FFB: Don't Open the Door - Anthony Gilbert

Don't Open the Door (1945) is Anthony Gilbert's seventeenth novel featuring lawyer-detective Arthur Crook with an opening that calls to mind cliches of 19th century sensation fiction and old black and white movies we used to watch on "The Late Show". Very late at night, walking down fog covered streets, Nurse Nora Deane makes her way to the home of her latest charge, an invalid named Adela Newstead. Nora is helped along through the maze of fog by a passing Good Samaritan. While safely ushering her to the Newstead's front door he finds out her occupation, her employer's name, her age, that she's an orphan and basically friendless. She learns only his name -- Sammy. Nora clearly doesn't subscribe to the old adage about strangers and conversation.

When Nora meets Mrs. Newstead she seems frightened and agitated. A soon as her husband leave the two alone together Adela gives Nora an address book, tells her to call Herbert and not to tell her husband. Nora promises to do so, but foolishly waits until the next day. That night Mrs. Newstead dies unexpectedly.  The reader a cannot but help suspect foul play and the culprit seems to be no one else but Arthur, the husband.  But can it really be as simple as that?

I was expecting this to turn into something along the lines of the Had I But Known School of mystery fiction pioneered by Mary Roberts Rinehart and Mignon Eberhart. Nora truly seemed to be one of those dimwitted heroines who sees everything too late and then regrets not taking action earlier. So much of the first few chapters seemed all too familiar, I'd read it before many times. I was haunted by similar scenes in Eberhart's The Patient in Room 18, Rinehart's The Window of the White Cat, Some May Watch by Ethel Lina White as well as her chilling short story "An Unlocked Window". The US publishers must have recognized this aspect of the book for they changed the original prosaic title to the luridly Gothic Death Lifts the Latch.

US 1st edition (Smith & Durrell, 1946)

But I should have known better than to expect anything formulaic from Anthony Gilbert who excelled at using well-worn motifs of mystery fiction and exploiting them in unusual ways. For soon Nora is following up on Mrs. Newstead's request to get in touch with Herbert Webster who turns out to be her brother and only living relative. Herbert is very suspicious of his sister's sudden death. When Sammy turns up at the Newstead home looking for Nora, Albert begins to get a little panicky. And the reader too is certain that Arthur is guilty of his wife's murder. But just how did he manage it?

The brilliance of Don't Open the Door lies in a clever touch in the the narrative structure. Gilbert has us follow the murderer in certain sections told from that point of view. We are almost convinced who we are supposed to think he is. Yes, the murderer is identified with a male pronoun late in the novel. But the story is told in such a way that the person we think he is turns out to be completely wrong.

Once again this mystery novel is remarkable for Gilbert's skillful blend of subgenres. Never fully satisfied with the confines of detective novel formulas Gilbert will always veer out of whodunnit territory into the land of thrillers. Equally comfortable in either mode Gilbert often enjoyed exploring viewpoint, playing with narrative, and focussing on the culprit's actions and motives while the heroes and heroines desperately try to uncover the truth before more mayhem occurs. In Don't Open the Door the touches are so matter-of-fact the reader is convinced that Gilbert has all but told us the killer's name. However, the final pages come with Gilbert's trademark unexpected twist, one that may come as a real shock to those not keen to her tricks or who failed to pay close attention to subtle details.

US 1st paperback
(Bantam #768, 1950)

Crook enters the story in the final third after Nora is abducted. Together with Sammy Parker and a reporter Roger Trentham the trio race against time to find the missing nurse. There will be another murder, a mysterious car wreck at the bottom of a cliff known for suicides, and some last minute surprises before all turns out well and an ingenious killer is literally unmasked.

QUOTES: Arthur Crook: "The woman with a conscience. If you ask me a conscience is like a Rolls-Royce. It's ostentatious unless you're sure you can afford it."

