Dark Waters

The imperiled woman in a great spooky house remains one of Hollywood's most honorable of hackneyed plots. These `jeps' ask us to accept that a woman, usually young, beautiful and sophisticated, sinks deeper into danger despite all the warning signals blinking around her. Still, a few directors have managed to elevate the material a notch or two above the predictable: Jacques Tourneur in Experiment Perilous, Fritz Lang in House by the River, Douglas Sirk in Sleep, My Love. Any hopes that Andre de Toth (The Pitfall, Crime Wave) might work the same black magic crumble, however, with his early Gothic noir, Dark Waters.

Merle Oberon – a classic Eurasian beauty but never much of an actor – is the survivor of a ship torpedoed by the Japanese in the East Indies (the ship set out from what the movie calls Batavia but we know as Jakarta). Somehow, she ends up in New Orleans, where an aunt and uncle keep a moldering plantation in nearby bayou country. She arrives there, under the care of a doctor (Franchot Tone; has it ever been remarked that he and Ralph Bellamy share the same set of vocal cords?). But, upon her arrival, we start to suspect , long before she, that ALL IS NOT AS IT SEEMS.

The aunt (Fay Bainter) and uncle extend her a back-handed welcome but seem preoccupied; they also seem to get pieces of the family history wrong. In addition, they're under the thumb of their plantation manager (Thomas Mitchell, who of course got his start running Tara) and his weasly assistant, Elisha Cook, Jr. (who does his expected shtik; did he never weary of playing this dumb but cocky chump?).

The story advances neither swiftly nor arrestingly. Attempts to `gaslight' Oberon amount to a bedside lamp that switches off then on again, and distant voices beckoning her to the quicksand which studs the surrounding swampland. Slowly, the light begins to dawn behind Oberon's big, perfectly made-up eyes...

And that's just about all there is to Dark Waters – hot spells and Spanish moss. De Toth, who was able to peer deep into the background of middle-class complacency in The Pitfall, a few years later, seems to have taken a case of the vapors amid all this languid Louisiana atmosphere. All he comes up with is this slow, flaccid film.

Merle Oberon (Leslie) is a traumatized survivor of a sinking ship and Dr Alan Napier recommends that she goes to recuperate with her uncle and aunt on a plantation in the Louisiana swamps. Her mother and father have not survived the sea tragedy and she is loaded. However, she has never met her aunt or uncle. Does the visit do her any good……? Is her trauma sending her over the edge…?

Is everything as it seems in this film? No, it isn't but I don't think that it is the intention of the director to hide this. Perhaps this film could have been more suspenseful but the story still grips and has tense moments as we follow Oberon's awakening to what is going on around her. In fact, it is quite a rewarding moment when we watch her realize that things are not right. Thankfully, she has strength to take the situation on as opposed to crumble as a victim.

The cast are all good with the exception of that forever unconvincing loser that is Elisha Cooke Jr. In this film, he plays, once again, a heavy. How!!?? He's about 2 foot high, scrawny and more like a gimp than a threatening presence to anybody living in the real world. However, yet again, he turns up in a pretty decent film - see also "Phantom Lady" (1944), "I Wake Up Screaming" (1941) and "The Maltese Falcon" (1941). Check out "The Lodger" for another good film from this year starring Merle Oberon.

"Dark Waters" is a better film than I remembered it as being when I saw it around 10 years ago and so I recommend a viewing.

Leslie Calvin is the sole survivor of a submarine sinking and, having seen other survivors die before they could be saved, her mental health has suffered and it is only the help of Dr George Grover that sees her making progress. To aid her recovery she heads out to see her relatives on their plantation but is bothered when nobody is there to collect her. Arriving at the home she meets her aunt, uncle and extended family for the first time and tries to settle in. However a series of mental triggers set Leslie's recovery back and it almost seems that her family are deliberately being insensitive.

