Shadow on the Wall (1950)

On a Scale of 1 to 10, with 10 Being the Best

8

Plot: A father gets remarried and finds out that his new wife has been cheating on him. He has a gun in his hand and charges at her, only to be knocked-out cold. The wife's sister comes to confront her about the cheating, grabs the gun off the floor, and kills her. She let's her brother-in-law take the blame but finds out his little girl saw the entire thing but has blocked it from her memory. A child psychiatrist tries to find out the truth, meanwhile the murderer tries to rid of the young witness.

Characters/Actors of Note:

Gigi Perreau playing Susan Starrling: Ms. Perreau is the little girl in the film and does a mark-up job. I find that young actors have issues with defining their characters, often just playing themselves, but this person was great. Susie starts off bubbly, happy, and excited then turns into a somber and non-energetic little girl. Her catchphrase when she is happy is "I love you twice as much!" While her somber catchphrase is, "If you want me to..." The way she is able to define her happy and sad self are evident and great to watch. Either this girl takes direction well or is spot-on awesome. 

Ann Sothern as Dell Faring: Apparently Ms. Sothern is a predominately comedic actress, which I would have never guessed. Dell is a complex character as the murderer. She is caring towards the family but also does not want to go to jail...or worse the electric chair.  It was unnerving to see how close she could get with the daughter and to know what she wanted to do. I appreciated how Ms. Sothern decided not to be overly hysterical, which often happens in these 1950s movies, but showed us that fear is what motivated her to take the actions that she did. I felt that this character was well-thought out by Ms. Sothern and carefully assessed. Nicely done.

Nancy (Davis) Reagan playing Dr. Caroline Canford: Ms. Reagan (Yes, as in First Lady Reagan) plays the psychiatrist of the film. Her demeanor reminds me of the psychiatrist in Sybil, as she was calm, calculating, and determined. She was also very caring, which is shown with how well she took to being called "Aunt Caroline" by Susie. Doctor Caroline was wonderfully kind and I think the watchers of this film will be cheering her on. 

PS I appreciated how well they portrayed the way they treated mental illnesses during this time, I felt it was quite accurate. 

Zachary Scott playing David I. Starrling: I loved this character, which means a lot coming from a character that did not speak much in the movie. I was surprised to learn that Mr. Scott usually plays villains! He was such a loving father in this movie that I would not have thought of it. He portrays his caring-self well but his hopeless-self...not so much. I felt that he could have been more depressed, as he was on death row and losing his daughter. I also have issue with one another thing. He was very angry at his wife, had a gun in his hand, and was coming at her...I wonder if he would have killed her. I suppose we will never know. Watch the film yourself and get back to me on this!

Music: The sound of the film has the typical 50s celluloid sound. Lots of violins and flutes that sound similar to bells when they were happy, and the brass section was used for the more frightening parts. It was not overused though but I won't be downloading the music anytime soon.

Camera Work/Cinematography: The movie is in black and white. The use of lights and shadows have to be used. I found that in the movie, they highlighted their faces, while the rest of their bodies were dark. Of course the movie is called Shadow on the Wall so perhaps that was appropriate. I do feel more textures and levels of gray could have been used. In the film they spoke of wearing brown and yellow, but come on...we can't see it so who knows if they actually did wear those colors. Camera work was usually the same focus. Not many close-ups or zoom shots were used. The excellent filming they did was when Susie tries to remember the crime and how they associated dolls with the real people. The representation was wonderful but overall, cinematography was sub-par.

RECAP:

The music was used well but not all that catchy. The film could have been filmed more dramatically or at least have better use of textures, shades, and camera work. Representations were excellently shown though. The acting was superb and the movie was fun to watch. The plot and subplots all melting together makes a great script, and I recommend it to those that love mystery movies. 

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