Deception (1946)

User Rating:

7.4/10   

Director:

Irving Rapper

Writers:

John Collier (writer)
Joseph Than (writer)

Release Date:

18 October 1946 (USA)

Genre:

Crime | Film-Noir | Drama

Tagline:

THE STAR OF 'STOLEN LIFE' STEALS ANOTHER LIFE! (original ad - all caps)

Plot:

Music teacher Christine Radcliffe thought Karel Novak to have been killed in the war. She loves him more than ever and insists they marry...

Plot Keywords:

Cello Concerto | Lover | Music Teacher | Love Triangle | Source Music

Cast

Bette Davis	...	Christine Radcliffe
Paul Henreid	...	Karel Novak
Claude Rains	...	Alexander Hollenius
John Abbott	...	Bertram Gribble
Benson Fong	...	Jimmy, Hollenius' Servant

Also Known As:

Her Conscience (USA) (working title)

Runtime:

110 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Sound System)

Certification:

Finland:K-16 | Spain:18 | USA:Approved (PCA #11772, Adult Audience)

Company:

Warner Bros. Pictures

Trivia:

Paul Henreid's cello-playing was dubbed by Eleanor Aller (Mrs Felix Slatkin) while she was pregnant with Frederic Zlotkin. Her father, Gregory Aller, coached Henreid in plausible bow movements.

Goofs:

Continuity: At the end of the film, after Karel Novak has played the Hollenius Cello Concerto and is receiving an ovation, as he acknowledges the applause, his cello mysteriously appears and disappears. In the close ups as he takes his bow, he has it, but when the camera cuts to him in long shot, it is missing.

Quotes:

Alexander Hollenius: [snatches his bleeding hand away from Christine Radcliffe] Like all women: white as a sheet at the sight of a couple of scratches... but calm and smiling as a hospital nurse in the presence of a mortal wound... Good night!

Movie Connections:

Featured in Stardust: The Bette Davis Story (2006) (TV)

Soundtrack:

Impromptu, Op. 142, No. 2 in A Flat Major

A way underrated treasure

How did I never come across Deception (1946) before? It's got to be Claude Rains' most delicious role. He absolutely has a blast playing the grand, tyrannical, jealous composer who hates giving Bette up to Paul Henreid, her former lover who has just returned from Europe at the end of the war. Both men are wickedly jealous of each other. The scene where the great composer unexpectedly arrives at Bette's and Paul's festive wedding party at her great loft apartment overlooking the river in New York (modeled on Leonard Bernstein's apartment) and trades poisonous banter with Bette and Paul makes the movie worth it by itself. But every scene is a gem, such as the scene where Claude takes them to a haute cuisine French restaurant and spends 10 minutes going back and forth over whether to order pheasant, trout, or saddle of lamb and whether to go with a Hermitage or a Vosne Romanee wine. This is some of the sharpest, wittiest dialogue I've seen in a movie, rivaling Ernst Lubitsch and every bit as good as in All About Eve. Oh, and I forgot to mention the amazingly good symphony performance scenes, with an original cello concerto by Korngold, ("played" by Henreid with the arms of two real cellists reaching in from either side to play the instrument). And Bette, a trained pianist, playing Beethoven at her wedding party (she really wanted to play it herself but Jack Warner decided against it but you can see she knows what she's doing in fingering the keys). If you haven't seen it, do check it out.