Experiment Perilous (1944)

Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

***SPOILERS*** Far too deep in the subject of criminal psychology this overly complicated film about murder and insanity revolves around the not too wrapped tight and beautiful Allida Bederaux played, who was considered the most beautiful woman in the world at that time, by the drop dead gorgeous Hedy Lammar. It's Allida who feels that her crazy and carpet chewing husband Nick, Paul Lukas, who turns out to be a real murderous wacko is trying to both turn her five year old son Alex against her as well as have her committed to a lunatic asylum.It's psychiatrist Dr. Huntington "Hunt" Baily, George Brent, who gets the lowdown to Allida and Nick's strange relationship while on a train ride from the mid-west, Nebraska, to New York from Nick's just released from a sanitarium sister Cissie, Olive Blakenly. It's Cassie who filled him in on just what's happening in the Bederaux household and how her brother is a threat to both Allida and Alex. Before "Hunt" even gets to meet Allida whom, by seeing a painting of her, he has developed the hots for Cissie drops dead of a heart attack and her luggage ends up with "Hunt" by mistake. Finding a manuscript by Cissie about her brother and his wife Allida that exposes Nick as a first class psycho who's a danger to himself as well as those , like Allida & Alex, around him. "Hunt" is now more then determined to keep her and the boy away from him for their own good and safety.***SPOILERS*** Later after in an effort to save both Allida & Alex from Nicks' plan to murder them as well as the non-existent family butler who's identity Nick plans to use in faking his own death, if you can figure out what his deranged plan is, "Hunt" confronts the madman and after trying to talk some sense into him by getting him to have himself committed. Nick now pulls out all the stops as well as his rod, gun, and not only attempt to blast "Hunt" away but have his own beautiful wife and five year old son iced by burning the entire house, or mansion, down by igniting its gas works that he secretly turned on!It's now up to "Hunt" to put and end to this insanity on Nick's part who at the same time is pointing a gun to his head. In a wild free for all it's "Hunt" who gets the upper hand by disarming, in knocking the gun out of his hand, Nick and having enough time to get himself together with both Allida & Alex, who were left unconscious by the gas fumes, out of the house before it exploded! As for crazy Nick he quite didn't make it out with the house erupting in a massive gas explosion that burned him to a crisp and, in the only thing that he accomplished in the movie, left him unidentifiable!

A chance encounter on a train between Dr Bailey (George Brent) and Cissie (Olive Blakeney) brings the doctor into the world of Nick (Paul Lukas) and Allida (Hedy Lamarr). When Cissie dies, Dr Bailey is suspicious and he he starts to look through Cissie's travel case which has been sent on to him by mistake from their train journey together.The story keeps you watching and the cast are good, although Hedy Lamarr comes across as slightly too feeble on occasion. There is no complicated plot twist and it is pretty obvious who the evil one is. The psychological torture that is portrayed is extremely lame ("Gaslight" is far better at achieving the required effect) and may have you wondering what the point of the film is. There seems to be nothing suspicious to be investigating. It's an OK story about love that doesn't work out and the moral is don't marry someone who is way older than you......unless you like daisies....

Jack Tourneur knew how to build an ominous atmosphere :remember the scenes at the pool in "cat people",the meeting on the moor in "circle of danger" and almost everything in " night of the demon".The meeting with the old Clarissa on the train,the station where she leaves the hero ,and the way she says goodbye (actually farewell) is almost supernatural.Then the extraordinary beauty of Hedy Lamarr and her picture add to build an eerie atmosphere ,sometimes recalling as user has pointed out ,"gaslight" .The script,however ,does not always make sense ,and lacks focus ,unlike the three other works I mention.But just for the atmosphere ,this is another Tourneur you should not miss.

Atmospheric account of a chance meeting on a train that leads a doctor (George Brent) into the strange world of a young woman (Hedy Lamar) and her much older husband (Paul Lukas) . The opening takes place on a night time train ride to New York through cascading rainfall, and the inclement weather conditions continue on into a snowy and cloudy New York of the early 1900's. A story of a rich and jealous older husband with a lovely young wife, whom he had groomed in Parisian salons to enter society, and now feels insecure when she's enjoying the very society that he paid thousands of dollars to educate her to be in, who grew up in Austria and became laden with guilt and who now is so damaged that he can't see clearly enough to recognize his own good circumstances, and thus ruins everything. Director Jacques Tourneur dissects this pathological family (they have a son whom they keep in a bedroom which is up a spiral staircase) with great attention, creating some believable menace in true psychological suspense style. The need for a hero figure (Brent) to rescue the pretty Lamar and her innocent young son and provide a suitable conclusion, and Lamar's rather distracted and distant acting style are legitimate quibbles, but the overall tone is intelligently dark and serious.