It’s all too easy to make jokes about The Cobweb, a movie that we’ve always wanted to re-title ‘The Drapes.’ The movie doesn’t play all that well today, and it may not have played well in 1955 either. It was made as MGM was self-destructing, but still promoting itself as king of the big studios. Rumors about stars that didn’t sign on abound. Was Grace Kelly a serious contender, or was she just a name on someone’s list? Director Vincente Minnelli reported that he almost had James Dean, until they found out the price he wanted. Dean was on the shortlist for scores of film projects. But with his career picking up amazing momentum, why would he opt for a featured supporting role in anything?
Some of Vicente Minnelli’s earlier achievements had justified MGM’s claim to greatness: Cabin in the Sky, Meet Me In St. Louis, The Clock, Father of the Bride, The Band Wagon. Minnelli remained the studio’s steadiest director during the years of decline, maintaining the old tradition of quality even as movie styles changed. When his pictures worked it wasn’t because of MGM’s supposed allure, but because their star chemistry generated warmth. His biggest hits were The Bad and the Beautiful, Lust for Life and Gigi.
Four of Minnelli’s features were produced by John Houseman, and we wonder to what degree Houseman’s good taste made them successful. Houseman’s claim to fame was his collaboration with Orson Welles, and he gravitated to ambitious directors: Max Ophuls, Nicholas Ray, Robert Wise, Fritz Lang, John Frankenheimer and Sydney Pollack. Most of his pictures won praise only much later, with the arrival of critic-driven film culture. Houseman’s unenviable duty on The Cobweb was to cut it by 30 minutes after Minnelli refused to do it himself. We’re not crying to see another half-hour of ‘The Drapes,’ but who can say how it might have played? Perhaps shows like this one would have flourished if 1955 had a commercial format like streaming, that welcomes two and three- part stories.
Minnelli’s best dramas in CinemaScope or Panavision augmented standard MGM visuals with a personal visual style, one that earned him auteur status from some of the French critics of Cahiers du Cinéma. His direction for ‘Scope tended to stay wide, taking in entire rooms in a mastershot. Close-ups were reserved for the leading players. The extra-wide anamorphic The Cobweb sometimes seems to give doorways and bookcases equal emphasis with the actors. But Minnelli’s films shot partly on location have special qualities. Lust for Life is of course a big exception, while his best movie Some Came Running shows more flexibility — the studio artificiality blends well with the realism of its Indiana locations.
Of these later pictures Minnelli’s best screenplay for natural dialogue is probably Home from the Hill. The unlucky outlier The Cobweb is a talky picture with maybe 4 dialogue exchanges that hit home, drawing us into the drama. Too many confrontations are overdone, shrill and hysterical, or end in a dramatic blow-up.
The new director of the private psychiatric clinic known as The Castle is Dr. Stewart McIver (Richard Widmark), a proponent of a new system that treats patients more like guests than prisoners, and encourages them to self-govern. Stewart’s progress is not easy, as some of his staff act more like police, and some don’t want to acknowledge his contractual authority over The Castle’s titular head, Dr. Douglas Devenal (Charles Boyer). Most of the patients are getting along well, even the severely neurotic Mr. Capp (Oscar Levant). But a disruption begins over what should be a petty matter, the choice of new curtains for the clinic library.
Clinic accountant Victoria Ince (Lillian Gish) and Stewart’s wife Karen (Gloria Grahame) independently order draperies without proper approval, which causes trouble because Stewart and the new crafts directress Meg Rinehart (Lauren Bacall) want to use the new drapes as an art project to unite the patients. The disturbed young Steven Holte (John Kerr) is a very talented artist; the plan is for his designs to be silk-screened onto fabric by the talented craftsman Abe Irwin (Bert Freed). Karen and Victoria go forward independently. When Douglas Devenal makes an announcement about the drapes, Steven turns violent. Only Stewart’s diplomatic intercession avoids a patient revolt.
Meanwhile, open hostility and crossed signals among the staff threaten the entire establishment. Victoria feels ignored and disrespected. She at first protests Stewart’s actions, and remains furious even after he convinces her of his good intentions. In her anger she prepares a damning report to discredit Dr. Douglas Devenal, who has long been cheating on his wife Edna (Fay Wray) with his secretary Miss Cobb (Adele Jergens). Victoria is a loose cannon, but the attractive wife Karen is just as dangerous. Feeling neglected and unloved, she throws tantrums and commits rash acts, like encouraging Douglas’es attentions.
