Sleep my love

A rich and well-born young New York lady Alison Cortland ( Claudette Colbert ) wakes up in a hysterical state in a train compartment, not understanding how she got into it. Arriving in Boston , Alison calls home to her husband, architect Richard Cortland ( Don Amici ), who has already turned to the police with a statement about her disappearance, informing Sergeant Strake ( Raymond Burr ) that his wife is not the first time inexplicably disappears from the house. With the help of the police, the very first flight Alison flies to New York. At the airport, she meets a friend of her friend, traveler Bruce Alcott ( Robert Cummings ), who flies the same flight. After Richard tells his wife at home that she shot him with a pistol last night, Alison agrees to be examined by a reputable psychiatrist, Dr. Reinhart. Under the guise of Rhinehart, photographer Charles Verney ( George Koulouris ) comes to the house, an extravagant appearance, unusual thick glasses and the threatening behavior that scare Alison, and soon after his sudden disappearance she faints. At this point, Bruce appears, followed by Richard with the real Dr. Reinhart, who wonder if the first “Dr. Reinhart” was not just a figment of Alison's imagination.

Some time later, when, referring to affairs, Richard refuses to go along with Alison to a secular evening, she invites Bruce. However, instead of a secular party, Bruce persuades her to go to the wedding of his "brother" Jimmy ( Kay Luke ), who turns out to be Chinese . Bruce explains that he spent a long time in China, and the Jimmy family began to consider him a member. Meanwhile, Richard comes on a secret date with his mistress Daphne ( Hazel Brooks ), giving her an emerald bracelet. From their conversation, it becomes clear that Richard and Daphne, with the help of Verney, count on eliminating Alison in some way or another, after which they are going to get married and live on her rich inheritance. After returning home from the wedding, Alison sees in the living room the false Dr. Reinhart, who, however, manages to escape before Bruce and Richard rush into her room to call. At bedtime, Richard adds something to the hot chocolate that Alison regularly drinks at bedtime. When Alison falls asleep, Richard in a whisper gives her instructions, obeying which, Allison in a lunatic state comes out of the bedroom, gets up on the balcony railing and is going to jump down. Sensing something intuitively, Bruce returns to the house of the Cortland and at the last moment manages to prevent Alison from falling from the balcony.

The next day, Alison, after hearing Bruce's story of what happened last night, as well as his suspicions about Richard, promises not to drink chocolate anymore before going to bed. The same evening, in the office of Richard, Bruce finds a receipt for the purchase of an emerald bracelet. At the next meeting, Bruce tells Cortland that tomorrow he is leaving for another trip, which will last a year. However, in fact, he begins to secretly monitor Richard, who comes to Verney's photo studio to meet with Daphne. Daphne insists that as soon as possible to resolve the issue with Alison and, in addition, to find a way to get rid of Verney, which will interfere with their future lives. After that, Richard invites the photographer to his home, ostensibly in order to once again play for Alison a play with a psychiatrist. After the departure of Richard, Bruce appears in the studio as a client, paying attention to the emerald bracelet on Daphne's hand. Then he notices Vernei's unusual glasses with thick glasses and a book on hypnosis, after which he realizes that the photographer was the person who pretended to be Dr. Reinhart. Bruce picks up Verney's glasses and passes them along with a bill for the emerald bracelet to the waiting Jimmy Street, who immediately takes the evidence to Sergeant Strake. Bruce himself goes to the Cortland home to protect Alison from Richard. However, the suspected something Vernea catches up with Bruce on the street and hits him on the head with a pistol grip, with the result that Bruce falls and loses consciousness.

Returning home, Richard, under the pretext that he wants to celebrate the conclusion of a bargain, offers Alison to drink wine, quietly adding some substance to her glass. When Verney arrives, Richard picks up the stupefied Alison from the bed and whispers to her that she must kill the psychiatrist, otherwise the psychiatrist will kill her. Alison goes down the stairs, and when she sees the outlines of Vernea through a translucent glass door, she points a gun at him, but cannot shoot. Then Richard presses her finger on the trigger. After the shot Verneu falls, breaking the door glass. Richard immediately picks up the phone and calls the police. However, at this moment Vernei, who was only slightly injured, gets up and points his gun at Richard. When after a moment, Alison comes to his senses, Verney declares that Richard planned to kill him with his wife’s hands. Then she would be executed or placed in a prison psychiatric hospital, and Richard and Daphne would begin to manage her condition together. However, Verney himself has other plans. He shoots and kills Richard, intending to substitute Alison in this murder, and then shoot her, presenting her death as suicide. However, at this moment Bruce rushes into the room, entering into a shootout with Verney. Trying to escape from him on the glass roof, Verneu falls down and breaks. When everything calms down, Bruce consoles Alison with the words that "soon we will leave this house forever."

