Experiment Perilous (1944)

A chance encounter on a train between Dr Bailey (George Brent) and Cissie (Olive Blakeney) brings the doctor into the world of Nick (Paul Lukas) and Allida (Hedy Lamarr). When Cissie dies, Dr Bailey is suspicious and he he starts to look through Cissie's travel case which has been sent on to him by mistake from their train journey together.The story keeps you watching and the cast are good, although Hedy Lamarr comes across as slightly too feeble on occasion. There is no complicated plot twist and it is pretty obvious who the evil one is. The psychological torture that is portrayed is extremely lame ("Gaslight" is far better at achieving the required effect) and may have you wondering what the point of the film is. There seems to be nothing suspicious to be investigating. It's an OK story about love that doesn't work out and the moral is don't marry someone who is way older than you......unless you like daisies....

Hedy Lamarr is a beautiful but troubled woman in "Experiment Perilous," also starring George Brent and Paul Lukas. This film has been compared to "Gaslight" as well as other works by Tourneur, including "Cat People." It certainly has elements of both.Brent is a doctor who meets a lovely woman on a train. She says some strange things to him about the home of her brother, where she is going to stay. Shortly afterward, she dies suddenly. When he later meets her brother and his wife, he falls for the wife at first sight. And what man wouldn't - she's Hedy Lamarr. The doctor is soon drawn into a confused and mysterious situation at the house as the husband, Paul Lukas, confesses concerns about his wife.This is a well done, compelling movie where nothing happens until the end, but there is plenty under the surface to keep the viewer interested and guessing. Underlying suspense and tension pervades throughout as Brent becomes more and more suspicious of activities going on at the house, especially when Lamarr asks for his help.The casting is a little bizarre. George Brent exhibits no emotion throughout and is quite wooden. Lamarr is supposed to be a former farm girl and evidently from the U.S., so one questions the accent. She has no expression in her voice or face throughout, which may have been the decision of the director. Lukas is excellent, an affability and charm belying what's underneath. He is a member of a wealthy New York family, yet he has an accent and his sister didn't. So one wonders what dictated this strange casting and why at least the story wasn't changed to accommodate the actors chosen.There's been some discussion as to whether Lamarr could have done "Gaslight" rather than Bergman. Hedy Lamarr with good direction was a decent actress, but not in my opinion a strong enough one for the role in "Gaslight." She was one of the most beautiful women in film and could be absolutely delightful in the right circumstances. Her contribution to film history is more than satisfactory.

That HEDY LAMARR was one of the great beauties of the screen goes without saying. But whether she had the acting abilities to play a woman being driven slowly out of her mind by a calculating doctor husband (PAUL LUKAS) still remains questionable. There is no evidence in EXPERIMENT PERILOUS to suggest that she would have been up to the demands of the Ingrid Bergman role in GASLIGHT, which she turned down.Instead, she chose to star in this murky melodrama full of flashbacks and with an obscurely motivated script by Warren Duff. While it's by no means a complete failure, neither is it a resounding success.GEORGE BRENT as the friend who comes to Lamarr's aid is as stiff and wooden as ever, using just one expression throughout and obviously not too well connected to his role. Whether this was the director's fault or not, I can't say, but a more persuasive performance on his part would have made the whole thing more effective. PAUL LUKAS gives his usual professional performance as the doctor with an unhealthy perspective on how to deal with his wife and child.Jacques Tourner's direction leaves a lot to be desired. This is a story in the same mold as GASLIGHT, but nowhere as effective with a murky script and a dull payoff for the climax. As for Hedy Lamarr, she was much more at ease in other films, even though this is said to be one of her own favorite films.

On a train bound for New York in 1903, George Brent befriends an old spinster returning home after years in a sanitarium. She tells him the story of her well-known family. Upon arrival, Brent finds one of his bags missing and one of hers in its place, containing her detailed diary. Soon after, he learns the woman has died suddenly and finds himself drawn into her family's unhappy saga. Her brother, Paul Lukas, married a girl (Hedy Lamarr) years his junior; he engages Brent, a physician, to document her loosening grip on reality. But upon investigation, Brent learns that the mental instability nestles elsewhere in the family – and he falls in love with Lamarr himself, despite the fact that he feels himself slipping into a treacherous plot.Released in 1944, the same year as George Cukor's Gaslight, Experiment Perilous too sets a psychological melodrama in a period setting. And it too benefits from elegant direction: Jacques Tourneur's. Of the handful of directors whose artistry helped produce the noir cycle's most canonical movies, Tourneur remains the most elusive. He seemed to favor no theme or particular style from work to work, rethinking each one from scratch and then crafting it with insight and taste. The Cat People, Out of the Past, Berlin Express, Nightfall – these titles have little in common but quality (and perhaps a fondness for the flashback as a narrative tool).The flashbacks in Experiment Perilous add to the movie's sense of unease and peril (perhaps excessively: the narrative grows murky and the characters don't sort themselves out too clearly). But what Tourneur sacrifices in clarity he makes up for in tension and mood; period dramas tend to have their longueurs but he keeps the story curiously compelling.He's abetted in his aims by Roy Webb, who supplies a rich and responsive score. (Webb composed the music for many films in the noir cycle – including several with Tourneur – and remains one of its unsung heroes.) Experiment Perilous, a neglected film, is important Tourneur and important early noir, arriving at a time when the cycle was starting to codify its allusive tone and fragmented narrative patterns. And, except for the fact that Brent and Lamarr are not Charles Boyer and Ingrid Bergman, it's as good as Gaslight – in some ways even better, as the root of the psychological malaise turns out to be somewhat darker than old jewels sewn to a gown.