THE SAXON CHARM (1948)

Another behind-the-scenes roman à clef from novelist Frederic Wakeman, unlike last year’s THE HUCKSTERS/’47 on the ad game & radio, this one All About Theater*, and improving rather than diminishing over the years.  With more vigorous direction and a better score to reflect the story’s dark edge, we’d have an unheralded near-classic.  Robert Montgomery, in an exceptional late turn, doesn’t soft-pedal this fictionalized version of real-life B’way horror Jed Harris, a theatrical comet who blazed as producer/director for a decade (THE FRONT PAGE; OUR TOWN; THE HEIRESS; THE CRUCIBLE) before his loathsome, spiteful personality made him untouchable.  (Laurence Olivier famously based his Richard III on Harris; and currently in the news, film & B’way producer Scott Rudin, a modern example of this type of bullying terror & threatening behavior.*)  Montgomery captures the monster in decline, working with successful novelist John Payne on a first play while running roughshod over Payne & wife Susan Hayward, as well as fiancée Audrey Totter, lowbrow investors, office staff (Henry Morgan, exceptional), and any employee he comes across at clubs, airports & hotels.  Yet, he can still pull you in as easily as he repels when he turns on the charm, and with the smarts to make the whole ghastly experience seem worthwhile.  But his instincts have calcified and his enthusiasms hardened into daggers.  Claude Binyon, long time writer of light vehicles at Paramount, began to occasionally direct here (we’re at Universal), but shows slight aptitude for the task.  Thankfully, the writing not only holds up, but holds firm, right to the finish, with hardly a compromise to its multilayered characters.

DOUBLE-BILL/SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: *The obvious choice is ALL ABOUT EVE/’50 for more backstage skullduggery, deceit & bad behavior.  OR: *For the Scott Rudin angle, while Montgomery’s character may be cut from similar cloth, see John Malkovich in THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY/’93 for a more exact copy.  (Seated next to Scooter’s top assistant at a preview screening for LADY, and cringing as Malkovich’s despicable actions destroyed Kidman’s chance to escape, I nudged this office lackey and whispered, ‘Who does this remind you of?’   ‘OMG, Scott!  It’s Scott!,’ he replied.  A month later, overbearing noxious behavior had him out of there.)