DOUBLE EXPOSURE
US, 1944, 63 minutes, Black-and-white.
Chester Morris, Nancy Kelly, Jane Farrar, Philip Terry, Richard Gaines.
Directed by William Berke.
This is a very light comedy – with a touch of crime added in the end.
It is something of a throwback to the screwball comedies of the 1930s with Chester Morris and Nancy Kelly playing off each other (and they had appeared, much more seriously, in the 1944 drama, Gambler’s Choice).
Morris plays a variation on the characters which made him popular on screen, somewhat tough, something of the odd man out, the hero figure but always able to step aside if needed. At this time he was appearing in the Boston Blackie series.
The film is about photographers and magazines – with some comic touches by the editor of the magazine who is a fitness fan, demanding exercises from his staff, often instantly, as well as advice and practice about healthy eating.
The magazine he runs, however, is somewhat tabloid. Chester Morris plays the photographer who is always cutting corners, wanting his payment, tantalising his boss. When a photo is seen of a drama and deaths scene, investigations are made to invite the photographer to come to the city to join the staff.
The audience then sees Pat Marvin, the photographer, only she is Patricia rather than Patrick. She is in a small town, takes good photographs but also photoshops them, to use a more contemporary phrase. And she has a devoted admirer in the town.
Off she goes to the city, persuades Chester Morris and the boss that she is the photographer they are looking for. When she goes to a restaurant, and a millionaire and his umpteenth wife, quarrelsome, are sitting at a table nearby, she takes some photos. However, she also goes to the ladies’ room where the haughty wife has made an attempt on her life – and photographs the prostrate woman. After the men thinking that she had merely got society photos, they are overwhelmed by her success with the restroom photos.
Then the boyfriend comes from the country to the city and she puts him up, having to do some quick thinking and explaining that he is her brother. Chester Morris arranges a double date, but the boyfriend is absolutely devoted to Pat. She persuades Chester Morris to give him a job at the paper. When he is still persistent in following Pat closely, Morris gets him shipped off in a boat which is then torpedoed and he is missing at sea. (There is a comic dimension in his return, bearded, from being marooned at sea – devoted to all women who cannot speak English!)
At almost the end of the film, the haughty wife is actually murdered. There are complications with photos that Pat has taken in a photo shoot in the rich man’s apartment, posing herself as dead on the bed. And this photo has been used to implicate Pat in the killing of the wife. The rich man has taken a shine to Pat, calling her Bubbles, and more interested in having her as his next wife instead of in his guilt in the murder.
And so, a double exposure.
