SLEEP, MY LOVE B-
USA (97 mi) 1948 d: Douglas Sirk
An early and extremely convoluted Douglas Sirk film, where the director seems more driven to implement a stylistic flourish than to create a satisfactory drama onscreen. Poor Claudette Colbert really suffers here, as her performance is rather amateurish, revealing the traits of a pampered and overindulged society woman who can’t hold her liquor, who’s more interested in being the life of the party than having a serious thought in her head. That said, her oily sneak of a husband (Don Ameche) is attempting to plan her demise through nefarious means while stealing away with another woman, Hazel Brooks, who hasn’t a brain in her head, whose sole purpose onscreen is to be sultry and provocative, a vampish siren who would make you want to leave your wife, except that despite her scantily clad wardrobe, this woman is a dullard who couldn’t hold anyone’s interest. She’s like a bad character in the wrong film. The story itself is much more complicated than it needs to be, attempting to become a mysterious web of deceit, but despite this labyrinth of wrong turns and missed opportunities, there isn’t an ounce of tension or building suspense. None of the characters are involving, so there’s little interest in whatever the outcome may be, nothing satisfactory, so it’s largely just going through the motions, adding as many signature trademarks in the composition as he can.
Technically, this film heralds much more interest and has been restored by the UCLA Film & Television Archives, where most of the film takes place in a single location, an outrageously upscale New York City apartment with a winding staircase up multiple floors and a magnificent terrace view of the Brooklyn Bridge. While the marriage is held together by artificial manners and social grace (separate bedrooms, of course), all a smokescreen to cover up his lustful desires, the film instead follows the nearly always embarrassing behavior of Colbert who finds herself mysteriously on a train without remembering how she got on, causing a great deal of panic, as if she’d been kidnapped by an international espionage ring. But no, it’s not that kind of movie, it’s just a simple mistake, quite common the film would have us believe, as she has a tendency to sleepwalk, often awaking in awkward situations. Her husband calms her down with a sedative, finds her a psychiatrist, and has her believing she suffers from nightmares and hallucinations, seeing things that aren’t there, where she’s literally losing her mind. Colbert’s glamorous outfits, by the way, are off the charts and ultra chic in black and white, and also she has her own indoor greenhouse where she hides herself, which she calls her jungle. But it’s her drunken enthusiasm and slurring speech that keeps her from being taken seriously, as she always appears tilted off center, incapable of rescuing herself, making this another damsel in distress movie.
Enter TV’s Love That Bob (1955 – 59), Robert Cummings, another smooth talking, out of town friend who has desires of sweeping her off her feet until he discovers she’s already married, but makes sure she returns safely home before realizing afterwards that the husband’s explanation was suspect. Everything becomes a puzzle that involves an entrenched police detective (Raymond Burr), a murderous husband (Ameche), an unsuspecting wife (Colbert), a femme fatale (Brooks), a blackmailing photographer who disguises himself as a psychiatrist (George Coulouris), the overly inquisitive friend (Cummings), and a couple of unsuspecting household servants who add luster to the lifestyle of a playboy millionaire who’s living off his wife’s fortune. There’s a ridiculous side show of a Chinese marriage, where Keye Luke, later Master Po from the Kung Fu TV series (1972 – 75), and his newlywed bride break off from their honeymoon and take a sudden interest in detective work by enthusiastically helping Cummings solve the crime. Joseph Valentine adds some murky, highly expressionist cinematography, blending together doorways, mirrors, windows, and a dizzying staircase, featuring a fabulous set design by Howard Bristol, while Sirk attempts to create a psychologically shifting motif of wanton desire and nightmarish panic, where the ever so smooth Ameche continues to push the buttons that will drive her feverishly over the edge, a variation on a similar theme in GASLIGHT (1944), but the characters here are out of their league when it comes to masterminding a world of deception. In someone else’s hands this is ordinary stuff, but under the direction of Sirk it’s a fascinating early work, almost cultish, where the images are a lurid style of eye candy that literally pop off the screen.
