Dir: Nicolas Ray | Barbara Rush, Walter Matthau, James Mason | US Drama 97’
One of several bold choices made by James Mason that undeservingly died at the box office, resulting in his relegation to supporting roles. It’s always the the measure of an actor that he’s prepared to be unlikable and Mason manages to be absolutely terrifying in the throes of (SPOILER COMING:) drug addiction (his line, delivered deadpan to Walter Matthau that “God was wrong” has to the definitive expression of megalomania).
It comes as a surprise to see this intimate drama made in colour and ‘scope, but the huge close-up of Mason smugly drawing on a cigarette after scandalising a PTA meeting by declaring that “childhood is a disease and our job is to cure it”provides conclusive proof that close ups WERE possible in widescreen, while director Nicholas Ray makes several vivid use of colour as when in an early scene the screen is filled with yellow cabs, and at the climax when Mason brandishes a bible with red edges that makes it resemble a hot coal. @RichardChatten
ON BFI PLAYER