John Brahm - The Locket (1946)

Lovely Nancy seems like the ideal bride to fiancée John Willis... until, just before the ceremony, Willis is approached by Harry Blair, claiming to be Nancy's former husband. The tale Blair unfolds (in a flashback within a flashback within a flashback!) paints Nancy as a kleptomaniac, habitual liar, and perhaps worse. But is Blair telling the truth? And does fate have another surprise in store?









The Locket is a bizarre melodrama that marks one the first films noir to use Freudian concepts to explore criminal psychology. Though the film is studio bound, the film-makers have used this constraint to advantage. Under the assured direction of John Brahm [who also directed The Brasher Doubloon (1947), Hangover Square (1945), and The Lodger (1944)], cinematographer Musuruca, and art directors Albert S. D’Agostino and Alfred Herman, place the story firmly in a suffocatingly surreal mise-en-scene. The atmosphere is decidedly gloomy – even baroque – with many dramatic scenes so darkly lit that there is aura of grim foreboding that goes far beyond the immediate action. (filmsnoir.net)











El medallón/La huella del recuerdo
Laraine Day interpreta a una cleptómana y mentirosa patológica, traumatizada por un incidente de su infancia, que impulsa al suicidio a los hombres alrededor de ella. Realizada con gran fuerza expresiva por el alemán John Brahm y el director de fotografía Nicholas Musuraca, este film es también un prodigio de construcción de guión como no se había visto desde El ciudadano, basado en tres flashbacks imbricados ente sí que terminan finalmente formando una rueda.








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