THE MASK OF DIIJON
US, 1946, 73 minutes, Black-and-white.
Erich von Stroheim, Jeanne Bates, William Wright.
Directed by Lew Landers.
This is a very small-budget star vehicle for Erich von Stroheim. Austrian born, who came to the United States in his 20s, began acting. During the silent era he made several films which are considered classics – but, clashed with production authorities who considered him too extravagant. The rest of his career he appeared, regularly every year, as an actor until the 1950s. His peak moment in his latter years was his Oscar-nomination for his role in Sunset Boulevard.
Dijon Is a magician but has decided that he wants to explore Mesmerism and hypnosis. As with most von Stroheim characters, he does not smile and is generally sinister. He is of short stature, bald head, intensely serious and staring.
The film opens dramatically with a guillotining – which is a stunt for a show (though it is recaptured in quite a dramatic ending!). Dijon spurns the act and refuses to collaborate. His wife is involved and tries to plead with him but he continues to alienate her as well as the producers.
A musician friend of the wife finds an opportunity for Dijon to perform in a club. He does, using his wife – but she falls to the ground at the end of the act.
There is a twist when Dijon is in a shop and there is a hold-up and he uses the light on his ring to hypnotise the thief to get him to return the money. When he realises his power, and exercises it with a newsboy, persuading him to announce the evening news rather than the morning news, he decides to use his powers to eliminate enemies. He hypnotises a former colleague to commit suicide. Eventually, he hypnotises his wife, gets her to pick a gun after she sings in the club, to aim it at the musician and she fires. In fact she has picked up the wrong gun and fires blanks.
There is a pursuit of Dijon and he finishes up near the guillotine…
The film is directed by Lew Landers, one of the most prolific Hollywood directors of short budget films.
