mark.waltz For attractive spinster Katharine Hepburn, the sudden introduction to the handsome Robert Taylor sweeps her off her feet and leads her straight into matrimony. She's got family present. He doesn't. The sudden revelation that he has a brother whom he hates begins to disturb the new Mrs., and several other factors raise suspicions for her that all is not well. A certain concerto Hepburn plays disturbs Taylor violently, and questions about the missing brother's whereabouts raise more suspicions. Others get testy every time that the brother is mentioned, leading to a dark conclusion where having curiosity proves to be quite a dangerous trait.All four of the great stars (Hepburn, Crawford, Davis, Stanwyck) went from playing strong will and independent women to ladies in jeopardy, evidence that times were changing post World War II. Hepburn seems to be stretching the truth in trying to make us believe that she could be anything but formidable. Taylor's moody and neurotic, so most of the mystery surrounds him. All of the questions seem to have answers to them on the way when Hepburn meets Robert Mitchum, the caretaker of a woodsy cottage owned by the family, but those answers aren't what she's expected. This is the only film noir that Hepburn ever did, and the only one directed by Vincent Minnelli, an odd choice for this assignment.A talented supporting cast includes Edmund Gwenn as Hepburn's lovable father, Marjorie Main as their longtime housekeeper, Clinton Sundberg as the bookkeeper for Taylor's company and Jayne Meadows as a nosy socialite who quizzes Hepburn on Taylor's brother but obviously knows more than she's letting on. "I Love Lucy" fans will be delighted to see Kathryn Card in a showy small part. The film is fairly intriguing, only slightly convoluted and glossy to the max. Hepburn and Taylor lack spark, hence their only film together, although I wouldn't have minded seeing Hepburn paired again with Mitchum, especially in their older years.

maurice yacowar Undercurrent is a prime example of gay director Minnelli's critique of American marriage as a stunting reduction of manhood. (As I recall, Robin Wood established this theme primarily in Minnelli's comedies — e.g., Father of the Bride, Meet Me In St Louis, The Long Long Trailer, etc. — and may or may not have examined it in this melodrama. It's decades since I read his work and my library is, alas, too long gone for me to check. So I may be reseeding Robin's field.) Katherine Hepburn's Ann is a spinsterish independent with no time for the conventional woman's compulsive search for a husband. She's content to work for her professor father in his home chemistry lab. Her father (Edmund Gwenn) is a cuddly, wise, loving man, as handy at the piano as at the test tubes, but he is utterly desexualized by his widowhood and name. She calls him Dinks! Her one suitor is a more paradoxically named prof, the boyish vapid Joseph Bangs (he doesn't). Against that backdrop of male impotence stand the powerful two Garroway brothers. Ann is instantly awed by Alan (Robert Taylor), the slick operator who made his fortune on a long- distance control device he supposedly invented in time to win WW II. But his reputation and character are both false. He killed the German scientist whose device he then stole. In another manipulation to show his power, Alan lets his new wife Ann embarrass herself in a dowdy dress at a reception for his flashy friends. That's to get their admiration for his ensuing remake. Only after marrying Alan does she hear he has a brother Michael (Robert Mitchum). Alan describes Michael as the family black sheep who robbed him to fund his wastrel life, then disappeared. The more he avoids discussing him the more Ann becomes intrigued by him. The two brothers recall the two additives Dinks dropped into the test tube to demonstrate the irreversible effects of love on a placid element. The tube (Ann) bubbleth over.Of course Taylor and Mitchum were box office and romance studs. Taylor was the pretty boy, Mitchum the seething danger. Their personae work here. This time it's the pretty boy who proves the murderous threat, the ostensible Bad Boy the hero.Ann becomes intrigued by what she hears about the mysteriously disappeared Michael. When she collects his rebound book of poems she finds a kindred spirit she initially thinks is her Alan — which ignites his anger and fear. When she visits Michael's ranch (now Alan's), she finds Michael's "home" profoundly more comforting than Alan's. To mislead her, Alan claims his mother, not Michael, played the Brahms she loves — and he hates. That music becomes the signature of Michael's return and their union. Both brothers are "undercurrents," Michael in his sensitive, creative and principled character, Alan by his willingness to kill. The film's major "undercurrent" is the irony that Ann married a fake but thereby finds her true love. She finds it by going beyond the structure — and strictures — of her marriage. The sensitive idealist and firmly individualistic man has no space in this film's institution of marriage. As the parties reveal, this world is gaudily artificial and ritualized, a glib dance of power. Michael spurned Sylvia's love because he met her through Alan and couldn't undermine him. So, too, he later suppresses his attraction to Ann. Michael disappeared because he couldn't bear the burden of bis brother's guilt — nor to betray him. He hoped the war would end his dilemma but he survived. Meeting Ann rouses him to confront him to save her. As nature overrules man's fragile and arbitrary social constructions, the wild horse stops Alan's attack on Ann and the truly civilized outsider Michael fulfills her.