The film is based on a novel with the continuation of Leonard Q. Ross (pseudonym of Leo Rosten ) "Sleep, my love," which was first published in Collier's magazine from July 27 to August 24, 1946 ^[2] . By this time, Rosten was already a famous Hollywood story writer and screenwriter who worked on films such as the war thriller “The Conspirators ” (1944), as well as the films Noir “The Dark Corner ” (1946) and “The Tempted ” (1947). Other famous films of Rosten were “ Velvet Touch ” (1947) and “ Where the Danger Lives ” (1950), the crime comedy “ Throughout Life ” (1941) and the military comedy “ Captain Newman, MD ” (1963) ^[3] .

In this film, for the first time in 12 years, the name Mary Pickford appeared in the credits, but this time not as an actress, but as a producer. Pickford, along with her then husband Charles "Buddy" Rogers and Ralph Kohn, created the independent production company Triangle Productions, which produced this film, which remained the only one for her, as the company soon ceased to exist ^[2] .

The director of the film Douglas Sirk began his career in the 1930s in Germany. In 1941, he moved to the United States, where in the 1950s he became famous for a series of extraordinary, painted in the colors of Technicolor , melodramas, such as “ Magnificent Obsession ” (1954), “ Everything that is permitted by heaven ” (1955), “ There is always tomorrow ”(1955),“ Stained Angels ”(1955) and“ Imitation of Life ”(1959). Before these films, Cirk managed to work in the criminal genre, putting films Noir " Seduced " (1947) and " Shock Resistant " (1949), as well as the crime drama " Thunder on the Hill " (1952) with Claudette Colbert ^[4] .

In 1935, Claudette Colbert was awarded an Oscar for the title role in the romantic comedy “ It Happened One Night ” (1934), she was also nominated for an Oscar for playing in the medical drama “ Private Worlds ” (1935) and the wartime melodrama “ Since you are gone ”(1944) ^[5] . In addition to these films, the greatest success of Colbert brought the role in romantic comedies, such as " Smiling Lieutenant " (1931), " Midnight. You can’t tell my heart ”(1939) from Amici and“ Adventures in Palm Beach ”(1942), as well as wartime melodramas“ Through sorrow, longing and loss ”(1943),“ Eternal tomorrow ”(1946) and“ Three came home (1950) ^[6] .

Robert Cummings played in two thrillers of Alfred Hitchcock - "The Saboteur " (1942) and " In the event of a murder, type" M " " (1954), in the Fritz Lang film " You and Me " (1938), the drama of Sam Wood " Kings Row " ( 1942), Anthony Mann 's historical drama “ Terror and Revolution ” (1949), as well as in the films Noir “The Chase ” (1946), “The Lost Moment ” (1947) and “ The Accused ” (1949) ^[7] . Don Amici is known for his roles in romantic comedies and musicals, such as “ In Old Chicago ” (1937), “ Love is News ” (1937), “ Ragtime Band Alexandra ” (1938), “ Love over Miami ” (1941) and " Heaven can wait " (1943), as well as in the biopic " The Story of Alexander Graham Bell " (1939) ^[8] . In 1986, Amici was awarded an Oscar for a supporting role in the fantasy film “ Cocoon ” (1985) ^[9] .

Overall film score

After the release of the film screens received restrained positive criticism. In particular, in the review of the New York Times , he was called “another addition to the extremely long list of psychological melodramas” of that period. It was noted that this is “an elegant film that manages to sustain its line.” The newspaper took the smart script, which is easy to work with, to the weak points - a common drawback of the suspense, a too beaten plot and a bit uneven staging, which makes the film a “rather banal chapter in film psychology”. In general, the newspaper summarizes, “this is a competent work, which has its own exciting moments, but at the same time it is pretty standard” ^[10] . For its part, the magazine " Variety " believes that the film manages to provide a sufficient measure of tension and become a good melodrama with a strong start and an exciting ending. The magazine also highlighted the skillful staging of Serk , who successfully copes with the not always perfect script ^[11] .

