Undercurrent (1946)

This unusual old film has a great cast and an aura of mystery that is sustained almost to the end.This is a trip into "Rebecca" territory. Ann Hamilton (Katherine Hepburn) recently married to the seemingly perfect Alan Garroway (Robert Taylor) begins to feel uneasy about her husband's near obsessive hatred for his brother, Michael, who has disappeared some time before, but whose memory hangs over them until dark secrets are revealed.For a woman who most people described as the most confident and assured person they had ever met, Katherine Hepburn plays Ann as a sensitive and rather socially awkward woman. All the mannerisms and patterns of speech that made her so distinctive are on show here, but her character is disarmingly vulnerable.In Charles Tranberg's well researched, but casually edited, "Robert Taylor: A Biography", the author reveals the tensions on the set between the strong-willed actress and the two male leads, Robert Taylor and Robert Mitchum, as well as with Vincent Minnelli, the director.Hepburn thought Robert Taylor a lightweight, but later reversed her opinion calling him an underrated actor. As they only made this one movie together, she must have drawn on memories of "Undercurrent" to make such a comment. However she had no time for Robert Mitchum whom she bawled out after overhearing him imitate her accent.The film has a rich look even though nearly everything, including the exteriors, was shot on the sound stage.Herbert Stothart's score incorporates a great deal of Brahms Symphony No. 3, which plays a part in the story. Stothart's scores, unlike the original scores by contemporaries such as Korngold, Steiner and Herrmann, were often pastiches with many borrowings from the classical repertoire, but he created the lush MGM sound as much as anyone did. Although it adds to the sumptuous feel of this B/W film, if anyone's music conformed to the notion that movie music stole from the classics it was his."Undercurrent" was successful at the time, but I only caught up with it recently when Bill Collins presented it on Fox Classics, 70 years after it was made. It was a pleasant surprise. It was one I had missed during the period when hundreds of the movies from the Golden and Silver age of Hollywood were shown on Australian television.Fortunately, Turner Classics and Fox Classics have saved movies like this from disappearing from the small screen altogether.

... after Bringing Up Baby, The Philadelphia Story, to name only two, was this piece of cheese which does no one any favors. Strangely for Minnelli the construction is all over the place, for example, after establishing the close relationship between father-daughter Edmund Gwenn and Kathering Hepburn (reprising their relationship from Sylvia Scarlett) Gwenn virtually disappears leaving Hepburn isolated which is fine in terms of the plot but unrealistic in real life. Similarly Robert Taylor is introduced as a hard-headed successful businessman, hardly the kind of person to fall for an insecure wallflower. The only one required to do any real acting is Robert Mitchum, cast against type as a thoroughly decent man who values poetry and composition - the kind of part Leslie Howerd played in The Petrified Forest. Mitchum brings it off to a fare-thee-well but that's about the best you can give it.

"Undercurrent" (1946 - Drama / thriller) starring Katharine Hepburn, Robert Taylor, and Robert Mitchum. Also the first screen appearance by Jayne Meadows (a far cry from her role in the Honeymooners - she was lovely, had a nice speaking voice - not whiny at all, and was a good actress!)Directed by Vincente Minnelli, doing a noir-ish turn, capably. In addition to the suspense, there are some charming "family" moments, particularly between Hepburn and her father in the early scenes.Minnelli stumbled by casting Margery Main in this, but to the great relief of all concerned (including, from the looks of things, the other actors in the film) her role is limited to 6 or 8 lines. Her character is the only one that rings utterly false and forced. An unsuccessful attempt at injecting levity/"cute" into an otherwise straightforward suspense film.Robert Mitchum appears to be 16 years old in this; baby-faced and sober (unlike his later performances).Hepburn is great - none of the twitchy-mannerisms that sometimes plagued her characterizations. Believable in a different role from her usual tough-gal type.Robert Taylor! Who knew he was a really good actor? I thought he just did westerns.Worth renting.

The casting (and direction) in Undercurrent is more insipid than inspired in this noir clunker that fails from the outset to get off the ground. Robert Taylor's wooden style poses a roadblock almost immediately for the highly affected Kate Hepburn and it's bad chemistry from the outset.Naive and innocent Ann Hamilton (Hepburn) falls for handsome airplane manufacturer Alan Garroway (Taylor) and rushes to the altar with him. She soon finds out there is a lot she does not know about him. As Alan becomes more remote she delves further into the murky past and Ann soon finds herself living a nightmare instead of the American dream.Undercurrent resembles a few Hitchcock plots but Vincent Minnelli rapidly establishes he is no master of suspense. Hepburn is no shrinking violet and she is a hard sell for a character more suited to the reticent styles of Teresa Wright or Joan Fontaine. Minnelli never really succeeds in getting Kate to defer in desperate fashion to Taylor's limited abilities as an actor. Her attempts come across as silent Gish while Taylor's wide descent into madness takes on restrained Bela Lugosi. Robert Mitchum completes the miscasting as the sensitive brother. Talk about piling on.Cinematographer Karl Freund provides some highly stylized noir interiors but Minnelli and cast utilize the atmospherics meekly and the tension remains tepid. With Minnelli far from his forte (musicals) and Hepburn's victim role fitting her like a bad suit Undercurrent drowns all involved.