Getting past Crook was something quite different. Because in spite of what he'd just said he knew a lot about Crook, and he'd sooner be cornered by a rat. You can kick a rat off sometimes, but Crook would be as difficult to escape as an octopus.

He grinned in his turn; and he went on grinning till he looked like the wolf after it had eaten Red Riding Hood's grandmother.

"Marriage can be as wild as the jungle. I ought to know. I sometimes wondered if I'd married the original Tarzan."

FFB: The Clock in the Hatbox - Anthony Gilbert

THE STORY: Viola Ross is awaiting the verdict from the jury who are deliberating on her fate in the trial of her husband's murder. Novelist Richard Arnold is the only person convinced of her innocence and he adamantly refuses to budge from his not guilty vote. The trial ends in a hung jury and Richard leaves the courthouse determined to clear Viola's name, spare her the indignity of a second trial, and find the real murderer. But his delving into amateur sleuthing leads to anonymous letters, murder attempts and other unexpected twists of Fate.

THE CHARACTERS: For nearly half the book we have no idea who Richard is. He never tells us his name himself nor does he talk much of his work as a novelist. We have to wait until his fiancée Mary "Bunty" Friar addresses him by his first name. Later a policeman or Arthur Crook himself (I forget which) calls him by his last name. That I thought was very odd from a first person narrator. But then this is an Anthony Gilbert mystery novel and the reader ought to expect high doses of the unusual and oddities galore.

Like Irene Cobb, the first person to confront Arnold on what she feels is his obstruction of justice. She was Teddy Ross' secretary and through a gossipy friend she learned that Arnold was the jury member who was responsible for the mistrial. She warns him that he better not pursue his plans and reminds us all of the telltale clue that gives the book it's odd title. Ross had set an alarm clock and was planning to wake up to conclude some business. The clock never went off and instead was found wrapped in a scarf inside a hatbox. The police and everyone believe the murder did this in order to sneak into the room and kill Ross by smothering him with a pillow. But the murderer foolishly forgot to replace the clock. If the clock had been on the bedside and Ross been discovered dead no murder investigation would ever have taken place. The death would have been ascribed to Ross' heart condition and age. Miss Cobb knows that only Mrs. Ross was at home and is most likely the guilty party. When Arnold starts receiving anonymous letters he is sure that Miss Cobb is continuing her vendetta.

Among the other possible suspects is Ross' son Harry who had a shaky relationship with his father. Teddy Ross had hired a private investigator to follow his wife because he was convinced she was having an affair. Mrs. Ross had been giving Harry money to help with his schooling and future career which angered the old man. In his rage he accused her of more than financial assistance and consorting with her stepson in a sordid romance. Did Harry and Viola plot do in Ross in order that they could use his money as they wished without his interference?

Mentioning any of the other characters would spoil the bizarre developments that take place. Suffice to say Arthur Crook does figure into the complicated case when Richard Arnold seeks out his help. There is some unique detective work throughout the story, but the true appeal in this novel is Gilbert's flair for an unusual treatment of a familiar plot that mixes courtroom mystery, detective novel, pursuit tale and Hitchcockian suspense into one mindblowing crime novel

INNOVATIONS: The more I read Gilbert the more I think her contribution to the genre is her unusual genre blending technique. I haven't read a single novel yet that is anything like a formulaic traditional detective novel that presents a mysterious death, myriad suspects and a detective who proceeds to find out the who, what, and why of the crime. In every book the story borrows elements from several of the subgenres within crime fiction and skillfully melds them, folding and interweaving so many apparently disparate features into what turns out to be an intricate storyline that connects seamlessly. No loose threads are left hanging and you are sure to be left gasping at the many ironic twists in a Gilbert plot. I could go on to mention that this is rather a landmark mystery novel that for some reason is NEVER mentioned in the many studies of the detective novel. I thought Death Knocks Three Times (1949) was a tour de force, but The Clock in the Hatbox (1939) is also worthy of that laudatory label. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that this novel is just plain ballsy. Lucy Malleson had nerve when she wrote this one and she pulls it off rather well. The entire structure of the novel is an innovation from the opening chapter that gives us a judge's summing up, the mention of the tell-tale clue that is the murderer's undoing, and the labyrinthine plot that follows as Richard Arnold does his best to free Viola Ross from the hangman's noose.

