Window of the Soul
This weekend's review: The Upturned Glass.
While my main reason for watching The Upturned Glass was the increasingly familiar refrain of “because James Mason is in it”, it also sounded like it would have an interesting plot, and be along the lines of a noir/thriller, two genres I like. While Mason gives a fine performance and the core plot has potential, some developments in the later half took me from liking the movie well enough to wondering who had thought this was a good idea. Unfortunately, the fact that most of the questionable material takes place after the halfway point means that I should probably label the rest of this review as SPOILERS, just to be on the safe side. Suffice it to say that it’s probably not worth checking out, no matter how much of a Mason fan you are.
The movie opens with a man giving a lecture on Criminology at a college. He says that, after spending so much time on the criminals who commit crimes out of madness, he wants to relate a tale of a man who committed his crime and was also perfectly sane. The man in question, Michael Joyce (Mason) is a surgeon specializing in matters of the brain, and one day, he was called upon to do an operation to save the eyesight of a young girl, Ann Wright (Ann Stephens). The preparation for this operation threw him in close proximity to Ann’s mother Emma (Rosamund John), and gradually, the two of them developed an attraction. But the two of them were married to other people, and eventually, they reluctantly agreed to part ways. Shortly thereafter, however, Joyce received the news that Emma had died due to a fall out the window of her home, and when he goes to the inquest to learn what happened, he began to suspect that Emma’s sister-in-law, Kate Howard (Pamela Mason, James Mason’s wife) was at least partially responsible for the death. He began to get close to Kate to confirm his suspicions, and once he had enough proof, he made plans to murder her, in a “poetic” way no less. And it’s at the point where the lecture ends that the problems really start to arise.
Actually, I kind of lied in that last sentence; the first inkling of a problem happens in the first five minutes. Said problem is the fact that the movie makes no attempt to disguise the fact that the lecturer and Joyce are one and the same, so the odds are very high that the lecturer/Joyce is talking about a crime he himself committed. This is the sort of thing that is normally reserved for a big twist (albeit one that people would probably have seen coming, especially if they’d tried to keep the identity of the lecturer a secret), so it feels kind of weird that the movie tips its hand early on. However, there were still ways this could have worked. The flashbacks could show the murder and how Joyce got caught, and then the movie ends with the reveal that Joyce is a prisoner who somehow gets special dispensation to come out and lecture about criminology. Or perhaps the flashback ends with Joyce realizing too late he left behind some key piece of evidence, and the movie ends with the police coming in and arresting him. Instead, after a detailed description, complete with visuals, of how Joyce murdered Kate, the lecture ends, and Joyce goes straight to his car…to actually carry out the murder. Don’t you think the odds would be good that at least one of the students in that lecture hall would read about the death in the papers and go, “Hey, wait, this sounds really familiar…”, before going to the police? Why would Joyce, who’s generally been portrayed as cool and calculating, take such an enormous risk? One possible answer is that Joyce is supposed to be an unreliable narrator who actually is mad despite his claims of sanity, but the movie really doesn’t give off that vibe. It’s certainly an unexpected twist, more unexpected than the “reveal” that Joyce was the lecturer would have been, but it’s nowhere near as understandable.
There are a fair few other problems and annoyances as well. The movie opens with two girls nearly being late for class, and one of them deciding to attend Joyce’s lecture. She gets a fair bit of screentime, and yet she never becomes relevant to the plot. When Joyce finishes the lecture, another student stands up and asks a pointed question, complete with sardonic tone, skeptical expression, and more lingering camera shots. You guessed it, he never shows up again either. After Joyce actually commits the murder (and to the movie’s credit, it doesn’t play out exactly as he planned), we get a shot of the gardener of the house where it happened moving inside and picking up the phone, presumably to call the police. Once again, this comes to nothing. One recurringly odd element is the fact that we keep getting told that Joyce is married, but we never actually see her, nor does it seem like she and Joyce live together anymore. Other than one brief exchange between Kate and Joyce, there is no reason for Joyce to be married. Emma being the only married one could still have been a hurdle to their relationship, and the way Joyce is presented-a man entirely focused on his work until Emma comes along-fits better with him being single. So why include that detail? And finally, the ending is very abrupt and anticlimactic, complete with some philosophical discussions that at best are cynical and at worst are incomprehensible. This is also when we get the title drop, which makes as much sense as when something similar happened in The Postman Always Rings Twice. In short, more and more underdeveloped elements get plopped into the movie, until all the decent bits from earlier on are overshadowed by them. This is why the ending should probably be what you focus on making good, so you don’t get the audience walking away confused, frustrated, or in this case, both.
