Crossroads (1942)

Expected more

Excellent but underrated film

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

This is a superb amnesia thriller directed by Jack Conway (1887-1952, no relation to actor Tom Conway whose real name was not Conway), which he made towards the end of his career. He was famous for so many noted earlier films, A TALE OF TWO CITIES (1935), A YANK AT OXFORD (1938), RED-HEADED WOMAN (1932), LIBELED LADY (1936), and so on. In this excellent film we have superb interplay between the lead actors William Powell and Hedy Lamarr. Conway had worked with Powell before. Powell was able to transfer his delightful and insouciant on screen relationship which he had had with Myrna Loy in the six 'Thin Man' films and several other screen pairings with her to Hedy Lamarr in this one, with the greatest of ease. This shows pretty clearly that it was Powell's wit and personality which were the ultimate origin of his magnificent on screen charm with women. (My brief acquaintance with Loy when I was young had already convinced me that the sparkle did not originate with her, and that her part in it was reactive, just as Lamarr's is here. However, both Loy and Lamarr, who in real life was something of a genius who invented a naval torpedo, were highly intelligent women who were able to decode and return the Powellian signals and amplify them for the camera. Above all, Powell needed intelligence and wit in the women with whom he interacted for his magic formula to work.) This film has a superb script, although I would say that the intensity and the mystery sag towards the end because too much is revealed before the finish by letting us see the villains plotting, at which point the mystery leaks out of the balloon to a large extent. It would have been better to keep all the revelations to the very end and to have constructed a more dramatic finale which would have released all of the suspense at the last moment. However, the plot is not a simple one. William Powell plays a French diplomat in Paris who cannot remember anything about his life before July 27, 1922, the day of the Marseilles to Paris train crash in which many people were killed, and when he suffered severe brain damage. After the crash, he was identified by someone, so that he knows his name, but nothing else. He and Lamarr have a happy marriage and his career is thriving. But suddenly he receives a strange letter from a stranger demanding one million francs, which he says he is owed. The man is arrested for extortion but in his defence at his trial accuses Powell of being someone else and living under a false identity. The man says Powell is called Jean Pelletier, but Powell has never heard this name. A complex blackmail plot evolves, whereby Powell himself becomes convinced of his identity as Jean Pelletier, especially when he meets his own 'mother'. Meanwhile, Hedy Lamarr is getting more and more up tight, because of these events, and wondering whether she really knows her husband at all. Everything is greatly complicated by the sudden appearance at the trial of Basil Rathbone, who testifies that Powell is not Jean Pelletier, but then afterwards approaches him wanting a million francs for his silence, saying that he lied in court and that Powell really is Jean Pelletier. Pelletier, by the way, was a bank robber and a murderer, so not the sort of person one wants as an alter ego, or even as an ego. Thrown into the mix is the sultry and slinky Claire Trevor, always a favourite femme fatale. She says she and Powell were once in love, when he was Jean Pelletier, and she has a photo of them together to prove it, which she wears in a locket round her neck. Powell looks insufficiently interested in Trevor, considering how intriguing she is, not to mention attractive. But then he has Hedy Lamarr, so there is presumably no contest. It is an excellent yarn, and although it does not keep you biting your nails until the very end, at least it does so until near the end, and even then things remain ambiguous. So there is plenty of wondering to do, and those are the best kind of films.

While TCM showed this Movie on Basil Rathbone Day, he was not the featured character. It was William Powell of Thin Man fame that was central to the film, and who made it very enjoyable.Powell played a French diplomat, married to the absolutely lovely Hedy Lamarr.Rathbone and Claire Trevor, with help from Oscar nominee Margaret Wycherly (you will remember her as Sgt. York's mother) hatch a plot to blackmail Powell for a crime committed prior to his present memory when he had amnesia 1 years ago.As you would expect, there are some great plot twists in the last scene, and Powell and Lamarr can go off happily to his new post as Ambassador of Brazil. Lucky man, that Powell.

Not a lot to add to what others have suggested, but this is a very lovely bit of movie making.Powell really gets to display the acting chops that he had in spades. His ability to show pain, uncertainty and angst is not something that he got to do a lot, and it's enjoyable here. And the writing really helps. Powell seems, in so many ways, to be a contemporary actor, despite the thin mustache! He was just such a natural!Hedy is mostly eye candy, but that's not her fault. Felix Bressart puts in a spot-on performance. He really nails his role beautifully. Trevor and Rathbone are solid, as always.And this movie is really shot well, too. Great B & W photography that helps maintain a noir- esquire mood.

The film involves a French government worker (William Powell) who all of a sudden is accused of having another identity several years ago involving a murder and stolen money. Hedy Lamarr plays the wife of the French government employee. This movie had me second guessing whether William Powell did have amnesia or if he was being "conned" into a past history for which he had no recollection (he has suffered a coma several years ago). Eventually, William Powell does figure it all out and I thought I was looking at the Nick Charles character piecing together all of the evidence at the end of the movie. The only thing missing was Myrna Loy and Asta. A somewhat different role for William Powell in this film. Instead of the "take charge" persona that you often see for him in other movies, he is the one who is totally unsure of himself in this film. A somewhat refreshing change of pace for him. Hedy doesn't have that much of an impact in this movie, but is still her usual glamorous self. Claire Trevor and Basil Rathbone portray the major villains. Felix Bressart (from the Shop Around the Corner) plays a psychologist friend of William Powell.