Karen is blamed for the strain on her marriage. Her husband Stewart and Meg are suddenly drawn to each other. Meg is a widow who lost her family in an auto accident, and he’s looking for a little peace and understanding. Each now finds a new harmony with the other. This happens as both Steven Holte and another patient, the repressed and timid Sue Brett (Susan Strasberg), are beginning a positive, affectionate friendship. ↑ But no Third Act will let such harmony stand undisturbed.
When Karen rejects Douglas’s advances, the old psychiatrist goes on a bender and disappears from the clinic. ↓ Several patients immediately become unstable, especially Mr. Capp. Discovering clues that Stewart and Meg are now an item, Karen races to the clinic in the middle of the night and puts up her choice of drapes. When the patients see this, havoc ensues. What happened to self-governance? Steven freaks out, attacks the gardener and runs away. Several hours later all believe he has drowned in the river. Stewart tries to put out fires while the now-sober Douglas connives to sieze control of the clinic by blaming Stewart for everything. With his marriage in big trouble, Stewart is ready to bolt with Meg. His only real support comes from his loyal, trusting ten-year-old son Mark (Tommy Rettig).
The compressed storyline of The Cobweb has enough dramatic twists to fill 3 weeks of the average soap opera; there are 27 speaking roles. We didn’t get to the presence of familiar faces Olive Carey, Virginia Christine, James Westerfield, Marjorie Bennett, Edgar Stehli, Jarma Lewis and Paul Stewart — plus little Sandy Drescher. Under those conditions we admire the screenwriting craft of John Paxton ( On the Beach), yet the dialogue has too many exposition bombs and declarative statements that feel too articulate. Author William Gibson returned to add new dialogues, at Vincente Minnelli’s behest. Gibson was in no way a slouch: he later wrote the original teleplay of The Miracle Worker and the original play for Robert Wise’s Two for the Seesaw.
All that said, the scenes involving the straying marrieds do play well, with Gloria Grahame making a good sketch of the impatient Karen McIver. She’s the most provocative participant but one of the few that doesn’t succumb to temptation. Richard Widmark and Lauren Bacall’s characters waver between empowerment and guilt, while old Charles Boyer comes off as someone whose hurt pride can cause real damage, to both his colleagues and his patients.
The film does have memorable moments. At the tail end of an argument, Stewart and Karen face off, and he refuses to answer when she asks if desires her. It’s just a pair of reverse angles, but everything about the poses, the lighting and the performances is choice. Another insightful exchange comes later, with Charles Boyer and Lillian Gish sharing a secret across a table at a board meeting. We wish Gish’s character had been allowed to show that much humanity earlier in the story.
The Cobweb lost a lot of money in theaters. Its drama may have seemed overheated and under-motivated, especially at a time when a new crop of younger method-trained stars were getting all the media attention. People walked out of On the Waterfront and East of Eden convinced they’d seen earth-shattering performances. The story of ‘the drapes’ didn’t interest them.
We’re told that the book didn’t have a positive outcome for the McIver marriage, and that some critics called the film’s happier ending a sell-out. The way things end is preferable to having Lauren Bacall’s ‘other woman’ pay with her life to satisfy the Production Code. We note The Cobweb faults ‘hysterical women’ for most everything that goes wrong. Poor Karen blows up her marriage, the clinic, and her husbands’s career in one fell swoop. Stewart is the one who strays, but he remains blameless.
Actor-musician Oscar Levant got a lot of attention for supposedly ‘just playing himself,’ i.e., an annoying neurotic with a big mouth. Immensely talented but haunted by crazy ideas of inadequacy, Levant had been a close associate of George Gershwin and Al Jolson. The Cobweb was his final theatrical film but he continued as an oft-seen TV personality.
As we’d expect in a film by Vincente Minnelli, the artwork attributed to Steven Holte is very good. ↑ The interesting David Stone Martin gets a graphic designer credit. His biggest claim to fame were the covers of many jazz record albums.
The show marks the debut of John Kerr and Susan Strasberg. Both had previous experience, some of it in Live TV. The fade-out gives us John Kerr, recovering on a couch, being wrapped up in something nice and warm — which turns out to be Karen’s drapes, ripped down by Stewart. Kerr looks like he’s wearing a flowered shroud. ↓ We really expect him to sit up and say, “Hey, is this symbolic, or what?”
1 comment