Hangover Square (dir. John Brahm, 1945)
Patrick Hamilton’s 1941 novel concerns George Harvey Bone, an Englishman with a drinking problem and a condition in which he experiences fugue states. He cannot remember what occurs during them or account for his actions. He is hopelessly in love with a fellow pub habitué named Netta, who exploits his affections. It is 1939 and Europe will soon descend into war in the same manner that violence accompanies Bone.
So, naturally, for the film adaptation they moved the setting to the Edwardian era, eliminated any connection to recent politics, and made the protagonist a classical composer instead of a dissolute drunkard.
They left in the killer amnesiac rages, though!
Hangover Square opens on Bone (played by Laird Cregar, who died of an amphetamine-fueled heart attack before the film’s release) in the midst of murdering a shopkeeper and setting his business aflame, in a shocking sequence for the period. He awakes the next morning in his apartment, having no memory of the previous night but is still disturbed by the newspaper reports of murder and arson he reads. Although he has a girlfriend with a well-heeled father, Bone finds himself enamored with a working class singer Netta Longdon (Linda Darnell), who finds in the composer the perfect mark to string along.
It doesn’t end well for anyone.
The London seen in the film is doubly unreal–the 1900s recreated on a 1940s Hollywood backlot. This is understandable given that it was an American production and given what London looked like in 1945. Still, it might be worth thinking about what a more faithful adaptation of the book would resemble: a London unmarked by the war, those six years dividing the novel and the film like a chasm. It would be almost too difficult to consider. Still, what is on screen in the version we have still has some things going for it. The scene set on Guy Fawkes Night and the musical finale are both stunning, and Cregar and Darnell do well in their roles.
oliveresque 