Specter of the Rose (1946)

Director:

Ben Hecht

Writer:

Ben Hecht (writer)

Release Date:

5 July 1946 (USA)

Genre:

Music | Thriller

Plot:

Ballet dancer Sanine may have murdered his first wife. A detective thinks so, and he's not the only one...

Plot Keywords:

Ballet

Cast

Judith Anderson	...	Madame La Sylph
Michael Chekhov	...	Max Polikoff
Ivan Kirov	...	Andre Sanine
Viola Essen	...	Haidi
Lionel Stander	...	Lionel Gans
Charles 'Red' Marshall	...	Specs McFarlan
George Shdanoff	...	Kropotkin
Billy Gray	...	Jack Jones
Juan Panalle	...	Jibby
Lew Hearn	...	Mr. Lyons
Ferike Boros	...	Mamochka
Constantine	...	Alexis Bloom
Fred Pollino	...	Giovanni (as Ferdinand Pollino)
Polly Rose	...	Olga
Jim Moran	...	Jimmy, Pianist

Also Known As:

Spectre of the Rose (USA) (alternative spelling)

Runtime:

90 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Sound System)

Company:

Republic Pictures

Quotes:

Andre Sanine: Hug me with your eyes.
Haidi: I am.
Andre Sanine: Harder.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Baryshnikov: Live at Wolf Trap (1976) (TV)

Ben Hecht's gruesome folly of a movie, set in the world of `the dance'

Whatever unfulfilled ambitions drove Ben Hecht to write, produce and direct Spectre of the Rose, it's charitable to pretend they bore scant relation to the gruesome folly that eventuated. Did Hollywood's most prolific uncredited contributor to great screenplays crave the glory that would come with his very own Citizen Kane? If so, he made choices that can only be accounted as bizarre.

First, he set his story in the world of `the dance.' Since of all the arts, ballet, for Americans at any rate, reeks of the rarefied – the elite, movies about it invariably lapse into gaseous talk about `aaht.' Spectre of the Rose dives right into this pitfall. The high-flown, portentous dialogue must have entranced Hecht but it plainly baffles his cast. They variously give it stilted readings, flat it out, and drop quotation marks around it, but except for Judith Anderson – as an old assoluta now training novices in a `dingy' studio – nobody can make it work. (But then, she made Lady Scarface work.)

The plot concerns a deranged male superstar called Sanine (Ivan Kirov), who may have murdered his first wife and partner and now seems to be rehearsing to kill his second (Viola Essen). It's safe to presume Kirov was engaged only to fling his polished torso around because he can't even act embarrassed; it's no surprise that this is his solitary screen credit.

But his murderous madness just sits there, with a take-it-or-leave-it shrug, while the movie pirouettes off on other tangents. There's a larcenous impresario (Michael Chekhov) who outdoes even Clifton Webb in trying to break down the celluloid closet's door. Most puzzlingly, there's Lionel Stander as a Runyonesque poet who seems intended as some sort of Greek chorus to the goings-on but serves instead as a major irritant, uninvited and out of place.

Without knowing what compromises Hecht made and obstacles he faced in bringing his work to the screen, it's easy to be glib. But there's such a discordance of tones and jostling of moods that the movie elicits diverse responses; thus some viewers have found in Spectre of the Rose something special and unique. Movies, maybe more than any other art form, touch our idiosyncracies. But when we're left unsure whether The Spectre of the Rose is dead-earnest or a grandiose spoof – an election-bet of a movie -- something has gone radically awry.