High Wall

1947 film by Curtis Bernhardt

High Wall

Theatrical release poster

Directed by| Curtis Bernhardt
Screenplay by| Sydney Boehm
Lester Cole
Story by| Alan R. Clark
Bradbury Foote
Based on| High Wall
1936 novel
by Alan R. Clark
Bradbury Foote (play)
Produced by| Robert Lord
Starring| Robert Taylor
Audrey Totter
Herbert Marshall
Cinematography| Paul C. Vogel
Edited by| Conrad A. Nervig
Music by| Bronislau Kaper

Production
company

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Distributed by| Loew's Inc.

Release date

* December 17, 1947 (1947-12-17) (United States)

Running time

| 100 minutes
Country| United States
Language| English
Budget| $1,844,000[1]
Box office| $2,618,000[1]

High Wall is a 1947 American film noir starring Robert Taylor, Audrey Totter and Herbert Marshall. It was directed by Curtis Bernhardt from a screenplay by Sydney Boehm and Lester Cole, based on a play by Alan R. Clark and Bradbury Foote.[2]

## Plot

[edit]

Former WWII bomber pilot and recent ex-mercenary flyer Steven Kenet crashes his car into a river, trying to cover the evident strangulation murder of his wife with a suicide. He survives but is sent to the county psychiatric hospital for evaluation to determine if he is sane enough to be charged with murder. He has no memory of what happened, due to a pre-existing wartime brain injury having been reaggravated by a crash in Burma.

Dr. Ann Lorrison takes an interest in his case, and in him. Surgery could relieve Kenet's brain injury, but he refuses to consent to it, stalling for time till he can find a way to clear himself and be able to take care of his six year-old son. In spite of pressure from the district attorney's office on hospital administrators to force a surgery on him, they refuse. However, when Lorrison informs him that his mother has died, ostensibly dooming his son to a county orphanage, Kenet changes his mind.

Henry Cronner, janitor of the apartment building where Kennet's wife's boss, Willard Whitcombe lives, attempts to blackmail him over his potential role in her death. After being rebuffed, Cronner goes to see Kenet, hinting he can save him but withholding details until Kenet can pay. Before Kenet can, Whitcombe sends Cronner plummeting to his death down the building's elevator shaft.

Kenet undergoes "narcosynthesis"—a light dose of sodium pentothal—to help him remember what happened. He recalls blacking out just as his hands were around his wife's neck and later regaining consciousness to find her dead body. Kenet hides in Lorrison's car to escape from the hospital, then breaks into Whitcombe's apartment and recreates a scene resembling that revealed under the drug. He returns to the hospital, unnoticed and unbetrayed by Dr. Lorrison, waiting patiently for Whitcombe to contact him.

Whitcombe shows, but cunningly provokes Kenet into a murderous rage by confessing his two killings. In desperation, Kenet steals Lorrison's car and breaks out of the hospital. He eludes a sweeping manhunt for a "homicidal maniac" on the loose, and manages to get to Whitcombe's apartment, accompanied by Lorrison, who refuses to leave him. In a brutal fistfight he dazes Whitcombe. Seizing the opportunity, Lorrison administers sodium pentothal to him. Whitcombe recounts how he had tried to end his affair with the greedy Helen Kenet after finding her husband unconscious in his apartment, but she threatened to cause a scandal and ruin any chance of him becoming a partner in his firm. So he murdered her.

His complete confession is given in front of a waiting clutch of policemen, and the D.A., who tells Kenet he is free to go. Even if everything Whitcombe said under the truth serum will be inadmissible in court, he's confident of getting it all the old fashioned way. Kenet and Lorrison go to her home, where she has had custody of his son the entire time. Kenet is reunited with the boy, and the couple are finally able to pursue their romantic attraction.

