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The fabric of order and the artist's position, Beckett's "good housekeeping" and no mistake. Nothing illustrates studio power games like a lavish madhouse, thus hijinks at the Castle House Clinic for Nervous Disorders. Self-government is the dream, "you can't tell the patients from the doctors," the progressive psychiatrist (Richard Widmark) replaces the womanizing sot (Charles Boyer). His neglected missus (Gloria Grahame) gravitates toward the veteran roué, the doctor meanwhile bonds with the widowed analyst (Lauren Bacall). New drapes are on everyone's mind, just the trigger for a neurotic nest, the dour business manager (Lillian Gish) goes to war over them. "The normal strains of living" heightened tenfold and suffered by one and all, particularly the suicidal painter (John Kerr) and the agoraphobic inmate (Susan Strasberg). "Ah, incompleteness. That's the only triumph worthwhile." The essence of Vincente Minnelli, the turbulence under the gloss and the deluxe décor with a seething heart. Psychiatry and marriage, asylum and household, a matter of fragile institutions. "The Cézanne of the psychos" laments Van Gogh's fate, the wife sees flowers as a defense of Beauty: "Isn't it enough that they have color and form and make you feel good?" (The most harrowing image is not seen but described, the dying patient in a white room starving for a dab of red.) Minnelli's CinemaScope was never more brilliantly articulated, the sumptuous suffocation of interiors dissolves to the Stygian river during a downpour with blinking lights reflected in the distance. Ray's Bigger Than Life and Wise's Executive Suite are nearby, the commentator is Oscar Levant warbling "Mother" during hydrotherapy. "Listen, as far as I'm concerned, the more art that's lost, the better." The happy ending is really a caustic joke on enveloping mise en scène. Cinematography by George J. Folsey. With Paul Stewart, Adele Jergens, Fay Wray, Tommy Rettig, Jarma Lewis, Olive Carey, Mabel Albertson, and Bert Freed.
--- Fernando F. Croce |