Monday, October 08, 2012

Bluebeard (1944)

Who's in it?: John Carradine (Stagecoach, The Grapes of WrathHouse of Dracula); Jean Parker (One Body Too Many)

What's it about?: A serial killer (Carradine) falls in love and tries not to murder the woman (Parker) he adores.

How is it?: I like the Paris setting and Carradine is always interesting, but it's a tough movie to get into. Carradine and Parker don't have enough chemistry to make it a believable love story, and there's no mystery about who's committing the murders. It ends up being a character study about Carradine's attempt to resist temptation, but offers no reason to care.

What does remain a mystery until the end is Carradine's motivation for murdering young women. Unfortunately, not knowing why he started only makes it more difficult to give a crap about whether he can stop.

I was also disappointed that the story wasn't about the actual, fairy tale Bluebeard who murdered his wives on their wedding night. The Paris police just give him that nickname because he kills women, even though he's not marrying them or even in any kind of romantic relationship with them. Lame.

Rating: Bad.

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