Gizmo This is a cracking little thriller with so much going for it: a huge and wonderfully detailed period reconstruction of a foggy London neighbourhood (in a studio in California), Bernard Herrman's thunderous score, the still-chilling bonfire night scene and inferno-like ending, and constantly eerie, inventive and propulsive photography that could just as easily have come from Citizen Kane or Strangers On A Train. It also features one of the best opening scenes I've seen, with the camera swooping up from the cobbled streets, swiftly through an upstairs window and into the eyes of a first person shooter taking someone's life - Hardcore Henry 70 years before its time. I knew I'd seen Laird Cregar, the lead in the film, before and wondered what became of him later, only to discover that this was in fact his last film, released two months after his death at the age of 31. A soft, hazy and monstrous performance in the lumbering body of a gamma-radiated Oscar Wilde.The film somehow falls maybe just one small step short of true greatness, and it's hard to say why - perhaps Laird is not likeable or compelling enough, or one is not made to care enough for any of the characters - but certainly it's as good as many of Hitchcock's second-tier films, such as Rope (written by the same author, incidentally) and really deserves to be much better known.

begob In old London town an upcoming composer struggles to reconcile his place in polite society with his suspicions over his behaviour during stress induced blackouts. Then two beautiful women get involved.Enjoyable melodrama loosely based on DJ&MH. The three lead actors are all memorable: the composer with his hyperactive eyes, the smile of his female friend, and the sex-bomb that takes advantage. The pace is good and the music does its job well, with a very convincing turn at the keyboard which fooled me into thinking the actor was playing brilliantly.Only real weakness - the good romance remained superficial. Best thing is the crowd scenes - all done on set, but full of life and rhythm, with great extras and lovely details, creating a rich atmosphere.Overall, good entertainment.ps. The composer and sex-bomb suffered untimely deaths in the real world.

marymorrissey and I think Mr. composer actually played the music himself! "Hangover Square" kept me well occupied today for about half the time that the plumbers were here, making big drama about a few repairs, making a career of it as Tura Satana says in Faster Pussycat. It's a marvelous cinematic sensation about a classical composer whose modernism music is by Berhard Hermann lots of tritones and rather nice it is as is this nice girl - kind of a cross between Laura Linney and Cookie Mueller - whose sole ambition is how to help her man's career and whose father is a conductor and who's pretty much managed to swing a commission for a new concerto for the piano he will play. Liberace this man is not. The Actor who looks to have been born to play Oscar Wilde (and it says "on the internet" that he forced Hollywood to notice him by staging a 1 man show about Oscar), Laird Cregar evidently he died trying to transform himself into "a beautiful man" at 33 his dieting for this film killed him it says here another source told me that he died as a result of plastic surgery. he actually looked better at 300 lbs. judging by the photos I've found on the internet. Anyway our beastly Beethoven has been blacking out from overwork and someone always seems to die a violent death during these blackouts. a hussy of the worst kind - an actress - who's about the most heinous unmarried hussy without a hymen who ever was, the most tawdry tart since Marlene in "The Devil is a Woman" gets her claws into him & starts making him write pop songs. this takes place in ... the teens? gas lamp/gaslight time 20th century I think. what triggers his quite apparently murderous blackouts? they occur when he hears a jangling "discordant sound" he strangles a Jew, tries to strangle a cat and even the nice girl who fortunately doesn't notice who it is for aside from her man she only has eyes for her piano. indeed perhaps the piano is her lover. she wraps herself around it! it's quite something historical when he finally gets rid of the hussy using the knotted garroting technique for it's guy Fawkes holiday and he is able to get rid of the corpse by putting her body on this pyre of guy Fawkes effigies just before it's torched foreshadowing more fiery flights in the near future but none's the wiser except eventually sadly he doesn't kill killjoy George sander who of all things plays the "good guy" a doctor who insists on some revelations just before he's about to go out to take the stage to premiere his concerto! the Dr (the ass!) worries that the music will trigger an episode. finally .... Our man, Maestro Bone, collapses because he's being stalked by Scotland yard during right his concert during the Adagio and while he agrees to relinquish the solo part which is taken over by the nice miss (linney/mueller) he doesn't want to leave the building as anyone there would, in fact, he wants at least to hear his concerto, even though you can barely hear the piano part once the delicate little miss takes over. naturally he starts a fire to occupy his pursuers as a later result of which soon enough chaos erupts in the concert hall the musicians and audience begin pouring out the exits along with smoke but the composer seizes a figurine or bust I should say a figurine but a large one, about as menacing a figurine as is to be found decorating. a strange weapon indeed but in his diabolical and talented hands the figurine as "played" by Mr. Cregar and somehow manages to force most of the public back into the concert arena! the nice woman can't drag him away from the Steinway and George sander grabs her and drags her away, saving Laura Linney/Cookie Mueller at least. as he begins playing everyone else runs right out again, as who would not! talk about goetterdaemmerung! leaving us with a fiery conclusion of both concerto and career. the piano concerto is rather nice. . .. oh and the actor seems to be playing the music, which demonstrates you don't need 150000 notes/minute a concerto to make. . . additions:I was very surprised and pleased that Hollywood acknowledged the existence of the kind of music Mr. Bone produced, even if it was in connection with a dark character. Even if he killed someone, I beg to differ with the biographical essay for LC which indicates that the character he played in HS is "despicable". That is hardly the case!

