Hangover Square

source: Hangover Square

I saw this movie in 1945 when i was 12. It is possible i may have seen it once since but don't remember much of it. At the time I was very much struck by the strident chords of the piano concerto which is played more than once. It went dun dun, dun dun dun dun, dun dun, dun dun dun dun etc. Up until that time i was not familiar with instrumental classical music. Yes of course i remember cregar carrying darnel to the bon fire and might even remember the flamining ending. at any rate this movie stayed with me and i was very much stirred by it even now after 62 years. A year later i discovered the classical music stations and was introduced to such works as rachmaninoff's second piano concerto etc. Later that year i received my first piano lessons and have been a classical music buff ever since. Is it available on VHS or DVD? I would like to get a copy of it and see if its excitement still holds. Strange that my fascination with classical music began from such humble beginnings.

Laird Cregar was one of those actors who advanced from one role to the next and never disappointed the viewer - and so impressed the production brass at 20th Century Fox that they improved the parts he got. You can't forget him in THIS GUN FOR HIRE, quivering with fear at the approach of Alan Ladd, or in I WAKE UP SCREAMING, as the malevolent detective determined to destroy Victor Mature. He could also do a comic bit well - his "His Excellency" (i.e. Satan) in HEAVEN CAN WAIT, or even a one second drop of face in CHARLEY'S AUNT (possibly the funniest moment in that Jack Benny film). And he will always be the best Jack the Ripper for THE LODGER. But it type-cast him late in his career. Suddenly he was the favorite mad-Victorian/Edwardian murderer. So 20th Century Fox gave him HANGOVER SQUARE, resetting it in the late 19th Century. For a "B-feature" it is full of good things, like the Guy Fawks Day bond fire. Cregar did superbly as the tragic Bone (actually more tragic than the Lodger, in that Bone senses something terrible is occuring, but he is determined to finish his concerto). The last scene of Cregar finishing the concerto in the burning and empty concert room is a great image - suggesting the demons in Bone, or even the setting of his future in an afterworld. Ironically it also shows the demons in Cregar, dieting to get out of his type-casting (and so leading to his tragic demise). But would a thinner Cregar have been the leading man he sought to be? Or would he have gotten more variations on the George Bone/"The Lodger"/late Victorian mad killer parts? That is the real question.

Well worth watching, if you can find it. Cregar is excellent as the concert pianist tortured by obsession with a woman, and what it leads to. Moody, urgent (all the more so in black and white), with mounting suspense and tension. Lush Bernard Hermann score that expresses his anguish. Bonfire scene is gripping.

This (unfortunately) little-known movie is one of the best, and would easily make my top 100 list for many reasons, but mostly for the brilliant Bernard Herrmann score which features a superb one-movement piano concerto, one of his greatest works.

HANGOVER SQUARE is one of my favorite films in which LAIRD CREGAR appeared--in fact, his last before a crash diet ruined his health and led to his death at age 28. Seeing him in this film, made me realize what a wonderful Rochester he would have made in '44's JANE EYRE. He had the kind of presence that looms over every frame of this film, even when he's not actually in the scene. He's a troubled musician who reacts violently when he hears certain discordant sounds. LINDA DARNELL makes an attractive romantic presence in her period costuming (it takes place in Victorian London), and GEORGE SANDERS does a nice job as a doctor (a good guy for a change). The scenes that stand out are Cregar climbing the ladder of a bonfire to dispose of his latest victim and the finale where he's playing the piano in a deserted building as the flames spread around him--all the while Bernard Herrmann's score is making an impact. It's a delicious LAIRD CREGAR performance and a fitting finale to his short but illustrious career. It's somewhat similar to a previous film, THE LODGER, another Victorian thriller he did with Merle Oberon.

While I understand this bears little resemblance to the novel it's based on, HANGOVER SQUARE is still a suspenseful period nail-biter. It also reunites many of the personnel from the loose 1944 remake of Hitchcock's THE LODGER, including stars Laird Cregar and George Sanders as well as director John Brahm and screenwriter Barre Lyndon. Amid gorgeous Edwardian settings accompanied by one of the great Bernard Herrmann's most powerful scores, George Sanders is as suave as ever, while Linda Darnell is so convincing as the selfish, grasping songbird who uses and dumps poor lovestruck Laird Cregar that you're rooting for him to hear a loud noise, go nuts, and strangle her. But it's Cregar who touches your heart and terrifies you at the same time as poor, talented, obsessive composer George Harvey Bone, whose homicidal tendencies are touched off by clanging lead pipes and other unbearably loud noises (you'd think he'd have found a quieter profession). Cregar was best known for playing heavies, literally and figuratively (he was far younger than he looked), and he went on some insane crash diet to slim down for this role. It worked, but tragically, it cost him his life: the diet took a terrible toll on his health, resulting in cardiac arrest and death shortly after Cregar completed the film. Just goes to show that it's unwise to go too far for your art. Admittedly, I couldn't help thinking about this as I watched HANGOVER SQUARE, but even if you don't know anything about Cregar's short life, this is a corker of a thriller. It's now available on DVD as part of a 3-disc collection of Brahm's films, including THE LODGER and THE UNDYING MONSTER. Update for 2011: HANGOVER SQUARE will be aired on Turner Classic Movies tonight, Saturday, August 27th, 2011, at 11:30 p,m. EST as part of TCM's month-long Summer Under The Stars Festival. You might want also want to keep an eye on TCM's schedule for future airings!

