Tonight's Movie: The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry (1945) at UCLA

Tonight marked a return to a couple of favorite Los Angeles spots for the first time since 2019.

Both places took an unusually long time to revert to post-COVID normalcy, hence the lengthy gap since our last visit.

We had a wonderful dinner at The Apple Pan, which specializes in burgers and pies. I've written about it here multiple times, including in 2018.

The Apple Pan only fairly recently reopened its storied indoor counter. The biggest change since I was last there is that they now have tablets for payment instead of a traditional old cash register, but the food and service were great as always.

Next we drove the mile and a half or so to UCLA's Billy Wilder Theater in the Hammer Museum. I believe the last time I was there was the spring of 2019. The theater had continued to require masks until at least last fall, long after a mandate was dropped in other indoor spaces; consequently I regretfully skipped the Festival of Preservation and other screenings at the theater over the past year or more. Thankfully that requirement was finally dropped. More thoughts on the overall UCLA experience follow at the end of this review.

The occasion for tonight's trip to the Billy Wilder Theater was a screening of THE STRANGE AFFAIR OF UNCLE HARRY (1945). THE STRANGE AFFAIR OF UNCLE HARRY was paired with a second "Gothic noir," Fritz Lang's SECRET BEYOND THE DOOR (1947), but we only saw the first film this evening.

THE STRANGE AFFAIR OF UNCLE HARRY was directed by noir great Robert Siodmak. Stephen Longstreet's screenplay was adapted by Keith Winter from a play by Thomas Job.

The film was heavily edited after its original, unsuccessful 1945 release but has been restored by UCLA to its original theatrical release version. The 35mm print looked very nice and had an excellent, clear soundtrack.

George Sanders stars in the title role, playing Harry, a bachelor who works as a designer at a mill in a small town.

Harry, descended from old money which is now gone, lives in a dark old mansion with his bickering sisters Lettie (Geraldine Fitzgerald) and Hester (Moyna MacGill, mother of Angela Lansbury). Lettie, who continually complains of "ailments" which seem to come and go as she pleases, is gradually revealed to be a manipulator -- and overly possessive of her brother.

Into Harry's life bursts Deborah (Ella Raines), a designer from New York. Deborah is a forthright, confident woman quite unlike Harry's sisters -- and to Harry's amazement, she falls in love with him.

They plan to marry, but Lettie throws up roadblocks for months, refusing to move with Hester to another home; on the day Harry plans to elope with Deborah, Lettie collapses in church. Harry feels he must return home to check on Lettie instead of joining Deborah on the train, which leads to much heartbreak...and some conveniently placed poison enters the picture as well...

I'll stop with the description here, and will be spoiler free about the fairly infamous ending other than to stay I actually kind of liked it, once I worked through my confusion.

The movie is a bit of a mashup between Gothic noir and the mid to late '40s psychological noir films I've also written about here numerous times in the past. It was an engrossing 80 minutes, but it also had some issues, the first one being that the film never really makes clear what about Harry warrants Deborah's interest. It would have made more sense, for example, if we'd seen a spark of talent to interest her in his work, but instead he's completely self-deprecating.

Eventually they are shown bonding over painting and astronomy, but it almost seemed too little, too late. I kept waiting for the "catch" and the reveal that Deborah's feelings about Harry weren't genuine...but it never happened.

Raines is almost too "modern" for the picture, which at times feels as though it's set decades previously, rather than the '40s; that said, I suppose that was the point. Harry was trapped in a musty life looking to the past, while Deborah was the future.

In contrast to Harry's proper sisters, Raines flops onto chairs, folds her leg under her when she sits, wears mannish clothes, and generally shows that her young businesswoman doesn't fit in their world. Raines abruptly exits the movie partway through, and I felt the film sank a little without her energy, despite the thriller aspects beginning to unfold at that point.

A final comment about Raines' character: As with two other films she made for Siodmak, PHANTOM LADY (1944) and THE SUSPECT (1944), Raines plays something of a "rescuer" of the troubled male lead.  While her character in THE SUSPECT is more reticent, Raines brought a unique confidence and sass to UNCLE HARRY, PHANTOM LADY, and other roles; as an actress, she would not be out of place in a film made in the 2020s.

Sanders is uncharacteristically a milquetoast in this; it's a nice change of pace but again, I wanted to see more of what drew Deborah to him, as so much of what she and the viewer see is Harry "caving" time and again to his sister. He's sweet, but almost too sweet, in that he can't stand up to his sister and put a stop to her gamesmanship.

I'd add that there's a singing scene where we briefly get to hear Sanders' nice voice.

I saw Geraldine Fitzgerald years ago in another Gothic noir, SO EVIL MY LOVE (1948), and she's quite good here as Lettie. Frankly I was surprised sections of the movie made it past the censors of the day, as the script combined with her performance make clear she has unnatural feelings for her brother. There's a fascinating little moment where she thinks she's "reclaimed" him from Deborah and reaches out and touches him that was oh so brief, yet the physical contact and meaning behind it really caught my attention.

The supporting cast includes Sara Allgood, Harry von Zell, Will Wright, and Irene Tedrow.

The movie was filmed in black and white by Paul Ivano. The costumes designed by Travis Banton were quite good, with modern and even somewhat masculine looks for the assertive Deborah and fluttery, frilly designs for Harry's sisters.

All in all, I found the film interesting and worth seeing, while at the same time it's not a film I anticipate revisiting with regularity.

Regarding tonight's theater-going experience: As mentioned, this was my first time at the Billy Wilder Theater since 2019. The Hammer Museum lobby is currently under construction; parking is free, and it's necessary to exit the parking garage and walk around the corner to enter the theater from Lindbrook Drive instead of through the lobby.

Tickets to the Billy Wilder Theater are also currently free due to an anonymous donor, and unlike years past, seating is now assigned. I assume that's a hangover from "social distancing" -- as might be guessed from previous comments, L.A. in general and the Billy Wilder in particular have been intense about COVID -- and I wonder if it will continue into the future.

Speaking very frankly, the free tickets may have some drawbacks; there were some, shall we say, "characters" in the audience, and there was inappropriate laughter during the film in at least a couple of places. While friends in other cities complain about this kind of laughter, my experience has been it's incredibly rare among savvy audiences in Los Angeles revival theaters.

I kind of wonder if there's a connection with people perhaps showing up because it's free rather than because they genuinely want to see a classic-era film. While more people seeing classic films is a good thing, inappropriate laughter is not. I could be wrong about the cause and effect, but the vibe was definitely unusual and "off" this evening -- I was also surprised there was no applause for the admired Robert Siodmak's directing credit -- and I've been going to films there since at least 2010.  My husband had a similar reaction.

For more thoughts on this movie, please visit Colin's 2022 post at Riding the High Country and Glenn Erickson's 2015 review at DVD Talk.

THE STRANGE AFFAIR OF UNCLE HARRY is available on Blu-ray and DVD from Olive Films.

Tweet