"(In Bedlam) Lewton was able to blend, in varying proportions and combinations, the genres of horror, thriller, period piece, costume melodrama, and outright contemporary drama..."

The horror/thrillers of Producer Val Lewton for RKO Radio Pictures in the Forties are considered classics of their kind, and rightly so.  An excellent example is a little "loonie" film that concerns the...

By MATTHEW WANDERSKI

(Editor's note:  This is to introduce another new writer to HORROR-WOOD.  Matthew Wanderski was born in the sooty land of Chicago, IL in 1966, grew up in the regrettable territory of south Florida, graduated from the neo-hippie New College of the University of South Florida, spent three years in the complex realm of Washington, DC, and then left a divorce behind for the Paradise that is Seattle, WA.  There he studies beginning modern dance, tries to write, is presently looking for employment, worships Patti Smith, and loves the family he is building there very, very much.  You can write Matthew here.)

Bedlam, the final of Producer Val Lewton's nine horror/thrillers, tells the tale of Nell Bowen (Anna Lee), an entertainer who has charmed her way into the aristocracy of London, 1761.  This circle includes the wealthy and powerful clown Lord Mortimer (Billy House); Master Sims (Boris Karloff), head of St. Mary of Bethlehem Hospital, a mental institution; and Sims' lower-class, good-time girl niece Kitty (Elizabeth Russell).

Nell is invited to tour St. Mary's Asylum, the mental institution known known as "Bedlam," a popular amusement for the local rich.  But what she finds there disgusts her--both because she is horrified by the "loonies" and because she is repelled by the horrible mistreatment they suffer at the hands of Sims--at a time when England had no laws to protect them.  Though she feels for the inmates, she swears that she doesn't, even to a kindly, devout Mason named Hannay (Richard Fraser), who she meets as he is working on the renovation of the asylum.  But her basic decency, the further callousness towards the unfortunate she witnesses among the upper crust, and her growing closeness with Hannay slowly lead Nell to realize she wants to crusade for the better treatment of the patients, initially using her influence with Mortimer.

Sims sees the threat Nell poses to his authority and place in society, and an outright war commences.  But will Sims' own contacts, not to mention Nell's frank but impetuous words and acts, see to it that she becomes the loonies' fellow rather than their savior...?

Criticisms against the film have included that it is overly talky and ponderous.  For me the film moves quite briskly.  The battle of wills and wits between Sims and Bowen is lively.  Seeing Nell's fortunes turn steadily worse--and her ability to rise to meet these circumstances increase--is one of the film's chief pleasures.  And while Bedlam may indeed be as talky as Isle of the Dead, for example, it doesn't seem so to me.  This is probably because, as much as I like a lot of the dialog in Isle, I enjoy so much of the final Lewton thriller's words so much more.

For one thing, I had forgotten, before a recent viewing, just how damn funny the movie is.  There is more comedic dialog in this film than any other in the series.  "We were fighting over truth!" from Betty, Queen of the Artichokes.  Two good ones from a surprising source, the wonderful character of Mason Hannay (and the subtle performance of Richard Fraser):  "So far, Mistress Bowen, I find thee more ready with answers than with questions," and, at the end, "Are we lovers, that you 'thee' and 'thou' me?"  And just about everything out of Elizabeth Russell's mouth (thanks, oh thanks, Mrs. and Mr. Russell for procreating!), including, "I've known some gentlemen!"  And more.  I found myself smiling, grinning, chuckling and outright laughing throughout much of the film.

Bowen is such a feisty and yet morally, spiritually incomplete character.  And we see her get to grow in these respects right before our eyes as she commits herself more and more to crusading for the inmates of St. Mary's.   Her verbal duels, with Sims, Hannay, Lord Mortimer, the Insanity Council, show how impulsive and immature she is, but also how strong, smart, and good-hearted.  It's a combination destined to get her into hot water.  These sparring matches are so well written and acted, bringing Nell and her conflicting motivations to light.