QUOTES: "[Y]ou can't force him to do something he hates. It's terrible -- I mean, it's so fatally easy to make the wrong decision, and once it's made you have to abide by it forever."

"You know what Sherlock Holmes said."
"About eliminatin' all the impossibles and takin' whatever's left, however improbable, as the only answer? Yes, I know. I'm thinkin' of havin' that put up over my desk. It'll save a lot of trouble. It must be nearly as popular as 'Laugh and the world laughs with you.'"

"Innocence costs more than a lot of people would like to believe. Take my word for it, it costs a hell of a lot. But then it's worth a lot. If morality weren't damned expensive it wouldn't have any value at all. Show me any mug who wants it for its own sake."

"You meet coincidence everywhere except in novels. Novelists are such conceited chaps, they won't be grateful for coincidence. Everything's got to fit together, with a meaning. There ain't much meaning in life, dear boy. That's what you can't get 'em to understand."

And here's something amusing. Arthur Crook quotes another lawyer:
"[A murderer's ] first job is usually his last, and even if he's successful it's as much luck as anything. And as Scott Egerton always said, the last trump always lies with fate and she bein' female, there's no telln' how she'll play it."
Scott Egerton is the first detective Malleson/Gilbert created but soon abandoned for the livelier, unscrupulous Arthur Crook.

Matthew Arnold (1822-1888)

THINGS I LEARNED: The phrase "Lombard Street to a china orange" popped up twice in the story. It's a very old British colloquialism meant to indicate the odds against something happening favorably. Lombard Street was the center of London's banking world since the 12th century according to Oxford Reference. As for the china orange part, they have this to impart to us: "The sweet orange (Citrus aurantium) was first sold in London in the mid-17C and by the 19C it was used figuratively to mean anything of minimal value." Oxford Reference also says that the phrase can be found as Lombard Street to a Brummagem sixpence, ...to an eggshell, ...to ninepence.

Arthur Crook says late in the book "You remember Balder" and then proceeds to quote a poem that starts "Better to live a slave, a captured man..." Balder rang no bells with me. Crook is alluding to the work of Victorian poet Matthew Arnold who wrote a poem called "Balder Dead". The full quote which I won't print here is reminiscent of Lucifer's sarcastic line "Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven." Actually, Gilbert misquotes the poem because the true first line is "Better to live a serf..."

EASY TO FIND? Here's one Christmas present that'll be hard to find for you or anyone else on your list. Took me several years to find an affordable copy. Even though it was published in both the US and the UK followed by a couple of paperback reprints it's a very scarce book. But if I were an enterprising reprint house I'd jump on this one as well as several other Anthony Gilbert books. So many of these are truly worthy of a new life for 21st century readers. Gilbert was more modern than most of her Golden Age contemporaries and The Clock in the Hatbox has a remarkable freshness to it that has not dated at all. This one has a lot to say about innocence, guilt, justice, and the legal system. Plus it's really one of the most innovative and gutsy detective novels in her large output, if not the entire genre.

