Undercurrent (1946)

User Rating:

6.3/10   

Director:

Vincente Minnelli

Writers:

Thelma Strabel (story)
Edward Chodorov (screenplay)

Release Date:

28 November 1946 (USA)

Genre:

Film-Noir | Thriller

Tagline:

An Irresistible Force That Draws a Man and Woman Together!

Plot:

Young bride Ann Hamilton soon begins to suspect that her charming husband is really a psychotic who plans to murder her. |

Plot Keywords:

Murder | Caretaker | Washington D.C. | Industrialist | Death By Animal

Cast

Katharine Hepburn	...	Ann Hamilton
Robert Taylor	...	Alan Garroway
Robert Mitchum	...	Michael Garroway
Edmund Gwenn	...	Prof. 'Dink' Hamilton
Marjorie Main	...	Lucy
Jayne Meadows	...	Sylvia Lea Burton
Clinton Sundberg	...	Mr. Warmsley
Dan Tobin	...	Prof. Joseph Bangs
Kathryn Card	...	Mrs. Foster
Leigh Whipper	...	George
Charles Trowbridge	...	Justice Putnam
James Westerfield	...	Henry Gilson
Billy McClain	...	Uncle Ben (as Billy McLain)

Also Known As:

You Were There (USA) (working title)

Runtime:

116 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Sound System)

Certification:

Finland:K-16 | USA:Approved (PCA #11781, Adult Audience)

Company:

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)

Trivia:

Katharine Hepburn and Robert Mitchum didn't get along. One day she told him, "You know you can't act, and if you hadn't been good looking you would never have got a picture at all. I'm tired of working with people like you who have nothing to offer."

Movie Connections:

Featured in "Private Screenings: Robert Mitchum and Jane Russell" (1996)

Pretty Good

Upon first viewing, Undercurrent is an unexpected treat, commanding full attention for almost 2 hours. Hepburn in the role of Ann, manipulated, insecure, feeling under-dressed and overwhelmed at a social event, terrified and claustrophobic as her new husband's character is revealed, is not to be missed. As others have noted, the plot has "Rebecca-esque" qualities, but a character completely its own.

Taylor's tormented Alan is also perfect, darkly ruminating and possessive, always on the edge of losing control, driven mad by his wife's interest in his hated and absent brother, and jealously afraid of losing her love.

While the ending is somewhat predictable, the plot also amazes, as it progressively reveals a person not present (for example, using the rebound book of prose with the underlined Robert Louis Stevenson poem, innocently quoted by Ann, believing it to be her husband's) and destroys the covetous, deceitful and murderous Alan.