LADY IN THE DARK

US, 1944, 100 Minutes, Colour.
Ginger Rogers, Ray Milland, Warner Baxter, Jan Hall.
Directed by Mitchell Leisen.

Lady in the Dark was an unusual film for its time. The Broadway musical comedy had been very successful with Gertrude Lawrence in the central role and Danny Kaye in a comic supporting role. The book had been written by Moss Hart and the music by the talented Kurt Weill. The film was made on a large budget by Paramount, using Mitchell Leisen, a popular director of melodramas and soap operas at the time, and employing Ginger Rogers, who had won an Oscar for 'Kitty Foyle' in 1940 and Ray Milland. who was soon to win an Oscar with The Lost Weekend. (They had played together in The Major and the Minor in 1941.) They work well as a team. Veteran actor Warner Baxter is good in the supporting role of the father figure fiance.

However, the film was of great interest for its tackling of psychological themes in the cinema - Freud died in 1939. This was so adventurous at the time that the film was delayed in release from 1942 to 1944. Of particular significance are the dream sequences and the way these were staged. They were in advance of their times and are reminiscent of some of the styles of Fellini in the 60s and 70s. All in all. Lady in the Dark is a very interesting early attempt at putting the symbolic and the psychological directly on the screen within the context of the conventions of American comedy-drama.

1. An interesting drama, musical, musical comedy? The significance of the title?
Its impact in the 40s? Its impact now? The film echoing the styles of the 40s? Interesting psychology? The impact now?

2. The importance of the film in the 40s? Based on a Broadway musical with famous stars (Gertrude Lawrence, Danny Kaye)? Moss Hart and George Kaufmann as important playwrights of the early part of the 20th century? The contribution of the music of Kurt Weill? Ginger Rogers and Ray Milland and Warner Baxter as stars of the 40s? A musical about psychology and psychiatry at the time? Popular attitude towards Freud - admiration, critique? Popular suspicions? The status of psychiatry at the time?

3. The film's use of colour photography, the atmosphere of New York, Fashion Magazine? The importance of the visualizing of dreams with their psychological overtones? The choreography of the dreams, of the musical numbers? The importance of the use of symbols - and the style of the 40s and presentation of musical numbers for psychological symbolism? The contribution of the musical score, the songs? The songs and their relationship to the drama and the themes?

4. Understanding the psychology at the time, understanding of psychiatry and its use? Attitude towards illness? The apprehensiveness about mental illness and its treatment? The understanding of the subconscious and the need for the subconscious to be made conscious? The understanding of going back into the past, psychiatric sessions? The importance of emotional blindness, emotivity and repression? The reaction of the characters to psychology as shared by the audience? How credible was the behaviour of the heroine as regards psychiatry? Her conflicts with people, with people at work, with her fiance? With the psychiatrist? The psychological insight into men and women? The ways in which the mind works? The importance of repression and the way that it reacts and makes a person mentally ill?

5. Ginger Rogers' style as Liza? The popularity of Ginger Rogers at the time and her credibility in this role? Seeing her at work as the successful businesswoman, the manner of her dress and its austerity, her being the boss and the way that she commanded people at work, a woman of moods which she didn't acknowledge, her relationship with her friends and her coldness towards them, her instinctive reaction against Charlie, her relationship with her fiance and her hopes of marriage and yet her distance from him and his raising of problems? Her encounter with the film star and the possibility of her coming out of herself? Her need to understand herself, her identity? The way that her problems became clearer, her reacting against them, her going to the psychiatrist and yet her suspicion of him? Her finally opening up to him and the changes? How credible was the transformation in psychological terms?

6. Her attitude towards psychiatry? Her initial openness, her fears and repressions? The importance of her dreams and these being visualized for the audience? The significance of the situations and the places of the dreams - the colour, the colour composition, the costumes, her dresses as compared with those who wore in real life, the significant appearance of opposites, the people from her ordinary life and their roles in the dreams? Her different behaviour in her dreams? what she understood in her dreams as compared with real life? Music, the mysterious music theme? Her fear, her resistance, her refusal to go further with the treatment, the motivation for her return? The gradual bringing to the surface of consciousness all her fears and the healthy effect? The therapeutic value of psychiatry? (Note the places of the dreams - the portrait, the stamp, the wedding, the circus, the cage, the background to home and her father and mother and the dress.)

7. Ray Milland's charming and boisterous style as Charlie? The complementarity of his masculinity with her repressed femininity? His push, his manner of working, talking to Liza, the offer of another job? His appearance in her dreams and his control there? Their sparring and his disrespectful attitude towards her? The continual challenge to her? when did she realize that she loved him? The awareness of her femininity in regard to his masculinity? Their working together in the future?

8. The contrast with her fiance - the importance of his marriage, divorce? Her tensions? The gradual revelation that he acted as a father figure - and its relationship to her real father and the effect that he had had on her? The inevitability of the marriage not going ahead? How well did Warner Baxter delineate the character of the married man in love with Liza?

9. The contrast with the actor - the popular glamour, the irresistible charm? Liza resisting him and then attracted? His dependence on her? The enjoyment of each other's company, the outing at the restaurant, the sudden rush of plans? Her discovery of his weakness and her mothering him? The difficulty of her breaking the engagement? The occasion then of the discovery of the truth re Charlie?

10. How well did the film ultimately explore the themes of love, sexuality, illness and repressions? The playing of different roles? The importance of the range of masculine fears in Liza's life - the dream and memory sequence of her mother and father and the music, the dress? Her father, fiance, the actor, Charlie? How did she see herself as a woman with regard to each of these?

11. The importance of the going back into memory to understand present crises -childhood, parents? How well was this visualized as regards the song, father, mother ignoring her, wearing her mother's dress and her father's reaction, her fears and behaviour? Therapy and liberation?

12. How satisfying a film as a vehicle for exploring the nature of the human psyche? The values and stands that the film took in its time? It relevance now?