Bowen isn't the only character caught between different drives, she's just the one going through the most dramatic and fruitful struggle.  Bedlam is another Lewton film dealing with the dawning of reason and the waning of irrational or outmoded views of the world.  But a greater oppositional dynamic at play in the film really came to me this viewing.  In different ways and to different degrees, the key players are all being pulled between the external behavior or appearance they have chosen to partake in or display on the one hand, and the internal call of reason and emotion on the other.  Even at the end, the chief villain of the piece, Master Sims, claims that he never wanted to do the evil things he did, but that he had to in order to maintain his place in society.

Mason Hannay is a man of God, following a religion that comes complete with a number of rules big and small that he follows assiduously.   No weapons, no fighting.  Wear that hat except before god.  Tell the truth.  But even he is swayed from this path at times, by a combination of feelings he's experiencing.  His desire to help Bedlam's loonies.  His respect and friendship for Nell.  And his growing romantic and sexual love for her.  Two key decisions he makes illustrate how all these motivations contribute to the flexibility he displays in "breaking the rules."  This man of peace, a pacifist, gives Nell the trowel she requests--a weapon -- not only because she may need it to prevent injury from coming to her, but also because she convinces Hannay that her beautiful face may be damaged.  And, at the film's end, the Mason's duty to always be truthful almost leads him to uncover Sim's hiding place for the authorities, but both Nell's appeal for the well-being of the inmates and her flirtatious intimation that she'd convert for him silences him.

Nell fights her feelings of compassion for part of the film, insisting that she is in it all for laughs as much as the rest of the upper crust she has climbed her way up to join.  She needs to share the same haughty indifference of her fellows if she wants to maintain her place among them.  But Hannay's guidance and her increasing exposure to the inmates breaks this front of hers down, and her deeper values begin to win out over what she herself wants out of life and what others expect of her.  Or perhaps it's that her values, what she wants to do with her life, are changing.

I like that this progression isn't completely unidirectional.  After she is horrified by the conditions of St. Mary's and seeks Hannay's help, she does so with a snotty, superior tone and speaks of her compassion for the afflicted in terms that are nearly hypothetical.  And even late in the film, after she and the inmates have basically become real friends, she refers to them as 'loonies' to Hannay.  In between these points, she professes to the Mason that while she does want to help these needy people, they are "bestial" and "disgusting"--and that they scare her.  She doesn't go through some quick, miraculous ethical rebirth.   No...believably, she goes back and forth, one step up, two down, etc...

The concern for appearance and social standing is also reflected in the political division that serves as a background to the narrative.   One party being proclaimed repressive and uncaring, the other progressive and open to helping the poor and downtrodden.  Money and appearance are evidenced as the nemesis of compassion in this film.  For even the glib, self-centered Lord Mortimer can be maneuvered by Bowen into helping the loonies.  That is, until Sims points out how much money it will cost the man to do so--money needed to help him keep up proper appearances.

And then there's the irony of how quite similar activity and thought that is deemed either sane or insane can appear to be.  It is the very same impulsive wit which allows Nell entrance into the world of aristocracy that is also used to get her committed to St. Mary's.  And it's that same sense of imagination that leads Nell to quite believably join in on the pretend game of cards that inmates Sidney Long, Oliver Todd, and Dan the Dog play.  I mean, she just jumps right in there, as smoothly as she throws out a barb for Mortimer's amusement, or bites into currency to show her contempt for it.  She can "jest," just like the flippant aristocracy--or the loonies.

It's interesting that Bedlam, in it's depiction of Nell's conflict and growth, is a much fuller exploration of one theme raised in Lewton's The Leopard Man.  Nell's waning insistence that she doesn't care isn't all that unlike Jerry Manning's and Kiki Walker's tough-as-nails refusal to admit they care about anybody but themselves, which also eventually crumbles in the earlier film.   No slam against The Leopard Man--I like it more than Bedlam, overall--but these ideas are much more impressively and satisfyingly engaged in Bedlam, embodied in Nell Bowen and her internal and external struggles.

