‘Obsession’ or — Storm Warning?
Calm and collected London doctor Clive Riordan (Robert Newton) has discovered his wife, Storm (Sally Gray), has been cheating on him… again. He intends to kill her latest lover, an American called Bill Kronin (Phil Brown), and it’ll be the perfect murder. You see, Storm appears to be a nymphomaniac with an endless series of lovers and Bill, as Clive points out to him, is simply the last in a long line of straws. This will not be a crime of passion but one that has been carefully planned by a cool and calculating mind.
With that Riordan leads Kronin off into the dark of night at gunpoint and to his inevitable demise.
And that’s all I want to say about Edward Dmytryk’s ‘Obsession’ (1949), aka ‘The Hidden Room’, as a huge part of this film’s fun is trying to figure out Riordan’s plan. We don’t know what he’s up to, how he killed Kronin or what he’s done with the body but this lack of comprehension means we’re watching everything Riordan does like a hawk. This is the reason why when Riordan makes a pot of coffee in real time we’re completely mesmerised by this deeply mundane activity because we know he’s making it for a function other than his own consumption.
And when we do discover what he’s done with Kronin that hovering sense of uncertainty only increases because the question is not just “How?” but now also “When?”.
This “How to commit the perfect murder” trope is something the script delights in itself with the characters freely discussing the various slips and mistakes previous killers, such as Dr. Crippen, made which invariably gave them away. But Riordan won’t be making any of those, pal.
And then his wife’s dog, Monty, goes missing.
Storm is English so she doesn’t really mind if her husband does away with one of her lovers but killing her dog is going too far! So the police become involved, but they’re looking for a missing dog and not a dead man.
This leads to a remarkable moment when Riordan is actually going to kill Monty and in quite the most horrific way imaginable. “Monty!” we want to scream because we genuinely think the film is going to do what no other movie would ever dare and that’s bump-off a cute little doggy. Then again, the film teases us into thinking it’s going to do a lot of horrific things. At one point there’s a moment that, if followed through on, would’ve resulted in a stark naked Riordan covered in blood and standing over a mass of dismembered body parts whilst holding a saw.
This grisly aspect gives ‘Obsession’ a distinctly modern feel, almost predating films like ‘Hostel’ (2005) or ‘Saw’ (2004). There’s also a moment when Kronin gets his hands on Monty that’s reminiscent of a similar scene in ‘Silence of the Lambs’ (1991).
Of course, this is still very much an English affair (albeit with a delicious American noir veneer) so manners and decorum are always maintained. Riordan even has a train set, his own little empire he can control like a god (Dmytryk introduces us to this miniature world with a touch of mischievous brilliance by filming the models as though they were full scale thus allowing him to present us with an image of jolting surrealism as Riordan’s giant hand comes out of the heavens to pluck up a steam engine).
This English urbanity is perfectly captured by Robert Newton’s uncharacteristically restrained performance as Riordan, a man whose motives we can understand even as his intentions chill us. And our eyes never leave him for a second as he laconically goes about his meticulously deadly business.
‘Obsession’ is a wonderful thriller directed with style by Dmytryk and enhanced by an energetic score by Nino Rota. It’s tense, smart, witty and packed with surprises, although the biggest surprise comes at the end when, without giving anything away, we discover Riordan’s wife really IS a raging nymphomaniac as she exits the film with the explicit intention of… shagging her way round the whole of South America? Goodness. Even Monty’s appalled!
