An artist who paints death Fashionable painter, much over forty, lives with his mother. James is rich and, according to his models, is not bad with himself, so everyone considers it her duty to fall in love. The artist, in general, does not mind, but all the girls are found in the river. And James is tormented by mood swings, nightmares and memory lapses.
Before us, the classic noir – exquisite, disturbing, with unexpected plot moves – connoisseurs, however, will definitely remember the “Musk Rose” with Ethel Barrymore and Vincent Price. There is a motif of fatalism in the film, reflected in a luxurious scene in a nightclub: the hero watches a blonde, into which knives are thrown, and she continues to sing about love, addressing her “tormentor”. But perhaps the main advantage of this noir is a magnificent visual range. The cameraman John Elton gives the “Mystery of the Madonna” Gothic charm, building in a row with “Laura” and “Rebekah”, where female portraits also play a large role.
The weak link in this elegant design seemed to me to play the artist Francis Lederer. There's a lot of dialogue in the movie, and he has a pretty nasty voice, but that's not the point. I kept wondering how much more convincing Charles Boiller would look as James. Where Lederer gives out neurasthenia, Bouillet would have a dangerous charm, a hidden threat and an understatement. In the end, nothing attracts like a mystery - Madonna, or the artist who wrote it.
7 out of 10