Welcome to The Morning After, where I share with you what I’ve seen over the past week either in film or television. On the film side, if I have written a full length review already, I will post a link to that review. Otherwise, I’ll give a brief snippet of my thoughts on the film with a full review to follow at some point later. For television shows, seasons and what not, I’ll post individual comments here about each of them as I see fit.

So, here is what I watched this past week:

Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte

The film has frequently been classified as horror, but I have little trouble seeing this as little more than a classic thriller. Something akin to Gaslight, Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte is a taut psychological drama about a young debutante accused, but never convicted, of the murder of her paramour, a married man whom her father disapproves of.

Bette Davis plays the aged Charlotte as she remembers back to the deadly event, walking precariously on a razor-thin edge of sanity. Thinking her father killed the young man and desperate to protect him, she isolates herself in her large, empty plantation home with only her devoted servant Velma (Agnes Moorehead) for company. When her home is threatened with demolition, she summons her younger cousin (Olivia de Havilland) to come back and try to stop the planned destruction, but her cousin finds a rather frightening and dangerous game at play that threatens Charlotte’s sanity.

Atmospheric, haunting and incredibly well acted, Hush…Hush is a genuine masterpiece. The music by Frank De Vol conjures up memories of more recent flicks who no doubt took cues from this film for their chilling compositions. Davis is on fire and De Havilland is coldly indifferent while Moorehead runs away with the show. Joseph Cotten does well in his supporting role of one of De Havilland’s exes and Davis’ current medical doctor. Other noted performances include George Kennedy in a short cameo, Cecil Kellaway as a generous insurance agent masquerading as a reporter trying to uncover the truth behind the old affair, Victor Buono as Charlotte’s suspicious father, Bruce Dern in a brief appearance as the cheating suitor and Mary Astor as the aged widow he left behind.

Murder at the Gallop

I completed watching three of the four Margaret Rutherford Miss Marple films over a month ago and finally got the fourth one from Netflix last week. I gave it a go and it’s definitely one of the better ones. Rutherford is at the top of her Marple game and the supporting cast is all fun and engaging, including Robert Morley and Flora Robson of most significant note. The story follows a family of potential murders who stand to inherit a great deal of money when their father dies suddenly. Marple suspects murder, but until one of the siblings is obviously murdered, no one is taken seriously.

There’s a lot of good natured humored peppered throughout and the plot twists and turns and you can’t help but suspect different people at every step and when the final reveal is made, you’re still a bit surprised by the result. It’s a clever film that should please any murder mystery fan and especially those Agatha Christie fans who might have found the jocular nature of this short-lived franchise a bit too un-Christie like. The tone, while sometimes lively, is no less pointed and serious than any of Christie’s novels.