Warning: spoilers ahead (if there can be such a thing in regards to such a predictable, linear plot).
I was quite disappointed in "The High Wall." While it contains most of the qualities which classify a movie into what has become just about my favorite category, film noir, including excellent atmosphere, lighting and sets, the acting and especially the plot barely qualify it.
There are no plot twists, an element I think is essential to film noir. I guessed in the first or second scene "whodunnit," and was right. And the only reason I didn't guess the final ending was: it was so unrealistic, it never occurred to me that it might happen.
Robert Taylor is rather boring throughout the film, although enjoyable to look at with his handsome face covered with beard stubble during most of it. His lack of sorrow at the death of his wife perhaps makes him seem like the murderer (which Bernhardt desperately and futilely hopes we'll believe), but is otherwise never explained and completely out of character. His concern for his son is somewhat touching, but his actions with regard to the boy are not credibly those of a distraught father.
Herbert Marshall's acting is excellent, just like it is in every movie in which I've seen him, but even this is insufficient to boost this movie above the "so-so" category. The quiet, understated, long-suffering style that he uses to such striking effect in "The Little Foxes" and "The Letter" seems quite out-of-place here -- it's very difficult to imagine such an unassuming, gentle man to be any kind of murderer. This actually had the potential of being used to good effect were any kind of surprise associated with it, but, as I said, the plot and editing hit you over the head with fact that Marshall "did it" in the first couple of scenes, and reinforce it throughout the second half of the film.
The insane asylum is more of a gimmick than any kind of chilling locale -- Taylor might as well be staying at a hotel. He only interacts with two people there (besides psychiatrists), an orderly, who befriends him, and another inmate, who virtually steals the show with his three to four minutes of poignant appreciation of classical music. The scene of Taylor calmly smoking a cigarette while strapped into an ice-bath epitomizes the casual treatment the film gives the supposed "horrors of Bedlam."
Audrey Totter is mousy, unappealing and rather lifeless as the psychiatrist on the case, and also strains credibility past the breaking point in her complete disregard for psychiatrist/patient ethics. Not only does she become "involved" with her patient, she virtually destroys her entire career over him (at least according to real-world ethics). We're not supposed to notice this, I guess, as none of the other psychiatrists seem to give it a second thought, and she seems to be in no danger of losing her job. The reason she's fallen so heavily for Taylor that she's willing to throw everything over for him is never even mentioned, much less satisfactorily explained. It seems like Bernhardt wants us to believe she thinks Taylor is guilty -- but her actions are not those of a suspicious criminal psychologist as much as a lovesick bobby-soxer.
She temporarily "adopts" Robert Taylor's son (another thing that could never happen in real life). Once again, this is mostly a gimmick, as she's never shown interacting with the son at all. For some reason she fails to mention this "adoption" to Taylor, even though she is quite aware of his ostensible obsession with the boy's well-being.
The editing is atrocious. Herbert Marshall appears in the first couple of scenes, then vanishes completely for the next half of the film. Then he is shown once, in a completely irrelevant scene just to remind us that he's still in the story. If that's not a clue-in that he has to be the murderer, nothing is, since he's completely unrelated to the rest of the story up to that point.
The denouement must have been butchered by the editor -- I can't believe any director, no matter how inexperienced, would have deliberately done it that way. Marshall, after being the recipient of some resounding fisticuffs from Taylor, sees Audrey Totter come into the room, then suddenly he's swirling in a whirlpool. I thought he was having a flashback due to his punch-drunkenness. Only later did I realize he was confessing all under the influence of an injection of sodium pentothal which we never see administered.
During the "flashback," I thought it would be revealed that Totter had actually done the murder, and that she had been playing Marshall for a patsy, as well as framing Taylor and subsequently using her role as a psychiatrist to make sure he didn't get off. This would have made a much more interesting movie, in my opinion, and would have given the plot enough twists to at least rival a Nebraska Interstate. But no, the plot plods on to its unmotivated, uninvolving, sappy conclusion.
While I couldn't call this a bad film, I think those looking for adventures in the realm of the less-well-known film noir would much better spend their time with "The Dark Corner" or "The Fallen Sparrow" (in spite of its weak ending) or even "Woman In The Window."