There is one other thing that’s worth noting, though it goes into the realm of behind the scenes information. In addition to playing Kate, Pamela Mason helped write the screenplay, along with John Monaghan, the writer of the original story (Monaghan also cameos in the movie as a truck driver with a very fake American accent). Furthermore, James Mason helped produce the movie. Given that Pamela is playing a character that James’ character hates and intends to kill, the fact that the two actors had so much involvement in the production is unusual, and makes you wonder if there’s more to this story that we’re not getting. And to add another layer of bizarreness, Pamela is credited (both as a writer and as an actress) as Pamela Kellino, the name of her first husband. The initial assumption is that she and James weren’t married yet-indeed, perhaps this is where they met-but a quick check of IMDB reveals that they’d been married for six years at this point. Pamela clearly took James’ surname later, so I have no idea what was going on there. To be honest, the potential mystery of all this is far more intriguing than anything presented in the actual movie.
Like I said in the introductory paragraph, I don’t recommend this one. It has some good moments, but the second half and the bits that seem important but aren’t bog the movie down. However, I will say that the title is fitting in a different way-you might be tempted to grab a glass and turn it upwards, in order to pour a drink while you try to make sense of it all.
CAT ALERT, I think: When Joyce breaks into Emma’s house to learn the truth, he hears a noise and turns around to see a small creature running out of the room. I’m pretty sure based on the size that it’s supposed to be a cat, though we never see it again and don’t get any explanation for its presence. Best I’ve got is that it belongs to the gardener or one of the other servants, and it just wandered where it wasn’t supposed to. That’s perfectly in keeping for a cat, after all.
While my main reason for watching The Upturned Glass was the increasingly familiar refrain of “because James Mason is in it”, it also sounded like it would have an interesting plot, and be along the lines of a noir/thriller, two genres I like. While Mason gives a fine performance and the core plot has potential, some developments in the later half took me from liking the movie well enough to wondering who had thought this was a good idea. Unfortunately, the fact that most of the questionable material takes place after the halfway point means that I should probably label the rest of this review as SPOILERS, just to be on the safe side. Suffice it to say that it’s probably not worth checking out, no matter how much of a Mason fan you are.
The movie opens with a man giving a lecture on Criminology at a college. He says that, after spending so much time on the criminals who commit crimes out of madness, he wants to relate a tale of a man who committed his crime and was also perfectly sane. The man in question, Michael Joyce (Mason) is a surgeon specializing in matters of the brain, and one day, he was called upon to do an operation to save the eyesight of a young girl, Ann Wright (Ann Stephens). The preparation for this operation threw him in close proximity to Ann’s mother Emma (Rosamund John), and gradually, the two of them developed an attraction. But the two of them were married to other people, and eventually, they reluctantly agreed to part ways. Shortly thereafter, however, Joyce received the news that Emma had died due to a fall out the window of her home, and when he goes to the inquest to learn what happened, he began to suspect that Emma’s sister-in-law, Kate Howard (Pamela Mason, James Mason’s wife) was at least partially responsible for the death. He began to get close to Kate to confirm his suspicions, and once he had enough proof, he made plans to murder her, in a “poetic” way no less. And it’s at the point where the lecture ends that the problems really start to arise.
