity-hungry stars, Robert Ryan and Ida Lupino. The story focusses on one day's events in their lives, engaging the audience in a suspense building situation of a woman trapped in a house... Both Ryan and Lupino evoke convincing portrayals of people existing in silent emotional pain, with Ryan being particularly effective in achieving his role. A lot of close-up shots of Ryan going through a tabloid text of maniacal behaviors, Lupino effectively emoting fear, and the creaks and groans of Lupino's Victorian home lend creedence to the story line. A few of the film's highlights include expressionistic shots of Ryan's face superimposed against a hurtling locomotive, one of his victim's faces shimmering in a bucket of water, and Lupino's face reflected off a Christmas tree ornament. The picture belongs to Ryan, for his taut, tortured performance, and he is thankfully given a meatier role than he would see in many of his films. Beware, My Lovely didn't ignite critics' attention due to its' "little picture" status, but Ryan fans will get a treat watching him go through the gamut of emotions as the pathetic mentally deranged handyman. The film was another example, however, of RKO's neglect of Ryan's powerful talent in giving him a role that by virtue of its low-budget status kept him just behind two other RKO stars, Kirk Douglas and Robert Mitchum. But as was his want throughout his career, Ryan took the roles as given to him, put out his best, and never said a word in protest.

Like all movies featuring Robert Ryan, Beware, My Lovely is worth seeing in order to enjoy another of his terrific performances. For such a fine actor, Robert Ryan is not widely known, he was shy and not big on self-promotion, so that may be why he didn't get some of the starring roles in big budget films. But he gave an outstanding performance in every part he played, with a lot of depth and emotional power. There is something about his expressive face, intelligence, and barely contained intensity, and the way he lets you really see his vulnerability no matter how much of a good or bad guy he's playing, that is unique, unforgettable, and somehow totally artless and unstylized. The more I see of Robert Ryan, the more of his movies I want to see, and the more I think he was better than a lot of the more well-known stars of yesterday - and of today as well.

An enjoyable movie. I liked the suspense and surprises. Ida Lupino is good in anything that she plays in. Robert Ryan was a fine actor who kept a low profile. This movie has not been given the credit that it deserves.

We are in a small town, a homely widow (Ida Lupino) hires a handyman (Robert Ryan) to look after her house. She soon starts to regret it as Ryan grows erratic by the hour, it appears that she is host to a dangerous schizophrenic, and now she is unable to escape her house.

Beware, My Lovely is adapted from Mel Dinelli's {The Spiral Staircase} story and play called "The Man". Pretty much a one set movie and a two character driven piece, the film boasts two great central performances and offers up an interesting take on mental illness. One however shouldn't be fooled into thinking this is a violent and nerve shredding picture, because it isn't. It's clear from the get go that Ryan's Howard Wilton is a dangerously troubled man, but this is a different sort of "peril" movie. One that throws up another slant on psychosis and thus makes it difficult to hate our dangerous protagonist.

Ryan and Lupino are a great combination, they had also done the excellent, and far better, On Dangerous Ground this same year. So with both actors clearly comfortable together, it brings out a finely tuned character story all based in the confines of one house, re: prison. Ryan is particularly strong as his character flits in and out of madness, with some scenes powerful and at times inducing fear and at others garnering deep sympathy. The direction from Harry Horner is safe {he in truth doesn't have to do much other than let his actors run with it} and George E. Diskant's cinematography contains some smart and impacting visual touches. With one involving Christmas tree baubles immensely memorable. Falling some where in between being average and great, Beware, My Lovely has enough about it to make it a recommendation to fans of borderline and easy to follow Film-Noir. For fans of Robert Ryan tho, it's something of an essential viewing, oh yes, and then some. 7/10

"Beware My Lovely" did not work for this reviewer: A war widow, Ida Lupino, hires Robert Ryan as her new handyman. The audience already knows that RR has murdered another employer in a different town. What could have been a noir classic falls flat. Ryan fails to generate anything resembling fear or danger and Lupino never seriously portrays a stalked woman. There is little use in remonstrating that both leads had more success in other films. Film fans are well aware of that. Silver and Ward's "Film Noir" opines that "by 1952, the noir cycle was going into decline. Many elements previously thought emotionally affecting had become predictable through overuse". Or it may simply be that BL is just not a good movie and certainly not solid noir. The amazon community is encouraged to pass BL by.

Considering that this film was made by Ida Lupino's production company, with Ida even apparently filling in for director Harry Horner when he was called away for a few days with a sick wife, it's a surprise that she is the least impressive thing about it. As a woman who is visited by handyman Robert Ryan, who reveals he is "ill", in post war 1918, Lupino jumps into fear too easily, plays apology as submission, and her voice tends to become syrupy, as if she studied voice with Joan Crawford. Lupino's bad judgment also applies to the casting since she wanted John Garfield for the Ryan part, which RKO head Howard Hughes nixed because of Garfield's blacklisting from the HUAC. In spite of his strong persona and an attempt to sabotage him from wardrobe with a cardigan and half-tie, Ryan has a touching tenderness and child-like quality, with a private and unexplained fascination with a music box, and an empathy with the children that also visit. Horner even frames Ryan with the children from a high angle. Being set before Freud made an impact in America, we are given no psychological explaination for Ryan's behaviour. He tells us he has memory lapses, and demonstrates paranoia and, obsessive/compulsive traits, but also an awareness of his condition and remorse over any harm that eventuates because of it. The best that Lupino can come up with is "You're insane". Our sympathies therefore are with him rather than her since the antagonism begins with her deceit, so that we can interpret his reaction as justifiable. Although a sexual component is introduced, we wonder if the music box is Ryan's memory of his mother, as the treatment alludes to Lupino as a mother figure by her serving him milk, and by the way he instinctively slips his hand into hers in a moment of confidence. There is also a potentially interesting moment when Ryan wears the coat of Lupino's dead husband, and we wonder whether she will think the man wearing it is her husband returned to her. The material is an adaptation of Mel Dinelli's play The Man, and while the handyman's lapse of memory is clevely utilised for the denouement, I could have done without the symbolic use of Lupino's dog. There is also an odd observation about polishing flloors being women's work and unfit for a man to perform. Horner provides a chase amusingly choreographed like a dance, and Ryan disturbing the surface of a bucket of water to dissolve a memory image.