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Pretty Good

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

This is a nifty tale of passion and mysticism revolving around the obsession of an impoverished Army Captain in the Russian Army in the Napoleonic era to make a fortune at gambling. Anton Walbrook is Herman, the protagonist who looks like Roman Polanski. He's distant from the other officers, a bit unfriendly, and seems content to stay that way but, man, would he like to beat them all at a game of cards and carry off a king's ransom in kopeks.The problem is that, as it stands, he can't afford to "risk the necessary to obtain the superfluous." That kind of phraseology, plus certain other things like the retention of patronyms, makes me think the writers hewed fairly close to Pushkin's original story. And, well, why not? It's easier to steal dialog than to make it up.Dame Edith Evans is all lace and ancient fragility, is terribly wealthy, lives in a remote estate, and is rumored to have sold her soul to the devil in order to learn how to win at cards. Walbrook would like nothing more than to squeeze the secret out of her or, given his crafty nature, wheedle it out of her. However, she won't see him.So Walbrook sets about courting Evans' beautiful young ward, Yvonne Mitchell, who looks like a cross between Brenda Marshall ("The Sea Wolf") and Isabella Rosselini ("Blue Velvet"). It could be worse. Leona Helmsley might have been somewhere in that mix. Walbrook's seduction is clandestine and passionate and Mitchell falls for it, although in truth he has no more interest in her than in his old boots.A meeting with Mitchell gets Walbrook inside Evans' estate. He sneaks into the old woman's room and begs her for the secret of the cards. She stares back in silent expectation. (A terrific performance on her part.) When she doesn't answer he pulls out a pistol and threatens her, at which she crosses herself and passes away. When he confesses this to Mitchell, who loves her guardian, Mitchell throws him out.Later he seems to be visited by Evans' ghostly presence who whispers to him that the three winning cards in the game of faro are the three, the seven, and the ace. But the presence confides this only on the condition that he marry Mitchell. Walbrook DOES seek out Mitchell and ask to marry her but she heaps calumny upon him and slips away.Walbrook is humiliated but he seems to think, well, what the hell, he's got the three secret cards anyway. Three, seven, and ace -- right? He borrows every penny his life is worth, shows up at the officers' card game, and begins to play. First hand: the three wins, and Walbrook doubles his bet. Second hand: the seven wins, and Walbrook doubles his bet again, while everyone gulps with awe at the amount of cash now at stake. Third hand: he doubles his bet yet again. Result: you'll have to see it.There have been a couple of negative comments on the film and I can understand why. The sound isn't everything it could be. But, at least on my DVD, it was clear enough to follow with little trouble. Then, too, it might be that some people were hoping for a different kind of story, one of those depressing Schlachtfests where half a dozen happy-go-lucky adolescents get disarticulated by chain saws.This isn't that kind of movie at all. What we have is the suggestion of the supernatural, not horror. But careful attention has been paid to elements like set dressing and wardrobe. And the acting is of at least professional caliber. Walbrook sounds stagy but very effective in his role of scuzz bag. Oh, how he HISSES his declaration of love into Mitchell's ear. There are mazurkas, gypsy singers, much lace and feathers, vodka in one gulps, gentle falls of phony snow, operas, slaps across the face inviting duels. Yet it's not a "big" film with a multitude of foofaraws. No sweeping vistas or vast crowds. Scenes mostly take place in cluttered rooms or nooks and crannies on the streets. It reminded me quite strongly of "Dead of Night" (1945) and, less so, of Val Lewton's supernatural thrillers at RKO.At any rate, I found it enjoyable, though for the first few minutes I wondered where it was going.

