Infamous as a slightly hysterical ‘Red Scare’ film (effete son Robert Walker poo-poos his parents’ Catholic/American bedrock values so must be a Communist spy*). Compromised by Walker’s death before completion (see ‘borrowed’ shots from Hitchcock’s STRANGERS ON A TRAIN in a payphone booth and its jumpy/cut & paste third act)). A misfire for ‘First Lady of the American Stage’ Helen Hayes, back in Hollywood for the first time in two decades (then waiting another two decades for her next Hollywood lead). All true. But mostly, the film reps something of a personal crisis for writer/director Leo McCarey on only his second film seven years after BELLS OF ST. MARY’S/’45 had him at the top of the Hollywood heap. In the film, the subtext to the Commie Scare storyline is Hayes’ personal struggle with menopause and the pills she won’t take to alleviate the symptoms. For McCarey, any hot flashes were self-medicated with alcohol, producing reactionary fever dreams like this on his long day’s journey to the right. A one-of-kind folly, not unintentionally funny, but is it intentionally bad? Hayes exceptionally awful, laughing thru tears from beginning to end, with Dean Jagger’s husband cackling right along with her, while emanating menacing goodness with an All-American bias & fierce Catholic devotion. Did he drive Walker into the Communist fold? Hard to know what’s intended and what’s accidental with McCarey’s technique in complete collapse where once personal grace and the kindness of Human Comedy held his films almost magically together. Five years would pass before he dared try again. And then, with the safety of a remake to keep him on track.
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *Unlike his two kid brothers, blond Aryan high school footballers, now off to serve in Korea while their dark older brother works & spies in D.C.
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