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Undercurrent (film)

 
Undercurrent (film)

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Undercurrent (film)



 
 
Undercurrent (1946
1946 in film

The year 1946 in film involved some significant events....
) is a film noir
Film noir

Film noir is a film term used primarily to describe stylish cinema of the United States Crime film, particularly those that emphasize moral ambiguity and sexual motivation....
 drama directed by Vincente Minnelli
Vincente Minnelli

Vincente Minnelli was a Hollywood film director and Theatre director. His skilled integration of story, music, lighting, and design elements in a film made him the most critically respected crafter of musical film....
. The screenplay was written by Edward Chodorov, based on the novel You Were There by Thelma Strabel. The motion picture features Katharine Hepburn
Katharine Hepburn

Katharine Houghton Hepburn was an United States actress of film, television and stage.Acclaimed throughout her 73-year career, Hepburn holds the record for the most Academy Award for Best Actress Academy Awards wins with four, from 12 nominations....
, Robert Taylor
Robert Taylor (actor)

Robert Taylor was an United States actor....
, Robert Mitchum
Robert Mitchum

Robert Charles Durman Mitchum was an Academy Award-nominated United States film actor, author, composer and singer. Mitchum is largely remembered for his starring roles in several major works of the film noir style, and is considered a forerunner of the anti-heroes prevalent in film during the 1950s and 1960s....
, and others.

Hamilton (Hepburn) is a young bride who begins to suspect that her charming husband Alan Garroway (Taylor) is really a psychotic who plans to murder her. Nor can she ignore the shadow of her brother-in-law Michael Garroway (Robert Mitchum
Robert Mitchum

Robert Charles Durman Mitchum was an Academy Award-nominated United States film actor, author, composer and singer. Mitchum is largely remembered for his starring roles in several major works of the film noir style, and is considered a forerunner of the anti-heroes prevalent in film during the 1950s and 1960s....
), whom she's never met but has been told so much about.


the film was released the staff at Variety
Variety (magazine)

Variety is a weekly entertainment trade newspaper founded in New York in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Hollywood, was founded by Silverman in 1933....
 magazine lauded the film and wrote, "Undercurrent is heavy drama with femme appeal...Hepburn sells her role with usual finesse and talent.






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Encyclopedia


Undercurrent (1946
1946 in film

The year 1946 in film involved some significant events....
) is a film noir
Film noir

Film noir is a film term used primarily to describe stylish cinema of the United States Crime film, particularly those that emphasize moral ambiguity and sexual motivation....
 drama directed by Vincente Minnelli
Vincente Minnelli

Vincente Minnelli was a Hollywood film director and Theatre director. His skilled integration of story, music, lighting, and design elements in a film made him the most critically respected crafter of musical film....
. The screenplay was written by Edward Chodorov, based on the novel You Were There by Thelma Strabel. The motion picture features Katharine Hepburn
Katharine Hepburn

Katharine Houghton Hepburn was an United States actress of film, television and stage.Acclaimed throughout her 73-year career, Hepburn holds the record for the most Academy Award for Best Actress Academy Awards wins with four, from 12 nominations....
, Robert Taylor
Robert Taylor (actor)

Robert Taylor was an United States actor....
, Robert Mitchum
Robert Mitchum

Robert Charles Durman Mitchum was an Academy Award-nominated United States film actor, author, composer and singer. Mitchum is largely remembered for his starring roles in several major works of the film noir style, and is considered a forerunner of the anti-heroes prevalent in film during the 1950s and 1960s....
, and others.

Plot

Ann Hamilton (Hepburn) is a young bride who begins to suspect that her charming husband Alan Garroway (Taylor) is really a psychotic who plans to murder her. Nor can she ignore the shadow of her brother-in-law Michael Garroway (Robert Mitchum
Robert Mitchum

Robert Charles Durman Mitchum was an Academy Award-nominated United States film actor, author, composer and singer. Mitchum is largely remembered for his starring roles in several major works of the film noir style, and is considered a forerunner of the anti-heroes prevalent in film during the 1950s and 1960s....
), whom she's never met but has been told so much about.

