Sleep, My Love…not a sleeper at all!

Recently, I was able to catch a movie I had never seen. Imagine that, and I thought, I had about seen every classic movie under the sun! Not I know I have thousands more to see before I walk through the pearly gates. Sleep, my Love, (1948) with Claudette Corbert, Don Ameche, Robert Cummings, and Hazel Brooks, is one psychological thriller you will not want to miss.

Just think “Gaslight,” with Ingrid Bergman, & Charles Boyer, and you’ll get the gist of the plot. The movie opens with a speeding train and wealthy, Sutton Place resident, Alison Courtland (Claudette Colbert) wakes up in the middle of the night on the speeding train, but has no idea how she got there. Alison lives in Sutton Place, an exclusive area of NYC, how did she end up in Boston, on a train? She panics and begins to scream. A doctor attends to her and convinces her she has just had a nightmare and all will be alright. Alison finds a gun in her purse but has no idea how that got there. After she is treated, she meets a fast talking elderly woman who accompanies her to the airport where she will board a plane back home. We later find out that this woman is all part of a big plot conceived by her cad husband, to make poor Alison think she has lost her mind.

Alison’s husband, Richard, played by Don Ameche, has a honey, Daphne, played by Hazel Brooks, who is increasingly growing impatient with the clandestine meetings. I mean, Emerald bracelets, and diamonds can buy a man but so much time. She wants it all: “the house, life, clothes, cocktail parties, & the man.” Richard assembles a couple of low lives to help him get rid of his wife, Charles Verney and his wife. Verney is a struggling photographer who is looking to make a fast buck. He trains Richard in the use of drugs and hypnosis. Richard begins to drug his wife almost every night, and using hypnosis to make her kill herself, so he can live happily ever after with his floozy girl, Daphne in Sutton place. As Daphne pushes Richard to get it done, he gets sloppy and his plot is foiled by a wannabe sleuth, Robert Cummings, who is now falling for the victim, Alison.

For those of you who love a mystery, you may get annoyed because we are made aware of the plot early on. But the movie’s mood will keep you glued because we want to know what happens to the scoundrels whom have contrived the creative plot. And boy, do you really want the cad husband to get his. Along the way we are treated to some intense scenes, the speeding train, and a hold your breath balcony moment. The house on Sutton Place is wonderfully moody with it’s ominous spiral staircase that appear to go on forever. The use of shadows in the house gives you a feel of the evil lurking in the grand house.

My only issues with the movie are, Ameche as the cad husband was very weak. Raymond Burr appears about two times in the film as a glum, imposing, but clueless, detective. I couldn’t help thinking, that Burr should have played the husband, and Ameche the detective. Claudette Corbert as the clueless, and doting wife, was good, but somehow not convincing. Hazel Brooks as the floozy, icy, but sizzling femme fatal was excellent! However, when Daphne opened her mouth with that thick Bronx accent, I couldn’t help thinking what a fiasco it would’ve been had she gotten her way. Maybe this would’ve been the ultimate revenge for Alison.