With very few votes on this site, I decided to watch this film on the basis that very few people have seen it. Unsure of the plot I braced myself for a bland melodrama when the film opened with a hysterical Leslie but I was pleasantly surprised when the film became something much darker and more interesting. I can't go into more detail without spoiling it for you, but the plot sees a group of people trying to drive Leslie deeper into her madness; on this level it maybe doesn't work quite as well as it should have done because the plot does have holes in it but these are not that much of an issue because it does manage to do a lot of other things well enough to cover the gaps and carry the film.

The first of these is the atmosphere, created by lighting, cinematography and direction. It is as close as a real swamp and has a genuine air of tension and creepiness to it throughout. The material is a lot darker than I had expected and, once the real hearts of the characters are revealed I was quite taken by the quite moral void they seemed to inhabit. Of course without the actors this wouldn't work as well as it did but a mix of good performances and clever casting means it was pretty good. Oberon is excellent in the lead role and is convincing in the way in which she seems unsure of her own sanity while also being genuinely afraid of things around her (or herself?). Beside her Tone is far too bland and is much of a muchness but does meet the requirements on him well enough. Mitchell is a great bit of casting; much more famous for warmer, comic roles, he seems to relish the character and does well for the majority before excelling at the end. Cook Jr is as good as he often can be and plays "naïve/unhinged sidekick" pretty well. The rest of the cast are all strong enough but for me the film is worth seeing for the from Oberon and Mitchell.

Overall this is a very enjoyable little film that trades a lot on its atmosphere and main performances. The story is interesting even if it does have basic holes in it and dealing with logic problems by just ignoring them but for the reasons above I think this is well worth a wet weekend's viewing.

With a dark pertinence for the time of its release, Oberon is the scarred, traumatized survivor of a German U boat attack, which took the lives of her parents.

Invited to stay with family, who she has never met, alarm bells are ringing almost immediately when nobody meets her at the station and her relatives deny any knowledge of the telegram she sent, prior to her arrival. Shortly afterwards, the aforementioned correspondence is clearly seen....being slung out with the garbage. Herein lies Dark Waters' fundamental dilemma, it simply shows its foreboding hand way too soon. There is something stereotypical about the characters: Thomas Mitchell, dapper, cultivated, avuncular and seemingly unflappable, until he explodes over a plate of fried chicken. (Check out Alan Arkin in Little Miss Sunshine for further insight into this clearly sensitive subject). Faye Bainter is the affectionate, fussy, slightly eccentric aunt, who arouses Oberon's suspicions by putting her foot in it whenever she opens her mouth. Creepy, flirty Elisha Cook Jr, is the plantation boss, who Oberon finds deeply unsettling. At the opposite end of the spectrum, local doctor, Franchot Tone is a pillar of society and all round Mr Nice Guy.

Oberon feels increasingly threatened by otherworldly voices and a disconnected radio blasting out. Refusing food so often, that she must have been a prime candidate for Slimmer of the Year long before the final credits. Despite the impending doom, the movie never quite ignites or captivates. The waters may be dark, but they're not very deep. Everything comes off as mechanical and formulaic rather than spontaneous. In short the movie is missing that essential WOW! Factor, until.....the taut, tense exciting climax, amplified by its isolated and treacherous location, without which Dark Waters would be little more than a muddy puddle.

A young woman, Leslie (Merle Oberon) is one of only a few survivors in a submarine accident that claimed the lives of her parents. Deeply traumatized, she goes to a relative's plantation to heal. She soon realizes that she's not safe, and turns to the local doctor (Franchot Tone) for help.

Elisha Cook, Jr., Fay Bainter, and Thomas Mitchell are the plantation residents, with Mitchell playing against type - rather than the absent-minded Uncle Billy of "It's a Wonderful Life," or the befuddled Mr. O'Hara, he's a calm conniver.

An exotically beautiful woman of mysterious background, Merle Oberon is excellent as Leslie, a real victim of post-traumatic syndrome if there ever was one. The elegant Tone gives her good support.

Nice, atmospheric film with a tense ending.