FFB: 30 Days to Live - Anthony Gilbert

THE STORY: A shout of "Fire!" in Everard Hope's home The Brakes. Panic ensues as the occupants rush out of their rooms armed only with candles to find their way. A ripped carpet leads to a fatal tumble down the staircase. The miserly Hope is dead. The next day Hope's lawyer Midleton (one D, please) arrives to read the newly changed will. Not one of the relatives who had been invited to Hope's house will be inheriting a shilling. Instead the entire estate of £100,000 will go to Dorothea Capper, someone not one of the disinherited has ever heard of. But lucky Dorothea will only inherit the money and the house after the passage of thirty days. The relatives turn detectives to track down Miss Capper and try to bargain with her. But someone is plotting to ensure Miss Capper doesn't live to see that thirtieth day. Several attempts on her life are made. Is it just one person? Or they all out to do her in? When Arthur Crook enters the picture he suggests that Dorothea turn the tables on her attackers and fight back. But will the two succeed in their battle against the horde of greedy and murderous relatives.

THE CHARACTERS: This is another book with a cast of oddballs. Lucy Malleson (aka "Anthony Gilbert") was one of the Golden Age's best detective novel satirists. 30 Days to Live (1943) is probably more of a classist satire than it is a detective novel, but there is plenty of crime and a couple of mysteries to solve. Really what Malleson is having fun with is the presentation of a naive 38 year old woman who leads a sheltered life, spends too much of her time comparing real life with the plots of movies and popular fiction she devours with glee. The original title, The Mouse Who Wouldn't Play Ball, is an indication of just what we're to think of Dorothea Capper. At first a figure of utter ridicule in her brown dress, brown hat, brown shoes and bag to match plus her beige way of thinking Dorothea soon grows likeable as her predicament grows ever more perilous. She's lucky that Crook intervenes on her behalf to show her the cruelty of the world she tends to overlook and the opportunists who seem to want only the best for her when in fact they have their own selfish interests in mind. Dorothea slowly learns how to navigate herself in a world where suddenly she has become what appears to be the center of everyone's attention.

Arthur Crook, mysterydom's finest rogue lawyer turned detective, appears only incidentally in two scenes in the early portion of the book but will figure more prominently in the final third of the novel. He's just as shifty and unscrupulous as he always is. When he unveils his extravagantly melodramatic scheme to outwit the would-be killer and the other ruthless relatives we are definitely rooting for Dorothea to survive and earn what is rightfully hers.

Among the gold-digging relatives there is Julia Carberry who assigns herself as Dorothea's protector, barging into her home ahead of the others and directing Dorothea like a stern schoolmarm. There's another shifty lawyer in the mess -- Garth Hope, who tries his best to become Dorothea's advisor but learning too late that Crook has got to her first. Cecil Hope and Hugh Lacey are cousins and prospective suitors who both dare to invite Miss Capper out on dates in order to sway her to their side and wishing for her to split the inheritance with them. In the company of all three men bizarre accidents take place, one of them leading to a fatality of a stranger and the other two nearly landing Dorothea in her grave.

ATMOSPHERE: World War two is ever present throughout the story as a reminder of the real dangers of life that Dorothea and everyone have taken for granted. The nearly mundane references pop up so regularly it's as if war has become commonplace routine. Characters are pestered by having to draw the blackout curtains each night; a sign in a church pew reminds churchgoers to gather up their belongings, including their gas mask, before they leave; a newspaper advertisement sponsored by the National Savings Campaign illustrates foolish spending on imported goods by depicting a man and woman being threatened by a shark sporting a swastika on its fin, the caption reads "Would you buy if you had to swim for it?"; and small talk includes offhand mention of German bombs that have destroyed local landmarks and statues ("I remember seeing a broken arm lying at her feet the next morning.")

INNOVATIONS Stories about greedy relatives with murder on their minds hatching plots to do in the rightful heir date back to Gothic fiction of the late 18th century. From the persecuted Maud Ruthyn in Uncle Silas to the titular serial killer in Israel Rank inventive writers have found ways to ring out new changes in what could easily become tiresome and predictable. Malleson's clever mix of paranoid imaginings, genuine danger and classist satire all blend together in an unexpectedly witty take on this familiar tale of avarice and vanity. It's an unusual choice to have your protagonist such an utter fool at the mercy of such wily and treacherous villains and yet somehow it works. While we're busy laughing at Dorothea's often embarrassingly girlish behavior -- dressing up in an inappropriately bright yellow dress and overly elaborate hat to impress Hugh Lacey, for example -- we overlook the subtle manipulation Malleson has of making us complicit in the relatives' criminal thinking. We are privy to everyone's thoughts and we know that many of the characters are desperate for the money that Miss Capper may inherit. And she's such an idiot at times we almost want her to fall out of a window and be done with her. It's a devilish trick that Malleson plays with the reader in getting us to sympathize with Dorothea yet also wishing her dead almost simultaneously.