Actually, I kind of lied in that last sentence; the first inkling of a problem happens in the first five minutes. Said problem is the fact that the movie makes no attempt to disguise the fact that the lecturer and Joyce are one and the same, so the odds are very high that the lecturer/Joyce is talking about a crime he himself committed. This is the sort of thing that is normally reserved for a big twist (albeit one that people would probably have seen coming, especially if they’d tried to keep the identity of the lecturer a secret), so it feels kind of weird that the movie tips its hand early on. However, there were still ways this could have worked. The flashbacks could show the murder and how Joyce got caught, and then the movie ends with the reveal that Joyce is a prisoner who somehow gets special dispensation to come out and lecture about criminology. Or perhaps the flashback ends with Joyce realizing too late he left behind some key piece of evidence, and the movie ends with the police coming in and arresting him. Instead, after a detailed description, complete with visuals, of how Joyce murdered Kate, the lecture ends, and Joyce goes straight to his car…to actually carry out the murder. Don’t you think the odds would be good that at least one of the students in that lecture hall would read about the death in the papers and go, “Hey, wait, this sounds really familiar…”, before going to the police? Why would Joyce, who’s generally been portrayed as cool and calculating, take such an enormous risk? One possible answer is that Joyce is supposed to be an unreliable narrator who actually is mad despite his claims of sanity, but the movie really doesn’t give off that vibe. It’s certainly an unexpected twist, more unexpected than the “reveal” that Joyce was the lecturer would have been, but it’s nowhere near as understandable.
There are a fair few other problems and annoyances as well. The movie opens with two girls nearly being late for class, and one of them deciding to attend Joyce’s lecture. She gets a fair bit of screentime, and yet she never becomes relevant to the plot. When Joyce finishes the lecture, another student stands up and asks a pointed question, complete with sardonic tone, skeptical expression, and more lingering camera shots. You guessed it, he never shows up again either. After Joyce actually commits the murder (and to the movie’s credit, it doesn’t play out exactly as he planned), we get a shot of the gardener of the house where it happened moving inside and picking up the phone, presumably to call the police. Once again, this comes to nothing. One recurringly odd element is the fact that we keep getting told that Joyce is married, but we never actually see her, nor does it seem like she and Joyce live together anymore. Other than one brief exchange between Kate and Joyce, there is no reason for Joyce to be married. Emma being the only married one could still have been a hurdle to their relationship, and the way Joyce is presented-a man entirely focused on his work until Emma comes along-fits better with him being single. So why include that detail? And finally, the ending is very abrupt and anticlimactic, complete with some philosophical discussions that at best are cynical and at worst are incomprehensible. This is also when we get the title drop, which makes as much sense as when something similar happened in The Postman Always Rings Twice. In short, more and more underdeveloped elements get plopped into the movie, until all the decent bits from earlier on are overshadowed by them. This is why the ending should probably be what you focus on making good, so you don’t get the audience walking away confused, frustrated, or in this case, both.
There is one other thing that’s worth noting, though it goes into the realm of behind the scenes information. In addition to playing Kate, Pamela Mason helped write the screenplay, along with John Monaghan, the writer of the original story (Monaghan also cameos in the movie as a truck driver with a very fake American accent). Furthermore, James Mason helped produce the movie. Given that Pamela is playing a character that James’ character hates and intends to kill, the fact that the two actors had so much involvement in the production is unusual, and makes you wonder if there’s more to this story that we’re not getting. And to add another layer of bizarreness, Pamela is credited (both as a writer and as an actress) as Pamela Kellino, the name of her first husband. The initial assumption is that she and James weren’t married yet-indeed, perhaps this is where they met-but a quick check of IMDB reveals that they’d been married for six years at this point. Pamela clearly took James’ surname later, so I have no idea what was going on there. To be honest, the potential mystery of all this is far more intriguing than anything presented in the actual movie.
Like I said in the introductory paragraph, I don’t recommend this one. It has some good moments, but the second half and the bits that seem important but aren’t bog the movie down. However, I will say that the title is fitting in a different way-you might be tempted to grab a glass and turn it upwards, in order to pour a drink while you try to make sense of it all.
CAT ALERT, I think: When Joyce breaks into Emma’s house to learn the truth, he hears a noise and turns around to see a small creature running out of the room. I’m pretty sure based on the size that it’s supposed to be a cat, though we never see it again and don’t get any explanation for its presence. Best I’ve got is that it belongs to the gardener or one of the other servants, and it just wandered where it wasn’t supposed to. That’s perfectly in keeping for a cat, after all.