tomsview This unusual old film has a great cast and an aura of mystery that is sustained almost to the end.This is a trip into "Rebecca" territory. Ann Hamilton (Katherine Hepburn) recently married to the seemingly perfect Alan Garroway (Robert Taylor) begins to feel uneasy about her husband's near obsessive hatred for his brother, Michael, who has disappeared some time before, but whose memory hangs over them until dark secrets are revealed.For a woman who most people described as the most confident and assured person they had ever met, Katherine Hepburn plays Ann as a sensitive and rather socially awkward woman. All the mannerisms and patterns of speech that made her so distinctive are on show here, but her character is disarmingly vulnerable.In Charles Tranberg's well researched, but casually edited, "Robert Taylor: A Biography", the author reveals the tensions on the set between the strong-willed actress and the two male leads, Robert Taylor and Robert Mitchum, as well as with Vincent Minnelli, the director.Hepburn thought Robert Taylor a lightweight, but later reversed her opinion calling him an underrated actor. As they only made this one movie together, she must have drawn on memories of "Undercurrent" to make such a comment. However she had no time for Robert Mitchum whom she bawled out after overhearing him imitate her accent.The film has a rich look even though nearly everything, including the exteriors, was shot on the sound stage.Herbert Stothart's score incorporates a great deal of Brahms Symphony No. 3, which plays a part in the story. Stothart's scores, unlike the original scores by contemporaries such as Korngold, Steiner and Herrmann, were often pastiches with many borrowings from the classical repertoire, but he created the lush MGM sound as much as anyone did. Although it adds to the sumptuous feel of this B/W film, if anyone's music conformed to the notion that movie music stole from the classics it was his."Undercurrent" was successful at the time, but I only caught up with it recently when Bill Collins presented it on Fox Classics, 70 years after it was made. It was a pleasant surprise. It was one I had missed during the period when hundreds of the movies from the Golden and Silver age of Hollywood were shown on Australian television.Fortunately, Turner Classics and Fox Classics have saved movies like this from disappearing from the small screen altogether.

Oak Owl "Undercurrent" (1946 - Drama / thriller) starring Katharine Hepburn, Robert Taylor, and Robert Mitchum. Also the first screen appearance by Jayne Meadows (a far cry from her role in the Honeymooners - she was lovely, had a nice speaking voice - not whiny at all, and was a good actress!)Directed by Vincente Minnelli, doing a noir-ish turn, capably. In addition to the suspense, there are some charming "family" moments, particularly between Hepburn and her father in the early scenes.Minnelli stumbled by casting Margery Main in this, but to the great relief of all concerned (including, from the looks of things, the other actors in the film) her role is limited to 6 or 8 lines. Her character is the only one that rings utterly false and forced. An unsuccessful attempt at injecting levity/"cute" into an otherwise straightforward suspense film.Robert Mitchum appears to be 16 years old in this; baby-faced and sober (unlike his later performances).Hepburn is great - none of the twitchy-mannerisms that sometimes plagued her characterizations. Believable in a different role from her usual tough-gal type.Robert Taylor! Who knew he was a really good actor? I thought he just did westerns.Worth renting.