Cast

  • Katharine Hepburn
    Katharine Hepburn

    Katharine Houghton Hepburn was an United States actress of film, television and stage.Acclaimed throughout her 73-year career, Hepburn holds the record for the most Academy Award for Best Actress Academy Awards wins with four, from 12 nominations....
    as Ann Hamilton
  • Robert Taylor
    Robert Taylor (actor)

    Robert Taylor was an United States actor....
     as Alan Garroway
  • Robert Mitchum
    Robert Mitchum

    Robert Charles Durman Mitchum was an Academy Award-nominated United States film actor, author, composer and singer. Mitchum is largely remembered for his starring roles in several major works of the film noir style, and is considered a forerunner of the anti-heroes prevalent in film during the 1950s and 1960s....
     as Michael Garroway
  • Edmund Gwenn
    Edmund Gwenn

    Edmund Gwenn was an Academy Award-winning England theatre and film actor....
     as Prof. "Dink" Hamilton
  • Marjorie Main
    Marjorie Main

    Marjorie Main was an Academy Awards-nominated United States Character actor mainly at MGM, perhaps best known for her role as Ma Kettle in a series of ten Ma and Pa Kettle movies....
     as Lucy
  • Jayne Meadows
    Jayne Meadows

    Jayne Meadows is an American movie and stage actress and author....
     as Sylvia Lea Burton
  • Clinton Sundberg as Mr. Warmsley
  • Dan Tobin as Prof. Joseph Bangs
  • Kathryn Card
    Kathryn Card

    Kathryn Card was an American television and film actress who may be best remembered for her role as Mrs. McGillicuddy, Lucy's mother on I Love Lucy....
     as Mrs. Foster
  • Leigh Whipper as George
  • Charles Trowbridge
    Charles Trowbridge

    Charles Trowbridge was an American film actor. He appeared in 233 films between 1915 in film and 1958 in film.He was born in Veracruz, Mexico and died in Los Angeles, California....
     as Justice Putnam
  • James Westerfield
    James Westerfield

    James Westerfield was an United States actor.Born in Nashville, Tennessee, he starred in more than 50 films during his lifetime.Westerfield died from a myocardial infarction in Woodland Hills, California at the age of 58....
     as Henry Gilson
  • Billy McClain as Uncle Ben


Critical reception

When the film was released the staff at Variety
Variety (magazine)

Variety is a weekly entertainment trade newspaper founded in New York in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Hollywood, was founded by Silverman in 1933....
 magazine lauded the film and wrote, "Undercurrent is heavy drama with femme appeal...Hepburn sells her role with usual finesse and talent. Robert Mitchum, as the missing brother, has only three scenes but makes them count for importance."

Critic Bosley Crowther
Bosley Crowther

Bosley Crowther was a journalist and author who was film critic for The New York Times for over a quarter century. His reviews and articles helped shape the careers of actors, directors and screenwriters....
 also liked the film and wrote, "However, that is Undercurrent-—and you must take it upon its own terms, which are those of theatrical dogmatism, if you hope to endure it at all. If you do, you may find it gratifying principally because Miss Hepburn gives a crisp and taut performance of a lady overcome by mounting fears and Mr. Taylor, back in films from his war service, accelerates a brooding meanness as her spouse. You may also find Robert Mitchum fairly appealing in a crumpled, modest way as the culturally oriented brother, even though he appears in only a couple of scenes. And you may like Edmund Gwenn and Jayne Meadows, among others, in minor roles."

More recently, critic Dennis Schwartz wrote, "Director Vincente Minnelli...known mostly through his upbeat MGM musicals changes direction with this tearjerker femme appealing romantic melodrama, that can also be viewed as a heavy going psychological film noir (at least, stylishly noir through the brilliantly dark photography of Karl Freund)...Though overlong and filled with too many misleading clues about which brother is the baddie, the acting is superb even though both Katharine Hepburn and Robert Mitchum are cast against type (a weak woman and a sensitive man). It successfully takes on the theme from Gaslight
Gaslight (1944 film)

Gaslight is a 1944 in film Mystery film-Thriller adapted from Patrick Hamilton 's play Angel Street. It was the second version to be filmed; the Gaslight , released in United Kingdom, had been made a mere four years earlier....
."

External links

. .
  • at the Films of Vincente Minnelli.
  • at DVD Beaver (includes images).