Before I Wake (1956)

A Disappointing Continuation

This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

Having myself been subject to the whims of a sanctimonious, humourless and controlling stepmother, every time the second Mrs Haddon appeared I would dearly have loved to see the poisonous old dragon punched in the face. The village are supposed to have known stepdaughter April and her real parents all her life but are remarkably quick to take her stepmother's side against her; although it's characteristic of the film's clumsy scripting that April keeping hurting her case by making her opposition to this cuckoo in the nest too obvious from the word go and blurting out wild allegations before she's bothered to gather sufficient evidence against her.The plot is sufficiently engrossing, however, and the ghastly Florence sufficiently loathsome, to keep you watching in anticipation of eventually seeing her get her comeuppance; maybe falling to her death or crashing her car attempting to escape. But it instead ends with a whimper rather than a bang, with a talky conclusion and the unbelievable revelation (which to compound the felony we're told rather than shown) that the handsome hero just happened to be passing by at 2am to provide salvation.

This is a modern take on the old "Cinderella" fairy tale, with a wicked stepmother, but the stepsisters have been replaced by a subservient and gossip-mongering maid.This is a well-made psychological thriller with many Hitchcockian touches. A recurrent topic in many thrillers is that you tell people that somebody is going to kill you, but no one believes you.The only disappointment is the ending. I had wished that the stepmother was innocent and that Mr. and Mrs. Haddon had died of natural causes. If this solution had been chosen, the film would have been excellent. It would have made it far more superior than other films, in which the most probable suspect indeed is the culprit. What a twist it would have been. If so, April's allegations towards her stepmother would have been attributed to a young woman's neurosis. Perhaps such an idea was too radical in the 1950's.Jean Kent is great as the stepmother. She somewhat made me think of Agnes Moorehead.April Haddon (Mona Freeman) is called home from her studies at the University of California to attend her father's funeral. One year earlier her beloved mother had died. Her father remarried Florence (Jean Kent). The villagers love and believe her. She is looked upon as a benign woman. Florence winds both the local police officer and the old doctor around her little finger.April feels that she has become a stranger in her own home. The furniture is gone. "Dust collectors", Florence Hatton unfeelingly utters. The former servants have been fired. Florence doesn't allow her stepdaughter to smoke or drink alcohol.Florence tells her that Mr. Haddon was run over by a boat when he was fishing. April is convinced that it wasn't an accident and that he was murdered. The police hasn't managed to find a boat with marks on the bow.April gets more chocked when Florence tells her that her mother was an alcoholic, and that she was her nurse during the last part of her life. This was not the mother that Florence used to know, and she doesn't believe it. Instead she believes that Florence killed both her mother and her father. April locates a boat with marks on the bow, and that was her family's boat.According to Mr. Haddon's will April is going to inherit the bulk of the estate when she turns 21 years old. She fears that her stepmother is trying to get rid of her before that.The relationship between the two women becomes more and more tense, and Florence eventually becomes like a clone of Mrs. Danvers in Alfred Hitchcock's "Rebecca".

Gibraltar Films must have considered it a real feather in their cap to feature Mona Freeman who, even though towards the end of her career, was still youthful looking enough to be believable as the young girl, fresh out of college, who returns to England for her father's funeral. I found Freeman to be irritatingly abrasive and completely out classed in the acting stakes by Jean Kent. In a story similar to "My Cousin Rachel", Kent plays the sinister stepmother Florence - well, sinister to young April's eyes, to the rest of the village she is the Lady Bountiful. April returns to a changed home - not cozy but austere, with lots of odd modern art hanging on the walls. Her "There shall be no smoking or drinking in this house" and "I know these toys are sentimental but they are such dust collectors" don't exactly make April's homecoming welcoming!! The next day the unthinkable happens - she misses her father's funeral and even though Florence tries her best to stop the rumours, gossipy servant Elsie tries to inform everyone that it was because she was drunk!! And with sayings like "the apple doesn't fall far from the tree" April then has to deal with another unpalatable question - did her mother die an alcoholic?Jean Kent who admired Claire Trevor built up a strong following as Gainsborough's bad girl of the movies, with roles in "Good Time Girl", "Fanny By Gaslight" etc but it was her subtle evilness as the wife in "The Browning Version" that bought her to prominence. Her Florence is more of the same vein. She is much admired in the village for not only having dignity at her husband's death but the way she tirelessly nursed April's mother through her final illness and April's bull in a china shop attitude is not winning her any friends. Even her childhood pal now the town doctor (Maxwell Reed) sings Florence's praises. But Florence doesn't get it all her own way - April tracks down some old family friends who positively don't like her but have no proof of her murderous intentions. And April also sees her drop her guard when she realises that because the newer will was left unsigned the one that stands leaves April as sole beneficiary!! Will she make it to her 21st birthday when she will inherit the bulk of the estate - already Florence is planning a nice little party for her!!!Maxwell Reed, after a stint in the Merchant Navy, tried his hand at movies and became a true teen idol being so many girl's heart throb. For a while he was married to Joan Collins.

Mona Freeman is the usual transplanted American star in this barnstorming thriller.Kent is you could say the female Tod Slaughter as she seems to relish every indignity she heaps on to the petrified Freeman.Quite what persuaded her late father to stipulate that Freeman should stay with Kent till she is 21 is rather unclear.However this is one piece of good news as it gives her a chance to accomplish her ambition of a hat trick of murders.She attempts to kill Freeman by jumping out of a moving car but that doesn't work,So she gets the local doctor to help drug her the subsequently ties her into a speeding motorboat headed for the rocks.Alas she does'nt succeed and Freeman is rescued and finds love with Maxwell reed.An enjoyable thriller.