Whirlpool

Whirlpool – Otto Preminger’s 1949 film reminds us that Hollywood’s A-list at the height of the golden age of studios often produced beautiful-looking, carefully crafted complete nonsense. In this picture, Gene Tierney, mostly inert and somnambulant, plays the wife of a famous LA psychoanalyst (Richard Conte, grievously miscast). Tierney’s desperate housewife shoplifts a pin from a Beverly Hills apartment store, gets nabbed, but is saved from disgrace by a shady lay-analyst qua hypnotist/astrologer (Jose Ferrer). Ferrer tries to seduce the doctor’s wife, fails, and, then, settles for using her as a cat’s paw in a byzantine scheme to murder a woman that he has previously swindled. It suffices to say that the plot involves lots of hypnosis; generally, a narrative is in a good deal of trouble when it must rely on hypnosis for its principal effects. The movie is daringly elliptical – some key plot points are elided and the viewer, frequently, can’t tell exactly what is happening. Cues as to time are omitted, also yielding a mildly disorienting effect – the movie creates a noirish mood of accelerating haste and inevitable doom that would be compelling if the plot were less absurd. There are some impressive set pieces including one expressionist, almost avant-garde episode in which the villain hypnotizes himself. The problem with a movie of this sort is that the more intricate the plot, the more the viewer pays attention to narrative and narrative plausibility, which yields the outcome that the spectator becomes even more conscious of the artificiality and contrivance necessary to keep all balls in the air. It’s a paradox that the more densely you plot, the more plot matters, and, therefore, the less forgiving an audience will likely be as to narrative missteps. Ultimately, this film “reads” most successfully as an account of a sibling rivalry between three pseudo-sciences: astrology/hypnotism versus psycho-analysis versus detective/police work. All three disciplines aim to uncover secrets that have been concealed or repressed. Ferrer’s bizarre behavior in the final reel is most explicable as his attempt to establish his bona fides as an analyst – the conflict is ultimately between three men over the fate of a sleepwalking woman who may not be worth the contest. The lust and hatred in which the film luxuriates has nothing to do with Gene Tierney – it is all about professional rivalry.