mark.waltz Review of The Upturned Glass

The Upturned Glass (1947)

Murder is not easy, and getting away with it is, well, murder!

[5/10 · 7 December 2011]

As a popular British criminologist, James Mason tells a class full of intrigued students about a supposedly sane man who plotted murder over revenge. Over the first hour, the writers present a very intriguing case involving a doctor who saves a young girl on the operating table then falls in love with her mother. He plots revenge when the young woman dies mysteriously after falling out of a second story window in her house. All is fine for the first two thirds of the movie until the true crime comes to light and a plethora of incidents occur that take the screenplay all over the place. While the movie is beautifully filmed and is interesting throughout, the last 15 minutes of the movie take a lot of dramatic license in wrapping the story up. Mason is mesmerizing as always, but the title really has nothing to do with the plot. For film noir fans, there are many elements there of that genre, including some dark and moody photography and a femme fatal that will go down as one of the most unlikable in film history.