I was quite disappointed in "The High Wall." While it contains most of the qualities which classify a movie into what has become just about my favorite category, film noir, including excellent atmosphere, lighting and sets, the acting and especially the plot barely qualify it.
There are no plot twists, an element I think is essential to film noir. I guessed in the first or second scene "whodunnit," and was right. And the only reason I didn't guess the final ending was: it was so unrealistic, it never occurred to me that it might happen.
Robert Taylor is rather boring throughout the film, although enjoyable to look at with his handsome face covered with beard stubble during most of it. His lack of sorrow at the death of his wife perhaps makes him seem like the murderer (which Bernhardt desperately and futilely hopes we'll believe), but is otherwise never explained and completely out of character. His concern for his son is somewhat touching, but his actions with regard to the boy are not credibly those of a distraught father.
Herbert Marshall's acting is excellent, just like it is in every movie in which I've seen him, but even this is insufficient to boost this movie above the "so-so" category. The quiet, understated, long-suffering style that he uses to such striking effect in "The Little Foxes" and "The Letter" seems quite out-of-place here -- it's very difficult to imagine such an unassuming, gentle man to be any kind of murderer. This actually had the potential of being used to good effect were any kind of surprise associated with it, but, as I said, the plot and editing hit you over the head with fact that Marshall "did it" in the first couple of scenes, and reinforce it throughout the second half of the film.
The insane asylum is more of a gimmick than any kind of chilling locale -- Taylor might as well be staying at a hotel. He only interacts with two people there (besides psychiatrists), an orderly, who befriends him, and another inmate, who virtually steals the show with his three to four minutes of poignant appreciation of classical music. The scene of Taylor calmly smoking a cigarette while strapped into an ice-bath epitomizes the casual treatment the film gives the supposed "horrors of Bedlam."
Audrey Totter is mousy, unappealing and rather lifeless as the psychiatrist on the case, and also strains credibility past the breaking point in her complete disregard for psychiatrist/patient ethics. Not only does she become "involved" with her patient, she virtually destroys her entire career over him (at least according to real-world ethics). We're not supposed to notice this, I guess, as none of the other psychiatrists seem to give it a second thought, and she seems to be in no danger of losing her job. The reason she's fallen so heavily for Taylor that she's willing to throw everything over for him is never even mentioned, much less satisfactorily explained. It seems like Bernhardt wants us to believe she thinks Taylor is guilty -- but her actions are not those of a suspicious criminal psychologist as much as a lovesick bobby-soxer.
She temporarily "adopts" Robert Taylor's son (another thing that could never happen in real life). Once again, this is mostly a gimmick, as she's never shown interacting with the son at all. For some reason she fails to mention this "adoption" to Taylor, even though she is quite aware of his ostensible obsession with the boy's well-being.
The editing is atrocious. Herbert Marshall appears in the first couple of scenes, then vanishes completely for the next half of the film. Then he is shown once, in a completely irrelevant scene just to remind us that he's still in the story. If that's not a clue-in that he has to be the murderer, nothing is, since he's completely unrelated to the rest of the story up to that point.
The denouement must have been butchered by the editor -- I can't believe any director, no matter how inexperienced, would have deliberately done it that way. Marshall, after being the recipient of some resounding fisticuffs from Taylor, sees Audrey Totter come into the room, then suddenly he's swirling in a whirlpool. I thought he was having a flashback due to his punch-drunkenness. Only later did I realize he was confessing all under the influence of an injection of sodium pentothal which we never see administered.
During the "flashback," I thought it would be revealed that Totter had actually done the murder, and that she had been playing Marshall for a patsy, as well as framing Taylor and subsequently using her role as a psychiatrist to make sure he didn't get off. This would have made a much more interesting movie, in my opinion, and would have given the plot enough twists to at least rival a Nebraska Interstate. But no, the plot plods on to its unmotivated, uninvolving, sappy conclusion.
While I couldn't call this a bad film, I think those looking for adventures in the realm of the less-well-known film noir would much better spend their time with "The Dark Corner" or "The Fallen Sparrow" (in spite of its weak ending) or even "Woman In The Window."