QUOTES: ...since the English persist in confounding morality with ability, he knew he didn't stand a chance [at promotion] if his name were being bandied about in the Divorce Court.

He looked across the room and caught Dorothea's eye and smiled. It was ravishing, that smile. [...] It made him look so young and youth in the other sex appeals to women as no virtue or mental qualification can do.

"When a lawyer's on speaking terms with the police," Crook was explaining, "you can hope to see Heaven opened and the angels of God descending on the sons of men."

...had Miss Capper asked him to prove that she hadn't bumped off her relatives one after the other, he would have accepted the commission and gone to all lengths to win the case. Not that he thought she had. All his professional life, he would mourn, he had been looking for Lucrezia Borgia in modern dress and it was his grief that, even if he did meet her, some other fellow would step in front of him and mess the matters up.

THINGS I LEARNED: More new cocktails added to my ever growing list of odd potent potables. This time the Grand Guignol. Hugh Lacey orders up several of these and Dorothea pops them back like a natural lush.  It sounds sickeningly sweet: 1.5 oz of dark rum, mixed with .75 oz of yellow chartreuse, cherry Heering (a liqueur I also had never heard of), and fresh lime juice. Shake with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Grand Guignol is usually used to describe lurid murder stories as it comes from the name of a puppet company that used to perform such plays. Then it became the name of the theater and its company of live actors who basically invented the idea of what slasher movies are all about. They performed plays that existed solely for gorey stage effects that shock and revolt the audience. Very odd name for such a cloying cocktail. I'd expect it to look bright red and not a muddy unappealing orange.

by-blow is a colloquial term or maybe a euphemism?) used when talking about illegitimate children. Merriam Webster tells me it's been around since the 16th century, but I don't think I've ever encountered it in Shakespeare, Webster, Johnson or in any of the many Jacobean revenge plays that I studied back in college days.

Jessie Matthews (left) as Dorothea and Beatrix Lehmann as
 Julia Carberry (now a sinister housekeeper!) in Candles at Nine (1944)

THE MOVIE: This is the second of three Anthony Gilbert novels that were adapted for the movies during the 1940s. Retitled Candles at Nine (in reference to Everard Hope's nightly ritual of shutting off the electricity in his house and resorting to candles for illumination) it stars Jessie Matthews as Miss Capper, Beatrix Lehmann as Julia Carberry, and John Stuart as an Arthur Crook stand-in of little import and mysterious origins named William Gordon. The movie preserves the basic story of Miss Capper needing to remain alive for one month in order to inherit but adds that she must live in The Brakes for those thirty days. The only other element that remains the same are the characters' names. The wit and satire is replaced by farce and music hall style comedy. The story is a messy mix of this low comedy and dire overacted melodrama. Only two of the five attempts on Miss Capper's life are included in the movie. Gordon gets attacked and trussed up in a closet at one point, something that absolutely does not happen to Crook. And need I mention the gratuitous musical numbers? At one point there is a two minute dance sequence that is supposed to show off Matthews' terpsichorean talents but it's a dreadful hodgepodge of ballet, jazz and tap dancing. She spends more time twirling about the stage and assisted into posing in arabesque positions by her tuxedo wearing partner than she does any real dancing. The movie is further ruined by the intrusion of the actors playing Hugh and Cecil Lacey (renamed Charles) who serve as the music hall duo delivering risqué one-liners (two of them pretty dirty for a 1944 film) and pointless banter. Very little of the exciting story is retained. The ultimate indignity of this movie adaptation is that Julia Carberry, one of the best realized and complex characters, is transformed into a cheap Mrs. Danvers wannabe who bears not a trace of Malleson's original Julia. The movie is not recommended at all.