Hangover Square is the last film Laird Cregar made in his brief, remarkable career. Freely adapted from Patrick Hamilton's novel, it was directed by John Brahm, photographed by Joseph LaShelle, and features a memorably thunderous score by Bernard Herrmann. Like the previous year's The Lodger, also a Cregar-Brahm collaboration, this is a killer on the loose in Victorian London movie. Aside from some fancily shot scenes early on, this would not in itself be an extraordinary film but for Cregar's portrayal of the lead character, a man who murders when he hears loud, sudden noises. In his quieter moments the man is, of all things, a composer! There are many fine scenes in this film but it's basically Cregar's show from start to finish, and he does not disappoint. His performance is so brilliant, empathetic, nuanced, and for all the melodrama, utterly believable, that it's impossible not to focus on him at the expense of the rest of the movie. Perhaps the best way to describe Cregar's acting style here is to imagine A Streetcar Named Desire being performed entirely inside someone's mind, with the characters of Stanley and Blanche being played by the same actor, in a Victorian setting, disguised as a murder story. One wonders where Cregar found the inspiration for such work. He was one of the greatest actors to ever grace the screen, and one of the most enigmatic. American-born, he tended to play Brits. Unlike his fellow American Anglophile actor and friend, Vincent Price, he had no education to speak of. Within a span of less than five years he went from supporting player to star. In this movie he is top-billed over Fox hottie Linda Darnell. Not too shabby for a morbidly obese man several inches over six feet in height who, while still in his twenties, was playing men well into their forties. Cregar had a way of making even accomplished co-stars like Cedric Hardwicke and George Sanders look like amateurs by comparison. He wasn't even trying to. One should watch his films to see what a great actor is like. His roles weren't always great, but he was. Forget Sean Penn and his tantrums, or Meryl Streep's mannered Yale Drama School flair for accents. Cregar was the real deal. The only American actor I can think of who could give him a run for his money would be Brando. Sadly, Cregar was as tormented as he was gifted, was full of self-hatred, for a variety of reasons, and went on a crash diet after completing this film in the hope of becoming a romantic leading man. But he lost the weight so fast it killed him. He was twenty-eight years old.

A concert pianist is plagued with a mental illness where a specific sound triggers a murderous impulse, this time when he commits murder remains buried in the back of his mind, not understanding the sequence of events which arise, awakening remembering nothing..fragments emerge as time goes by which leave him puzzled, wondering if he may've committed the murders reported. Laird Cregar's phenomenal performance as the haunted pianist, superb sets recreating the Victorian era of London, sweepingly gorgeous camera-work, and a magnificent score from Bernard Hermann all add to what is another masterwork from John Brahm. 20th Century Fox gave Brahm the right tools to bring to life a time and place that feels so incredibly authentic. Unlike The Lodger, Brahm's other masterpiece(..or in my mind anyway), the film is solely focused on Cregar, he gets the entire film. The Lodger provided the great George Sanders with a more lucrative role, but even in Hangover Square, he still impresses(..when does he not?)as a police psychiatrist who suspects Cregar might be the person responsible for the murder of a crooked antique dealer, and behind an attempted strangling of Barbara Chapman(Faye Marlowe). Linda Darnell has a juicy part as Netta Longdon, a dance hall girl who uses George Harvey Bone's(Cregar)affection for her to gain success, secretly wooing a theater producer, Eddie Carstairs(Glenn Langan). Barbara adores Bone and pleads with him to continue a concerto which could bring him the fame and fortune he deserves, knowing that his talent is better utilized elsewhere besides preparing music for Netta, who doesn't love him. We watch as Netta manipulatively goads Bone into providing her with a concerto that will push her over into stardom, playing on his adoration for her, understanding that once he gives her what she so desires, she can dump him for Carstairs. This will undoubtedly seal her fate, as Bone, after entering into another lapse, strangles her, placing her corpse in a bonfire. I think maybe it's a bit unfair to compare Hangover Square with The Lodger since both are infinitely different films(..and Cregar, to his credit, is able to create two distinctively different characters), but I think what set the latter apart was the star power, with not only Sanders having a much richer part, but the likes of a Merle Oberon and Cedric Hardwicke included, it has advantages in this area alone. I still think Hangover Square benefits because Cregar has the central core of the film based around him, not having to share with other stars. It's a tragedy such a talent as Cregar didn't have longer to live, taken far too early, I can't help but ponder all those future performances we'll never get to admire and appreciate. His overwhelming power on screen, the way he can grip you without uttering a word, this kind of skill isn't manufactured, but a gift so few really have and others covet dearly. And, Cregar had one of the most fantastic voices I've ever heard, and the levels in performance he could achieve with the few characters he presented us before his untimely death will stand the test of time. I consider it a privilege to experience such performances as Cregar gave us in The Lodger and Hangover Square. The fiery finale as the concert hall burns around Bone as he continues to play his concerto is unforgettable, a finale curtain call to an icon.

Laird Cregar made this movie another Film Classic with his great acting skills, he made you feel for his pain and suffering as a mentally disturbed musician. The music score still rings in my ears and during the final scene of the film where Laird Cregar gave his final performance in more ways than one. He was a great actor and was not appreciated until recent years. His supporting actors George Sanders, Merle Oberon and Cedric Hardwicke have made this a film for all generations to see and enjoy.