Scarecrow-88 A concert pianist is plagued with a mental illness where a specific sound triggers a murderous impulse, this time when he commits murder remains buried in the back of his mind, not understanding the sequence of events which arise, awakening remembering nothing..fragments emerge as time goes by which leave him puzzled, wondering if he may've committed the murders reported.Laird Cregar's phenomenal performance as the haunted pianist, superb sets recreating the Victorian era of London, sweepingly gorgeous camera-work, and a magnificent score from Bernard Hermann all add to what is another masterwork from John Brahm. 20th Century Fox gave Brahm the right tools to bring to life a time and place that feels so incredibly authentic. Unlike The Lodger, Brahm's other masterpiece(..or in my mind anyway), the film is solely focused on Cregar, he gets the entire film. The Lodger provided the great George Sanders with a more lucrative role, but even in Hangover Square, he still impresses(..when does he not?)as a police psychiatrist who suspects Cregar might be the person responsible for the murder of a crooked antique dealer, and behind an attempted strangling of Barbara Chapman(Faye Marlowe). Linda Darnell has a juicy part as Netta Longdon, a dance hall girl who uses George Harvey Bone's(Cregar)affection for her to gain success, secretly wooing a theater producer, Eddie Carstairs(Glenn Langan). Barbara adores Bone and pleads with him to continue a concerto which could bring him the fame and fortune he deserves, knowing that his talent is better utilized elsewhere besides preparing music for Netta, who doesn't love him. We watch as Netta manipulatively goads Bone into providing her with a concerto that will push her over into stardom, playing on his adoration for her, understanding that once he gives her what she so desires, she can dump him for Carstairs. This will undoubtedly seal her fate, as Bone, after entering into another lapse, strangles her, placing her corpse in a bonfire.I think maybe it's a bit unfair to compare Hangover Square with The Lodger since both are infinitely different films(..and Cregar, to his credit, is able to create two distinctively different characters), but I think what set the latter apart was the star power, with not only Sanders having a much richer part, but the likes of a Merle Oberon and Cedric Hardwicke included, it has advantages in this area alone. I still think Hangover Square benefits because Cregar has the central core of the film based around him, not having to share with other stars. It's a tragedy such a talent as Cregar didn't have longer to live, taken far too early, I can't help but ponder all those future performances we'll never get to admire and appreciate. His overwhelming power on screen, the way he can grip you without uttering a word, this kind of skill isn't manufactured, but a gift so few really have and others covet dearly. And, Cregar had one of the most fantastic voices I've ever heard, and the levels in performance he could achieve with the few characters he presented us before his untimely death will stand the test of time. I consider it a privilege to experience such performances as Cregar gave us in The Lodger and Hangover Square. The fiery finale as the concert hall burns around Bone as he continues to play his concerto is unforgettable, a finale curtain call to an icon.