Thursday, July 02, 2020

Movie review - "Sign of the Ram" (1948) **

Quasi legendary because it starred Susan Peters after her accident - it has all this resonance because she was in a wheelchair and it was her last movie, she'd kill herself within a few years.

She has beauty, and can act and has this intense crazy look perfect for the character. It's a wonderful character perfect for a psycho thriller - a wheelchair bound lady wants to keep control.

But John Sturges' direction is perfunctory when it needs a Robert Siodmak. The plotting is confusing with far too many characters - there's this husband who dotes on her (Alex Knox) and a secretary who always gives her this smug pitying smile (Phyllis Thaxter), and a young step daughter (Peggy Ann Garner), and a doctor Peters seems to have a crush on (Ron Randell), and a step daughter (Allen Roberts) and a stepson (Ross Ford) and his girl (Diana Douglas). There's too many people - pick a lane, movie!

Maybe it would have worked if the step kids were her biological kids. they shouldn't have split focus between her being interested in Knox and Randell - they should have killed off Knox (establish Peters did it off screen ages ago) and now she's in love with Randell who falls for Thaxter. Get rid of Ford, Douglas, Roberts.

Randell is hardly in the movie. I got Thaxter, Douglas and Roberts mixed up and kept forgetting who Ford was.

The movie doesn't work but it's not Peters' fault.

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