A Captain of the Russian army, with little money, becomes mad for the secret of three cards which could yield a fortune. That Captain, Suvorin(Anton Walbrook, who is mesmerizing)reads about Countess Ranevskaya(Edith Evans)who, facing public scrutiny after she commits adultery with a thief who desires money from a locked box, sells her soul instead of being found out of her sins. Given the powerful secret of three cards, she carves out quite a wealthy living at the gambling table. Suvorin wants the secret of the cards more than anything and will manipulate her servant, Lizaveta Ivanova(Yvonne Mitchell)so that he can get in to meet the Countess. Using a handbook regarding selling your soul for profit and success, he uses certain poetic words to work over a naive, impressionable Lizaveta, who is burdened by the demanding Countess. What happens to Countess when a crazed Suvorin puts a pistol to her one snowy night, makes up the haunting elements of this well-mounted, extravagantly produced, beautifully lighted tale.You could call this a macabre costume drama..even at 95 minutes, this is epic in scope accurately depicting the 19 Century well with large, massive sets. It's quite stunning to behold, actually. The film might start out rather slow, but it gets better and better as time passes and the greedy dementia of Suvorin, a man who wants to know what wealth and privilege taste like, takes shape when it appears the secret he so longs for seems completely out of reach. The final 30 or so minutes is really marvelous as the supernatural elements come into play creating quite a spooky mood. And, the tragedy of Suvorin is a very powerful ingredient to the story.

Tchaikovsky took Pushkin's ghost story and turned it into an opera. Producer Anatole de Grunwald turned it into one of the finest Gothic thrillers in film history. Why The Queen of Spades is so overlooked is a mystery to those who have seen it....it is a dazzling tour de force.Anton Walbrook pulls out all the stops as the army officer obsessed with learning how to win at faro. When he discovers that an aged countess, played by Dame Edith Evans in her talking picture debut, holds the secret he becomes even more obsessed with wresting this secret from her. The countess sold her soul to learn the magic of the cards, 3,7 and Ace and, in the end, that does not bode well for Walbrook.The baroque sets, assisted by wonderful lighting effects, builds an eerie, almost surreal atmosphere. It will hold you spellbound and haunt you long after it ends.

At long last, "The Queen of Spades" has appeared in a form worthy of its excellence. Anchor Bay's new DVD set includes a beautiful presentation of it, along with the 1945 anthology horror film "Dead of Night." I've read nothing but good things about "Dead of Night," but haven't gotten around to seeing it yet. To me, it's immaterial. I would pay three times as much for the "Queen of Spades" alone. Once seen, it's hard to forget.Anton Walbrook may have played more multi-dimensional characters in other films, but never with the same frightening intensity as in this one. The cast is uniformly excellent, but it's his performance as Hermann that really makes the film memorable. Hermann is a strange sort of cinematic hero with no redeeming characteristics whatsoever. His personality is dominated by four of the seven deadly sins: pride, envy, wrath, and greed. As for lust, he lusts only for power, money and influence, his declarations of love being completely false. Gluttony is not an issue, as he lives in poverty in order to horde what money he has. As for sloth, he exerts extraordinary effort into fulfilling his schemes, which are entirely self-serving. Sounds like a thoroughly unpleasant fellow. But Walbrook makes this brooding, scheming, petty, and utterly reprehensible nonentity with a Napoleon complex into a fascinating character study -- a real tour-de-force. The Vienna-born Walbrook (originally named Adolph Anton Wilhelm Wohlbrueck) exaggerates his Teutonic accent to Peter Lorre-like intensity, to great effect. It's this film that made him one of my all time favorite actors.The look of this film is also extraordinary. Even in this pristine presentation, the cinematography is very dark and deeply shadowed. The shadowy look of the film, along with some oddly angular or distorted shots, is suggestive of expressionist style. The story is told very directly and the plot moved along efficiently, with no superfluous action, which adds to the unreal atmosphere of the piece. Everything associated with the story seems to take place in quick succession. In a city as huge as St. Petersburg, Hermann wanders from the spooky booksellers' shop directly to the old countess's house purely by chance. Every element of the story is essential, and executed with maximum effect and style. The funeral scene in particular is unforgettable.What a pleasure to find that this terrific, but relatively obscure, film has finally gotten a DVD release, and looks better than I've ever seen it looking. Almost everyone who's commented on it cites the fact that it is little known, and maybe this new DVD will change that a bit.