When Fox released their latest DVD of THE UNDYING MONSTER, it included a featurette on director Brahm called: CONCERTOS MACABRE: THE FILMS OF JOHN BRAHM.
Brahm migrated from Germany (during the rise of Nazism) to England, and then to Hollywood where Darryl F. Zanuck was looking for someone to direct a Gothic horror film called "The Undying Monster". He did such a masterful job on the film that it was often referred to as a B-film with an A-film quality, largely due to the expressionistic use of shadows and the atmospheric B&W photography. Zanuck was more than satisfied with the job and promptly gave him other assignments.
The main discussion here is on two of Brahm's best known films, THE LODGER and HANGOVER SQUARE--the first story with its emphasis on water and the influence it has on "the lodger" and the second dealing with the element of fire and how it is used at the start and finish of the Gothic melodrama. Bernard Herrmann's valuable contribution to the scoring of HANGOVER SQUARE and his eleven minute "Concerto Macabre" is also revealed, the film itself regarded as a masterpiece of its kind.
Informative and entertaining, with clips from the films discussed, it's a shame that Brahm drifted into television features in the '50s and never returned to the film noir genre on the big screen.