It's been argued that Lewton's final three films, The Body Snatcher, Isle Of The Dead, and Bedlam, in being period pieces, removed Lewton from the theme that was his greatest strength:  that of the intrusion of the outmoded or irrational thought upon the enlightened thinking and experience of modern-day man.  This argument, while not without merit, fails to consider some of the plusses Lewton gained in making these films.

On one simple level, the different time periods and settings help to insure that the series has a pleasing variety to it.   But, more importantly, they helped Lewton to achieve one of the things I like best about the series--the way the films almost always straddle at least a couple of genres.   Some fans find this effect one of dilution, but I think it a strength.

Lewton was able to blend, in varying proportions and combinations, the genres of horror, thriller, period piece, costume melodrama, and outright contemporary drama. Bedlam satisfies me as a "horror" film.  Our first, dark glimpse of St. Mary's.  The creepiness and of a number of Nell's scenes as an inmate therein.   Hannay's entrance through the back of the institution--one of the briefest but most beautiful and effective Lewton filmic "walks."  The grotesquery of the death of the gilded boy, the insanity of Sims' "trial."  And, of course, the pay-off.  One of Lewton's, and Robson's, subtlest masterstrokes.  Just that one briefest moment of recognition on Karloff's face, and it's over.  Chilling.

But Bedlam is also a costume melodrama and a drama.  Particularly in it's opening and closing sequences of attempted and successful escape from the asylum.   It's also quite effective as a period drama -- about a time in history that cried out for reforms, and about the themes discussed above.  I love that the film succeeds so well in all these respects.  I think what makes this work for me, beyond the attention to detail and visual tone that Lewton and company customarily brought to their films, is the writing.  Those exchanges between Nell and the other characters reveal so much of what is happening inside of her and them.  The characters were very real and vibrant to me.

A number of the actors deserve a lot of credit for this as well, however.  Another fine job from Karloff, but it is perhaps unsurprising that this is another Lewton film in which a key female character takes center stage away from him.  Lewton's films were very woman-centric, and Isle Of The Dead is especially notable in this respect.   In that film, a supporting character governs much of the narrative and thematic thrust of the story, taking the spotlight off of Karloff as General Pherides and putting it on Katherine Emery as Mrs. St. Aubyn--for me, at least.

In Bedlam, however, it is the lead female role that is the story's true center.    Karloff's Sim really is just one of the main obstacles coming between Nell and her personal and altruistic victories.   And Anna Lee is so up to the challenge.  Her Nell is arrogant, defensive, all an actress-y show at first, putting up those walls between her and the "lowly" people she meets -- the common laborer Hannay and the mindless beasts in the asylum.   But progressively warming up, becoming more real, as her heart opens up to these folk.  And Lee handles Nell's intelligence and wit, the impetuousness, and the great determination expertly as well.  Her confrontations with Karloff are good fireworks.

Billy House is grand as Lord Mortimer, and once again I find I must extend my undying gratitude to Mrs. and Mr. Russell.  Ellen Corby, Robert Clarke, and Ian "Hirsch!" Holm are also memorable as St. Mary's inmates.  But the cast member who really stood out for me this time was Richard Fraser as Hannay.  My, what a crashing bore this character could have been, with his piety and rigid, formal speech.  But just a little attention paid to this actor's subtle, warm work shows how human Hannay is.  Subtlety really is the key here, and that's why I've referred to it more than once.  Fraser has to slip the Mason's emotional complexity through the cracks in the wall of his reserved behavior and bearing.   Both of the humorous lines I spoke of earlier are cases in point.  His "questions rather than answers" comment is a gentle, yet rather slyly sharp, jab.  And when he repeats Nell's own "thee and thou" question back to her, Fraser makes it so soft and warm, the love in those brown eyes seeping out through Hannay's propriety...Well, I just swoon a little, okay?

Okay, Matthew!  Thanks for providing us a penetrating look at a notable horror outing for Karloff and the last, but not least, terror triumph of the great Val Lewton.  Cheers!

Article copyright Matthew Wanderski. Bedlam poster from Matinee Today.

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