1945 - HANGOVER SQUARE, efficent film noir

The old mad killer driven insane by voices in his head is given the 20th Century Fox treatment.  Hangover Square features Laird Cregar as a composer trying to finish his concerto before he goes completely "nuts".

 Laird Cregar went on a diet for this film.  He usually played corpulent bad guys but he got himself in shape to perform love scenes with Linda Darnell who plays a conniving music hall singer exploiting Cregar for his talent.  George Sanders is his usual reliable self playing a doctor trying to figure out what is going through Cregar's head.  He's an early version of Lt Colombo I guess.

 

For a modest film Fox had a lot of behind the camera talent involved.  The excellent black and white photography was by Joseph LaShelle who had filmed Laura and Marty to name just a few.  Probably the most important contribution was from the composer Bernard Herrmann.  Herrmann wrote what is now known as the "Concerto Macabre for Piano and Orchestra".  The  Concerto is performed at the end of the film with the director John Brahm filming the scene with all the stops pulled out.

 

Written by Barré Lyndon, the running time is 78 minutes.