## Cast

[edit]

* Robert Taylor as Steven Kenet
* Audrey Totter as Dr. Ann Lorrison
* Herbert Marshall as Willard I. Whitcombe
* Dorothy Patrick as Helen Kenet
* H. B. Warner as Mr. Slocum
* Warner Anderson as Dr. George Poward
* Moroni Olsen as Dr. Philip Dunlap
* John Ridgely as Asst. District Attorney David Wallace
* Morris Ankrum as Dr. Stanley Griffin
* Elisabeth Risdon as Mrs. Kenet, Steven's mother
* Vince Barnett as Henry Cronner
* Jonathan Hale as Emory Garrison
* Charles Arnt as Sidney X. Hackle, Steven's court-appointed lawyer
* Lisa Golm as Dr. Golm

## Reception

[edit]

The film had a budget of $1,844,000,[1] and earned $1,553,000 in the US and Canada and $1,065,000 elsewhere, resulting either in a profit of $744,000[1] or a loss of $101,000,[3] depending on the period sources consulted.

### Critical response

[edit]

A contemporary review in The New York Times said: "As straight movie melodrama, employing modern psychotherapy, High Wall is a likely lot of terrors, morbid and socially cynical. Just the thing for your holiday entertainment—unless, of course, you are sane."[4]

In 1984 writer Spencer Selby called High Wall "stylish, representative of late forties noir thrillers."[5]

In 2006 film critic Dennis Schwartz called it "a tepid and chatty psychological melodrama that is embellished with black-and-white film noir visuals by the adept camerawork of Nicolas Vogel," but thought the main cast "adequate but too bland to convince us that their romance was possible. Robert Taylor's personal despair was more like angst in a soap opera than film noir. The film's biggest faults were that it was never convincing as a mystery story, that the romance story was more Hollywood fantasy than real, that the truth serum is so casually accepted as the answer to establishing the truth and that brain surgery can so easily cure Taylor of his mental disorder."[6]

Has been shown on the Turner Classic Movies show 'Noir Alley' with Eddie Muller.

## References

[edit]

1. ^ a b c d The Eddie Mannix Ledger, Los Angeles: Margaret Herrick Library, Center for Motion Picture Study.
2. ^ High Wall at the TCM Movie Database.
3. ^ "Top Grossers of 1948", Variety 5 January 1949 p 46
4. ^ The New York Times. Film review, December 26, 1947. Accessed: July 17, 2013.
5. ^ Spencer Selby (1984). Dark City: The Film Noir. McFarland Classic. ISBN 0-7864-0478-7.
6. ^ Schwartz, Dennis Archived 2015-07-05 at the Wayback Machine. Ozus' World Movie Reviews, film review, September 23, 2004. Accessed: July 17, 2013.

## External links

[edit]

* High Wall at the AFI Catalog of Feature Films
* High Wall at IMDb
* High Wall at AllMovie
* High Wall at the TCM Movie Database
* High Wall film trailer on YouTube

* v
* t
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Films directed by Curtis Bernhardt

* Nameless Heroes (1925)
* Orphan of Lowood (1926)
* Torments of the Night (1926)
* Children's Souls Accuse You (1927)
* The Girl with the Five Zeros (1927)
* The Prince of Rogues (1928)
* The Last Fort (1929)
* The Woman One Longs For (1929)
* The Last Company (1930)
* The Man Who Murdered (1931)
* The Rebel (1932)
* The Tunnel (1933, German)
* The Tunnel (1933, French)
* Gold in the Street (1934)
* The Beloved Vagabond (1936)
* Crossroads (1938)
* Night in December (1940)
* My Love Came Back (1940)
* Lady with Red Hair (1940)
* Million Dollar Baby (1941)
* Juke Girl (1942)
* Happy Go Lucky (1943)
* Conflict (1945)
* My Reputation (1946)
* Devotion (1946)
* A Stolen Life (1946)
* Possessed (1947)
* High Wall (1947)
* The Doctor and the Girl (1949)
* Payment on Demand (1951)
* Sirocco (1951)
* The Blue Veil (1951)
* The Merry Widow (1952)
* Miss Sadie Thompson (1953)
* Beau Brummell (1954)
* Interrupted Melody (1955)
* Gaby (1956)
* Stefanie in Rio (1960)
* Damon and Pythias (1962)
* Kisses for My President (1964)

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