EASY TO FIND? This one is very scarce. At least based on what I could find in online bookselling catalogs. Less than ten copies seem to be out there for sale. I looked under both titles too. Copies using the original title The Mouse Who Wouldn't Play Ball are more common. I was surprised to see it was reprinted at least three times under that title, once as a large print edition done in the 1980s. The White Circle paperback edition using the title under which the book is reviewed here is from Collins' Toronto paperback reprint publishing arm and it's a true rarity; only four copies available. Those of you living in the UK may be lucky with local libraries and used bookstores.

This is now my second favorite of the Anthony Gilbert books I've read. It's highly recommended should you be lucky enough to find a copy. Next up is The Clock in the Hatbox which I managed to locate through a miracle of sorts. Eager to read and review that one since it comes highly recommended from Neer and a few other bloggers.

Death Knocks Three Times - Anthony Gilbert

I seem to be on a roll in choosing my kind of detective novel.  My first taste of the prolific --and sorely overlooked by me -- "Anthony Gilbert" (in reality Lucy Beatrice Malleson) was another delight from start to finish.  And such an unusual blend of so many different kinds of subgenres.  Death Knocks Three Times (1949) is almost unclassifiable.  It's a Gothic send-up, a satire on the art of novel writing, a treatise on detective novels, a "badass biddy" (my own name for a certain type of subgenre featuring nefarious and murderous senior citizen women) suspense thriller, and the end a fair play mystery novel.  But detection, I have to say, takes back seat to an engrossing tale of duplicity, blackmail, anonymous threats and familial jealousy.

There are mysterious deaths aplenty and crime galore in Death Knocks Three Times, but the emphasis is on a cat and mouse game between many of the characters. The reader becomes spellbound by the serpentine plot and may be more interested in trying to figure out just who are the heroes amid all the villainy rather than uncovering the identity of the murderer.  If there is one!  Lucy Malleson's most popular detective Arthur Crook is hardly the main character in this outing though he does the wrapping up in the penultimate chapter.  I almost don't want to say anything about this book because truly it's so strange and surprising in how it unfolds. The story shifts gears and moods so many times that to give any kind of summary would ruin discovering what it has to offer. I'll try my best to highlight the bare bones.

The opening chapter seems be a homage to Benighted by J. B. Priestley. Crook is travelling in Scourge, his beater of a car, to visit a friend when a terrifying storm of Biblical proportions washes out a bridge and makes driving impossible. Just as in Priestley's book Crook goes in search of shelter and fortuitously there happens to be an old house just off his ruined route. He is greeted by a creepy old butler who thinks he is someone else, eventually inveigles his way inside and meets the eccentric and belligerent Colonel Sherran who seems to be living in a long gone past much like the occupants of the sinister Femm mansion. Crook lets the Colonel know of his specialty in law -- he is skilled at aquitting guilty people -- which results in an almost immediate friendship and a glowing congeniality from the previously blustery and rude ex-soldier. This is the first of the most telling clues that I guarantee any reader will almost instantly forget by the time the book is in full swing. It's also a sure sign of Malleson's talent in concocting a tantalizing mystery novel.

Enter John Sherran, a struggling novelist and the Colonel's nephew. He was the guest the butler Bligh expected when Crook rang the bell. John and his uncle have an argument and in the morning the Colonel is dead. After breaking down the locked door to a bathroom they find the colonel in a Victorian bathtub the lid of which has come crashing down on his head. An accident?  Or a fiendishly designed murder?  Crook ends up attending the inquest to give evidence along with Bligh and John who are the only other witnesses. The surprising verdict is death by misadventure.

