The Velvet Touch (1948)

Vintage film buffs are here offered a cast to die for from the top-billed Roz Russell through Leon Ames, Clare Trevor and Sydney Greenstreet, who turns up four and a half reels in and immediately embarks on a cat-and- mouse duel with Russell. Although there have been a sprinkling - Stage Door, Morning Glory, All About Eve - the theatre hasn't featured too often in film so The Velvet Touch fills an all-too real gap. God knows how much Sardi's shelled out for product placement but it was worth it for the theatre-buff viewers who will lap up the atmosphere. The plot fits where it touches but this time around it's a case of the whole is bigger than the sum of its parts.

When this film begins, Valerie Stanton (Rosalind Russell) is in the office of Gordon Dunning (Leon Ames). Dunning is insisting that he MUST have her or he will destroy her. Dunning is VERY intense and vaguely threatening. Stanton is obviously afraid of him and ends up accidentally killing him in self-defense. However, she does NOT tell the police but tries to see if she can get away with it. Since there is no doubt that Valerie did it, you might wonder how they fill the rest of the movie. After all, the killing happens in just the first few minutes of the film. Well, part of the film consists of Valerie having a flashback where she thinks about all the things that led up to the killing. The rest consists of the police investigation headed by the Captain (Sidney Greenstreet). However, where it all goes is not what I would have expected--and I appreciate that. In particular, since Valerie was doing the play "Hedda Gabler", I assumed the film would end the same as the play.The film has a very nice script, as it explores human nature and has plenty of twists and turns. Additionally, the acting and direction are quite intelligently done--making it a nice movie for adult tastes. Of the actors, by the way, my favorite was Greenstreet, as he plays against type and his performance is smooth and believable. Overall, a very nice film.

When the opening credits come up, you think that this film is going to be a musical as a chorus serenades us with "The Velvet Touch", a thoroughly forgettable song. It's an extremely strange beginning for a murder drama; however, it swings into the story in short order and is off and running.Roz plays an established Broadway star partnered with Leon Ames, her producer and long-time paramour. She falls for the rather bland Leo Genn and seeks to break off her collaboration, both professional and personal with Ames. He's not having it and she clubs him over the head. Exit Mr. Ames. Claire Trevor, looking a bit frumpy here, is the long suffering and rejected lover of Ames. She is blamed for the murder and commits suicide. Will Roz confess, kill herself out of guilt on stage while appearing in "Hedda Gabler" or get away with murder? That is the question. Add the excellent Sidney Greenstreet as a New York police detective (who came up with that casting?)and some good character parts with Frank McHugh and Esther Howard and you should have a winner. But the story, partly told in flashback, while satisfactory, is not particularly spell binding. The film really begins to drag after the opening murder scenes and doesn't seem to have that extra punch/suspense/plot twist necessary to fully hold your interest. It's not bad, it's just not that good.

Seldom is it possible to find three unusual elements in the same film; these three I claim are a brilliant part for a female lead, an absorbing and tense duel between heroine and pursuer, and an ethically satisfying excuse for murder. I claim that "The Velvet Touch" presents all three elements quite successfully. It is a very well-directed film, set in theaters, interior rooms and apartments; and I suggest it has one of the simplest story lines of any first-rate film. An actress has been groomed by her mentor-agent-Svengali and has become Broadway's leading comedic star. He wants her to do a new comedy, after her most recent triumph; she wants to do a dramatic play. They quarrel; he threatens to run her reputation, her career, her life, and in a moment of fear an loathing she kills him with a blunt instrument. The remainder of the film consists of the actress's preparation for an achievement of the dramatic triumph she had thought but not been certain she could earn to, even while she is being pursued by a portly and wise police inspector who after her opening night success, which he allows her to complete, escorts her to what the viewer knows will be a trial for murder of some sort. Of course there is a new fiancée, and a woman falsely accused connected with the deceased, but essentially that is the entire storyline. What this narrative does not convey however is the skill with which Sydney Greenstreet plays the deferential but brilliant detective; nor does it hint at the possibilities of the main part, played in this film by Rosalind Russell who brings out many of those potentials. Powerful Leo Genn plays the fiancée, Claire Trevor the other woman suspected of murder and Leon Ames the despicable murder victim. Others in the cast include Frank McHugh, Walter Kingsford, Dan Tobin, Nydia Westman, Bill Erwin and Martha Hyer, among others. The director of the film, Jack Gage, handled the entire project very well; his blocking and photographing of interior scenes makes the action flowq dramatically, and never seemed "staged". Then there are other technical contributions and subordinate creations: Travis Banton's gowns; cinematography by Joseph Walker, set decorations by Darrell Silvera and Maurice Yates and music by Leigh Harline. Miss Russell produced this film for herself with her husband, and she comes close to making it work perfectly in my view. The part, in my judgment as a writer, cannot be "played"; it requires charisma, highly-trained Shakespearean ability in comedy and the equal ability to perform drama; perhaps one actor in a hundred could even approach such a combination. The mood of the piece is somber, the lighting subdued, the B/W photography dense and well-lighted at the same time. This is a very interesting and moving work throughout; we know Valerie did not mean to kill the tyrannical business partner who wanted do dominate her; but her desire to prove that she had been right about playing this dramatic part she had chosen becomes the viewer's importance as well. She is willing to confess to save an innocent accusee; but the play's the thing in "The Velvet Touch". And that she succeeds vindicates her judgment doubly--that the man trying to ruin her life had been wrong and that his brutal manners and lack of ethics were not desperation to save her at all but something far more sinister. A stirring ending caps off a memorable motion picture as Valeris and the Captain of detectives walk from the theater like royalty, not like those involved in a murder.