Modern critics have paid attention to the noir character of this melodrama. So, film scholar Carl Williams generally called her a “noir thriller” ^[12] , Spencer Selby - “a noir story about a lady in trouble with some interesting nuances” ^[13] , and Andrew Silver noted that “the film introduces noir elements of drugs, hypnosis, nightmares and a seemingly innocent, but dangerous moment of chance in their melodramatic plot with adultery and womanslaughter ” ^[14] . According to Dennis Schwartz, this “small noir thriller in the plot is a lot like“ Gas Light ”(1944), but in the end the story goes to the bottom, because gradually the plot becomes too absurd to be believed.” Further, Schwartz notes that although this film “certainly does not reach the level of the best works of Serk, nevertheless, it is not so bad,” in particular, he manages to imagine the implementation of the nightmarish plan of bringing the main character to madness (for which we must thank the operator Joseph Valentine ) ^[15] .

Theme of hypnosis in the film

An important place in the plot of the picture is given to the use of hypnosis as a means of influencing the main character, and the filmmakers probably wanted to present it as faithfully as possible. In particular, according to an article in February 1948 in the magazine New Yorker , the film company-distributor of the United Artists even organized a special private screening of the film for a group of hypnotists, psychiatrists and doctors who discussed the question of whether an honest person is affected hypnotist commit a crime ^[2] . However, as noted in the New York Times , “it is difficult to say whether the display of hypnotic scenes is able to satisfy the representatives of the schools of Adler , Jung and Freud , or will cause these esteemed specialists aggravated anxious neurosis ” ^[10] .

Some memorable movie scenes

Critics drew attention to some of the most interesting and memorable scenes in the film. In particular, according to Michael Keeney, the best moments of the film were the first scene, reminiscent of Pat O'Brien 's ominous ride on the train in the film Noir “ Catastrophe ” (1946), and the scene on the stairs at the very end of the film, which certainly looked like deja vu the final scene featuring Raymond Burr in the film Noir “ Desperate ” (1947) ^[16] . Dennis Schwartz notes that director Sai Endfield (without a caption) set the wedding scene for Chinatown for the film, “which itself is wonderful, but added nothing to the story, except the possibility of introducing Kei Luke into the film - whose very presence makes the film look like on the episode of the TV series about Charlie Chen " ^[15] .

Alan Silver highlighted two scenes in the film. Firstly, this is the scene in which three intruders in a photo studio plan the psychological killing of the main character. In this scene, the personality of the photographer Vernea is highlighted through the illusory nature of his profession, and the superficiality of the profession of the photo model Daphne through the bitter awareness of the fact that she will only be in the studio in expensive clothes and can never wear them in a normal life. Silver drew particular attention to the climax scene of the collision of the main characters in the final of the picture, which was made in a truly noir spirit, developing unpredictably for all its participants. Constantly changing direction, the events are increasingly entangled characters, depriving them of the ability to manage the situation. The scene is full of symbolism, hints, psychological reincarnations and expressionist frames illustrating the state of the characters ^[14] .

Actor Assessment

Critics have generally appreciated the play of the cast. According to the New York Times columnist, “ Colbert creates a convincing image of an intimidated and puzzled lady as the harassed mistress of a house in the trendy Sutton Place .” She is adequately supported by Hazel Brooks in the role of “the siren that is the root cause of all this scientific fraud,” George Kourouris in the role of a malicious false psychiatrist, while Robert Cummings in the role of helpful and inquisitive friend skillfully helps Miss Colbert. At the same time, Don Amici as a husband “hardly shows the whole range of emotions, reducing his game simply to showing determination with a square jaw and stone face” ^[10] .

According to Silver, the images of the main characters are a bit lightweight and banal, however, thanks to the final scene, the attitude towards them changes. Claudette Colbert plays a wife who fears, but is not intimidated and not paralyzed by fear, and Robert Cummings is a sincere, self-confident hero who never doubts that his presentiments are correct. However, according to Silver, “their antagonists are much more developed as noir characters: Don Amici’s sugary image of her husband with schizophrenic desires, Daphne's coldness, and especially the many-sided Vernui performed by Koururis adorn this picture” ^[14] .

• Alain Silver (Editor), Elizabeth Ward (Editor). Film Noir: An American Style, Third Edition . - Woodstock, New York: The Overlook Press, 1992. - ISBN 978-0-87951-479-2 .
• Spencer Selby. Dark City: The Film Noir . - Jeffeson, NC and London: McFarland & Co Inc, 1997. - ISBN 978-0-7864-0478-0 .
• Michael F. Keaney. Film Noir Guide: 745 Films of the Classic Era, 1940–1959 . - Jefferson, North Carolina, and London: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2010. - ISBN 978-0-7864-6366-4 .

• Sleep, my love on the site IMDb  
• Sleep, my love on the site Allmovie  
• Sleep, my love on the website of the American Film Institute
• Sleep, my love on Turner Classic Movies
• Sleep my love trailer on YouTube