But the Colonel's death is only the first in a series of suspicious accidents that may or may not be cleverly disguised murders. Death seems to be following John Sherran wherever he goes and his relatives are dropping like flies. The reader is privy to John's thoughts and we get an inkling that he has been tempted to bump off his rich relations so that he can live a more comfortable life as he blunders his way through writing mediocre novels that don't sell very well.  But is he guilty?  Wouldn't that be too obvious?

Malleson does an excellent job of painting her characters in shades of ambiguity.  There are no good guys dressed in white nor any villainesses wearing slinky black cocktail dresses. Nearly everyone has a dark side to them and by the midpoint nearly everyone seems to have murder on their mind, especially the odious Frances Pettigrew, an ex-governess John keeps running into with a frequency that beggars belief.  Coincidence or design? The scene in the train compartment between John and Miss Pettigrew shows off Malleson's taste for the macabre as we listen to Miss Pettigrew deliver a De Quincey-like lecture on the fine art of murder.  Her speech curdles the blood while simultaneously bringing a devilish smile to a contemporary reader who can only laugh in astonishment at such a callous old woman's philosophy. Her appearance takes the book further into a surreal world where activities like playing cards, riding an elevator, or taking a tea break are fraught with peril.

For anyone who hasn't read Anthony Gilbert I highly recommend this as your entry point. I found the strange shifts in mood in Death Knocks Three Times to be thoroughly beguiling. The plotting is mesmerizing, the characters are outrageous, the suspense is relentless and the ending is killer. You're sure to be stunned by one or more twists in the gasp inducing finale. I've read many a book with a triple twist endings, but is it possible to have a quadruple twist?  This could be it!

I'm not the only one who thinks highly of this book.  For those not satisfied with my review I suggest you read any of these three raves from my fellow vintage mystery bloggers:

Neer at "A Cup of Hot Pleasure"
TomCat at "Beneath the Stains of Time"
Bev at "My Reader's Block"

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Reading Challenge update: Golden Age card, space E6 - "Book you have to borrow".  I got this copy from the Chicago Public Library. Also this counts as one of the three books I read for the "1949 Mystery Book Challenge" for the month of May sponsored by Rich Westwood's blog Past Offences.

COOL FLICKS: My Name Is Julia Ross (1945)

My Name Is Julia Ross, a neat suspense movie, has been a favorite among the film festival circuit and revival movie houses for years now. Early last year it was finally released on DVD as part of Columbia Picture Film Noir Classics, Volume 3. After months of trying to find a store in Chicago that had it for rental I stumbled across it through sheer luck when I found an online version. But like many movies which I have been waiting to see for years (I recall a similar experience when I finally got to watch The High and the Mighty) I was a little disappointed. For me it was an entertaining film with a few surprises, but due to its predictable and very familiar plot a movie that didn't thrill me as much as I had hoped for. Still, there's much to recommend the film.

Based on The Woman in Red by Anthony Gilbert, an out of print vintage mystery I have not read, it tells the story of Julia Ross, a down on her luck and unemployed secretary played with conviction and glamour by Nina Foch. In the opening scene Julia deals with Bertha, a bitter charwoman (Joy Harrington in nifty but unbilled minor role) who taunts her for being behind on the rent and out of work. "Secretary? Sittin' an' writin' all day. Call that work?" she sneeringly throws in Julia's face when the desperate young woman sees an ad that seems perfect for her. Julia rushes out of the boarding house to the Allison Employment Agency to apply.

