The initial layout is Rebecca, streamlined
as the husband’s gullwing Mercedes, plush as Ernest Gold’s score. This is given
a sharply Freudian turn, the new bride hated her own mother, just such a woman
as the late wife. Finally, the crude shocks inflicted on the heroine are a Gaslight
trick.
The meaning is stated from a story by Henry James,
“The Beast in the Jungle”, described as a tale of ambition unrealized.
Hitchcock’s old beachcomber is played by the
director as a young gardener, an invert and almost a cretin. Charles Beaumont
may have taken his inspiration for “The Jungle” (The Twilight Zone) from
the novella mentioned in John Kneubuhl’s screenplay.
Then There Were
Three
Stragglers in Italy, a lieutenant, a sergeant who
hates ninety-day wonders, a GI who pushes back when he’s pushed around.
The fourth is a kraut stuck in to catch a partisan
leader.
The ringer is likeable, easygoing, kills a Jew in
the bunch to free a German prisoner, sleeps with an Italian collaborator
ostracized by her family, kills an Ohioan who finds a couple of German-made
batteries for the radio transmitter he’s carrying.
The three nail him with the partisan, his story is
the Italian was trying to roll him after too much grappa, the Germans
shoot him in his American uniform.
Filmed on location with an Italian crew and a
droll, accurate manner of conveying realism.
The Night of the Legion of Death
The
Wild Wild West
A pleasant-faced administrator runs the territory
for his ruthless aide-de-camp, the drive for statehood
is abandoned on the untimely death of its nominal leader.
The theme is characterized even more explicitly in
“The Legend” (Mission: Impossible).