Alex Deleon
Viewed at 2013 Los Angeles Film Noir festival image1.jpeg The Two Mrs. Carrolls" (1947) features a most improbable Humphrey Bogart as a talented but mentally disturbed painter (if you can buy that -- who makes a practice of painting portraits of his wives, as the Angel of Death and then knocking them off — in England, no less. With Bogie delivering his lines in unadulterated "Casablancanese", even in this genteel English environment, it looks like he's playing in a different flick than the rest of the cast, but who cares, when the lady he wants to murder is Barabara Stanwyck, as the surviving Mrs. Carroll!Far from a classic, but one for the books as perhaps the least known of all Bogart flicks – and rightfully so. You'll never see it on TCM, but Humphrey does chew up the scenery when he starts freaking out…(No one ever pulled one over on J. C. Dobbs). One of the extra delights of this film is the alluring A-list actress Alexis Smith, who tends to steal the show in the scenes where she appears and openly puts the make on Bogie in front of her high society mother and flustered wife Stanwyck. This one will make you loosen your critical straightjacket if you have it on. Redefines the classification "camp classic".
demelza3000
Others have described this movie pretty well, so I just wanted to add a few thoughts. This is a suspense drama released in 1947 starring Humphrey Bogart and Barbara Stanwyck. The plot and actors are OK, but I thought the big winner here was Edith Head. Her gowns and even the lounge wear is stunning in this movie. There is an attempt to portray the good girl in white and the bad girl (Alexis Smith) in black. Hats off to the hair and lighting guys too, Barbara Stanwyck is beautiful throughout. Bogarts' sudden headaches get ridiculous after awhile. The plot point I had the most trouble with is that the daughter only seems to go to school when dad needs to off a wife, yet she talks like a Rhodes Scholar. This movie will hold your attention, it just doesn't completely satisfy.
JohnHowardReid
Although credits are top-draw, production values are very moderate. Peter Godfrey's direction is also a mite disappointing. Neither he nor screenplay writer Thomas Job have made much attempt to open up the stage play. Instant information dialogue is put across with a disconcerting lack of subtlety in both writing and delivery. Ann Carter's unrealistically precocious child and Nigel Bruce's blustering, stereotyped doctor are the worst offenders. Bogart himself delivers another of his very capable studies in psychopathology. Barbara Stanwyck is also cast strictly to type, but she too comes across effectively. Both she and Bogart give seemingly effortless portrayals as they both have parts they can play standing on their heads. Alexis Smith makes a strong impression in an unsympathetic part. On the other hand, Patrick O'Moore makes a wet, colorless hero. In the support cast, Anita Bolster (looking rather like Margaret Hamilton) gives an audience-pleasing portrait of a cynical servant. Godfrey himself does a brief and amusing cameo as a race-track con man. Barry Bernard registers as the blackmailing Blagdon, while Isobel Elsom delivers her usual capable rendition of a high society lady. Godfrey's direction is at its best in the climax with the camera tracking across the room with Bogart as he makes his preparations. It must be admitted that Godfrey sees the action from a cinematic rather than a stage audiences' point-of-view, but his approach is often unimaginatively routine. All the same, certain sequences do have power (the murder, the climax, the discovery of the portrait), but thanks as much to deft film editing and atmospheric photography by Peverell Marley (who lights Miss Stanwyck most attractively) as anything else. Stanwyck is also most attractively costumed and made up. Alert music scoring effectively mirrors every cue in the dialogue.
Turfseer
When it was released in 1947, one reviewer called 'The Two Mrs. Carrolls', a "dreadful adaptation of a derivative stage play." In part, that pretty much sums it up. It did very poorly at the box office despite starring Humphrey Bogart, who was totally miscast as an artist bent on doing in successive wives, a la Bluebeard. There were also hints of 'The Picture of Dorian Gray', when he paints portraits of both wives as an 'Angel of Death' , before poisoning the first and almost poisoning a second. There is very little mystery here because it's established at the get go that Bogart as Geoffrey Carroll, the psychopathic artist, has already murdered his first wife and plans to do in his second, Sally, played rather perfunctorily by Barbara Stanwyck. The only thing we're waiting for is how Geoffrey intends to bump off Sally and how she manages to avoid becoming his victim. The biggest problem with the script is that Geoffrey is such an unsavory character and has no charm. Good thrillers have murderers with a human face. Here, perhaps because of when the original source material was written (as a play in 1935), often the bad guy intentionally is drawn as thoroughly detestable. Fortunately, in the 1930s, certain talented novelists began to buck that trend (such as Raymond Chandler and James M. Cain) and by the 40s, some superior noirs were produced ('Double Indemnity' for example, which featured the charming killer, Walter Neff, played by Fred MacMurray). Here, Bogart has little to do, except act surly through most of the narrative. A savvy killer will make ordinary folk feel comfortable, so they're unable to suspect he's up to no good. But good old Geoffrey can hardly contain his contempt when he's introduced to Sally's ex, 'Penny' and his friends, the Lathams, at the luncheon gathering. One just wonders what Geoffrey's 'problem' is overall. Is he a creepy misogynist or simply someone who is desperate to maintain his 'lap of luxury' lifestyle at any cost? One thing is for sure: he doesn't know how to handle himself very well, when dealing with blackmailers. How is it that control freak Geoffrey is unable to keep the weak chemist, Blagdon, in check? And then Mr. Carroll has to resort to murdering him, when I'm sure there's a whole paper trail, linking the mad artist, to the purchases of all that poison he's been pouring into his dear wife Sally's milk! Alexis Smith who plays the cold, steely Cecily, probably gives the best performance in the film. But what exactly does she see in the mega- creepy Geoffrey, that she wants to go to bed with him? (of course we never see that--but it's implied!). As for Sally--when she learns definitively that Geoffrey intends to do her in, after seeing her own 'Angel of Death' portrait, why does she dither around so much, that it gives Geoffrey time to get back home? It appears we're asked to accept the idea that Mrs. Carroll is so devastated by her husband's betrayal, that she becomes despondent and paralyzed, that she can't bring herself to get out of that house right away! During most of the film, Stanwyck plays Sally has a bland, goody two- shoes, who merely shows up as Bogie's proverbial punching back. More enigmatic is the child actress, Ann Carter, who is eerily good as the precocious daughter. Has she been corrupted by her demented father? In the end, I believe she ends up undamaged, despite what's she's been put through by the creepy father.'The Two Mrs. Carrolls' manages to remain only mildly interesting. There's an ordinary story here that chugs along, but there's virtually no suspense and Bogart is oh so wrong for the part. If you have nothing to do on a dreary, rainy Saturday, then by all means, take a look. But this shouldn't even be on your next hundred list, to break out of your DVD rack, or select from your almost filled DVR.
