Whirlpool (1949 film)
| Whirlpool | |
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Theatrical release poster
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| Directed by | Otto Preminger |
| Produced by | Otto Preminger |
| Screenplay by |
Ben Hecht Andrew Solt |
| Based on |
Methinks the Lady 1946 novel by Guy Endore |
| Starring |
Gene Tierney Richard Conte José Ferrer Charles Bickford |
| Music by | David Raksin |
| Cinematography | Arthur C. Miller |
| Edited by | Louis R. Loeffler |
| Distributed by | 20th Century Fox |
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Release date
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Running time
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98 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Whirlpool is a 1950film noir thriller directed by Otto Preminger and written by Ben Hecht and Andrew Solt, adapted from Guy Endore's novel Methinks the Lady. The film stars Gene Tierney, Richard Conte, José Ferrer and Charles Bickford, and features Constance Collier in her final film role. Due to anti-British statements Hecht had recently made regarding their involvement in Israel, UK prints of the film replaced his credit with a pseudonym, Lester Barstow.
The drama combines crime drama with psychological thriller (the heroine is controlled by a murderous hypnotist) and melodrama, as the central character's marriage is threatened.
Four years later, Conte starred in The Blue Gardenia, which has a strikingly similar plot, but replaces the psychoanalysis angle with a more straightforward procedural storyline.
Ann Sutton (Gene Tierney), the wife of a successful psychoanalyst (Richard Conte), is arrested for shoplifting. Ann is saved from scandal by smooth-talking hypnotist David Korvo (José Ferrer).
Korvo is not what he seems to be, and Ann soon finds herself involved in blackmail and murder. She is unsure whether or not she committed a crime. Her distant but loyal husband stands up for her and eventually sets up the hypnotist, whom he believes is behind all the misdeeds.
The staff at Variety magazine liked the film and wrote, "Whirlpool is a highly entertaining, exciting melodrama that combines the authentic features of hypnosis. Ben Hecht and Andrew Solt have tightly woven a screenplay [from a novel by Guy Endore] about the effects of hypnosis on the subconscious, but they, and Otto Preminger in his direction, have eliminated the phoney characteristics that might easily have allowed the picture to slither into becoming just another eerie melodrama."
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Wikipedia