Hangover Square (film)

Hangover Square

Theatrical release poster
Directed by John Brahm
Produced by Robert Bassler
Screenplay by Barré Lyndon
Based on Hangover Square
1941 novel
by Patrick Hamilton
Starring Laird Cregar
Linda Darnell
Music by Bernard Herrmann
Cinematography Joseph LaShelle
Edited by Harry Reynolds
Distributed by 20th Century Fox
Release dates
  • February 7, 1945 (1945-02-07) (United States)
Running time
 77 minutes
Country United States
Language English
Box office $850,000[1]

Hangover Square is a 1945 film noir directed by John Brahm, based on the novel Hangover Square (1941) by Patrick Hamilton. The screenplay was written by Barré Lyndon who made a number of changes to the novel, including the transformation of George Harvey Bone into a classical composer-pianist and filming the story as an early 20th-century period piece.[2]

The movie was released in New York City on February 7, 1945, two months after its star, Laird Cregar, suffered a fatal heart attack.

Plot

In Victorian London (the date 1899 is shown in the opening scene), the police suspect that a composer who suffers from periods of amnesia may be a murderer.

The period setting creates a dark mood, especially in the key scene when Bone (portrayed by Laird Cregar), having strangled Netta (Linda Darnell) on Guy Fawkes Night, carries her wrapped body through streets filled with revelers and deposits it on top of the biggest bonfire.

The final scene shows Cregar as Bone, playing his piano concerto (composed by Bernard Herrmann), unmindful of the conflagration around him, as flames consume everything.

Cast

Production

Laird Cregar, a fan of the original novel, encouraged 20th Century Fox to buy the film rights. Fox relented, but wanted to recreate the success they had enjoyed with The Lodger the previous year and made several changes to the story, including the main character's personality and the setting. Cregar, George Sanders and John Brahm, who had all worked together in The Lodger, were announced as working on the film.

Cregar, who had ambitions of being a leading man and was worried that he would always be cast as a villain, refused the role and was put on suspension. Glenn Langan was announced as his replacement.[3] However, Cregar realized he could use his romantic scenes with Linda Darnell and Faye Marlowe to his advantage in order to change his public image into a more romantic one. He thus accepted the role, but began a radical crash diet to give his character more physical appeal.

The film had to be shot entirely in sequence so as to be consistent with Cregar's real life weight loss.[4] This frustrated director John Brahm, who frequently clashed with Cregar over how the film should be handled. Cregar, a real-life musician, was eager to perform the musical pieces on his own; however, Brahm insisted that Cregar mime. Cregar used amphetamines to aid his rapid weight loss which led to erratic behavior on his part. Brahm lost patience with Cregar and forced the entire cast and crew to sign a document stating they were on Brahm's side and not Cregar's in order to humiliate him into submission. When the filming had ended, Cregar told Brahm: "Well, I think we've worked together long enough to know we never want to work together again."

George Sanders also brought complications. Having been put on suspension the previous year for refusing to perform in The Undying Monster, George accepted the role of Dr. Allan Middleton. However, he was unhappy with his script, particularly the final line in the film, which required him to justify the death of George Harvey Bone by saying, "He's better off this way." When shooting the scene, which was very expensive to film, George repeatedly refused to say the line. He later got into an altercation with the film's producer, Robert Bassler, which ended in George punching Bassler. The line was later changed to, "It's better this way."[5]

American composer Stephen Sondheim has cited Herrmann's score for Hangover Square as a major influence on his musical Sweeney Todd.[6]

Reception

The film received mixed reviews. The staff at Variety magazine liked the film and wrote, "Hangover Square is eerie murder melodrama of the London gaslight era—typical of Patrick Hamilton yarns, of which this is another. And it doesn't make any pretense at mystery. The madman-murderer is known from the first reel...Production is grade A, and so is the direction by John Brahm, with particular bows to the music score by Bernard Herrmann."[7] The New York Times claimed, "There is not a first-class shiver in the whole picture."[8]

CD release of Herrmann's music

In 2010, the British label Chandos released a CD that includes a 17-minute concert suite from Hangover Square, assembled by Stephen Hogger. The film's musical tour-de-force is a sonata movement for piano and orchestra in the Lisztian style (where the scherzo and adagio movements, which are typical as succeeding movements in a concerto, are compressed and presented in place of a central development). Slightly revised by the composer in 1973 for Charles Gerhardt's RCA film music series and retitled Concerto Macabre, it has been recorded by RCA, Naïve, Koch and Naxos, in addition to the recording paired with Hogger's suite. Save for that released by RCA, all of the recordings of the Concerto relied on the version edited and engraved in 1992 by Christopher Husted, editor of the Bernard Herrmann Edition. The disc also includes Stephen Hogger's extended suite based on Herrmann's incidental music for Citizen Kane (1941).

References

  1. ↑ Aubrey Solomon, Twentieth Century-Fox: A Corporate and Financial History Rowman & Littlefield, 2002 p 220
  2. ↑ Hangover Square at the Internet Movie Database.
  3. ↑ Alexis Smith Gets Role of Nora in 'Human Bondage' -- Two New Films to Arrive Today Special to THE NEW YORK TIMES.. New York Times (1923-Current file) [New York, N.Y] 12 Aug 1944: 16.
  4. ↑ "Expert Laird Tells How to Lose Weight". Pittsburgh, PA: The Pittsburgh Press. December 3, 1944. Retrieved May 16, 2015.
  5. ↑ Robinson, Judy (May 5, 2012). "George's 'bad boy' antics behind the scene". Retrieved May 16, 2015.
  6. ↑ National Theatre: Platform Papers: Stephen Sondheim. June 1993. Last accessed: July 16, 2008.
  7. ↑ Variety. Staff film review, February 7, 1945. Accessed: August 6, 2013.
  8. ↑ Mank, Gregory William (1994). Hollywood Cauldron: Thirteen Horror Films from the Genre's Golden Age, p. 347. McFarland & Company, Inc.

Streaming audio

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