At the employment office she learns of the odd requirements: no family ties, no boyfriends, and the job will require her to move in and live with her employer. Julia has no choice. She needs the job badly and wants to pay up on her back rent. A simple phone call to Mrs. Hughes by the hatchet faced Miss Allison (Anita Bolster) seals the deal. Julia must wait to meet Mrs. Hughes who just happens to be in the neighborhood for the interview and final approval. She shows up and it's Miss Froy from The Lady Vanishes. Whether she's playing a spy or an English matriarch Dame May Whitty is always a joy to watch. Julia also meets her gloomy but sharply dressed son Ralph (George MacReady with his signature thrilling and gravelly voice). They hire Julia immediately. All shake hands, Julia receives an advance, Mrs. Hughes urges her to go shop for new clothes and they'll meet her at the house later in the evening.

With Julia gone we now learn that the trio are up to no good. Mrs. Hughes drops her charming facade and cries out a bit sinisterly, "She's perfect!" Ralph adds cryptically, "There's even a small resemblance." Mrs. Hughes calls for Peters, a man who spied upon them from a closet. "Did she see you?" "No, madam," he says. "I made sure of that," confirms Miss Allison who we now know is really Sparks. "See that you keep it that way, especially at the house," Mrs. Hughes orders in a stern voice. They close up the agency and head on home. What have they in store for Julia? This doesn't seem like it's going to be your average everyday sittin' an' writin' job.

Julia is being groomed as a replacement for Marion Hughes, Ralph's wife. As the title implies Julia tries to get everyone to believe she is not Marion, but the Hughes family and the servants have done a wonderful job of covering their tracks. Everyone in town and everyone who visits the house think Marion is recovering from a mental breakdown. As the story unfolds we watch Julia do her best to escape and get word to her only ally Dennis Bruce (Roland Varno), a neighbor and friend back at the boarding house, while the villains manage to outwit her at every attempt. Slowly we learn what happened to the real Marion and pray that the same thing does not happen to Julia.

Nina Foch, gorgeous and frightened and later one feisty woman

George MacReady - he loves his knives

Dame May Whitty - Mother knows best

Anita Bolster starts the plot spinning with a phone call

Roland Varno - our hero

Joy Harrington - Bertha is nobody's friend

 The combination of smart script, moody camera work, and a director with a keen eye for cinematic artiness raise this familiar story out of the realm of the ordinary. Though utterly predictable from the moment the plot is revealed the movie nonetheless manages to hold the viewer's interest with an enviable panache. The music, the snappy line delivery, the performances from the entire cast -- it's a stylish little movie there's no doubt about it. And there are odd and surprising details that seem to come out of nowhere.  Mrs. Sparks draws Mrs. Hughes' attention to Ralph offscreen. Cut to Ralph on the couch seen from behind.  He's ripping a negligee to shreds with a pocket knife! Or an entire scene in which we see only Julia's frightened eyes over Ralph's shoulder while Julia and Ralph carry on their dialogue in voiceover.

The expert photography is by Burnett Guffey. After decades of filming B movies and programmers Guffey would go on to win two Academy Awards for From Here to Eternity and Bonnie & Clyde. Muriel Roy Bolton does an admirable job with the economical screenplay by quickly packing in pertinent backstory and stripping down the exposition to its bare essentials so that the meat of the story with all its suspense filled moments can get moving quickly. Even the melodramatic score mostly pulled from stock music written for other Columbia Pictures' films enhances the movie.

But it is largely due to director Joseph H. Lewis that My Name Is Julia Ross is a movie repeatedly mentioned as a something of a mini-masterpiece in suspense films. Lewis was a master at taking potboilers and turning them into entrancing movies that you can't turn away from. Each shot is a work of art. It also helps that in ...Julia Ross he had a top notch cast of talented actors. My Name is Julia Ross was supposed to be filmed in only ten days but studio executives were so impressed with what Lewis was doing they allowed eight extra days so he could produce the best movie possible. Lewis would go on to direct other thrillers like So Dark the Night, Gun Crazy (now something of a cult movie), and the melodramatic and brutally sadistic police drama The Big Combo. Each one shows his attention to detail, performance subtleties, and atmospheric lighting and framing.