Deception **** (1946, Bette Davis, Paul Henreid, Claude Rains) – Classic Movie Review 2,708

Bette Davis re-teams with her Now, Voyager co-stars Claude Rains and Paul Henreid for Warner Bros’ vintage 1946 film noir romantic drama Deception.

For director Irving Rapper’s vintage 1946 film noir romantic drama Deception, Warner Bros re-teams Bette Davis with her Now, Voyager (1942) co-stars Claude Rains and Paul Henreid.

This time Warners cast her as Christine Radcliffe, a struggling piano teacher forced to choose between her cellist fiancé Karel Novak (Henreid), whom she thought was killed on the battlefield, and a rich, over-protective benefactor called Alexander Hollenius (Rains). After the fiancé returns alive, they marry. But they are threatened by the egotistical composer Hollenius she started dating on the rebound when she thought Novak was dead.

Rapper’s ridiculously enjoyable classical music soap opera is made by people who know exactly what they are doing, probably quite cynically. But it is elevated to a higher plain with tour de force acting by charismatic performers working at their peak. Davis’s over-the-top turn works perfectly with her loyal co-stars’ underplayed performances.

Also in the film’s cast are John Abbott as orchestra cellist Bertram Gribble (!), Benson Fong (as Hollenius’s servant Jimmy), Richard Erdman as music student Jerry Spencer, Einar Neilsen as orchestra conductor Neilsen, Richard Walsh and Alex Pollard.

‘The picture wasn’t terribly good but Rains was brilliant,’ said Davis, uncharacteristically generously. She became pregnant at 39 during filming and privately re-named the film ‘Conception’.

Unfortunately, it became the first Bette Davis film to lose money for Warner Bros thanks to high production costs ($2,882,000) and modest cinema box office ($2,300,000 in US rentals).

John Collier and Joseph Than’s careful screenplay is based on the play Monsieur Lamberthier by Louis Verneuil. How often did Hollywood resort to adapting plays for their production line fodder!  The play was first performed in Paris in 1927 and opened on Broadway as Jealousy on October 22 1928 at Maxine Elliott’s Theatre with Fay Bainter and John Halliday as the entire cast.

Davis wanted Deception to be a two-character film like the play, in which the character played by Rains is a voice on the phone, but it is easy to see why Warner Bros didn’t go for that.

And talking of deception, Davis’s piano playing is performed by Shura Cherkassky. Davis rehearsed so well she could synchronise perfectly with the recorded playback on the first take.

Henreid’s cello playing is dubbed by Eleanor Aller, pregnant with her son Frederick Zlotkin, who became a noted cellist. Her father Gregory Aller coached Henreid in plausible bow movements. Henreid’s arms were tied behind him in some scenes as two cellists put their arms through the sleeves of a specially designed coat.

Hollenius’s Cello Concerto is by Erich Wolfgang Korngold, who scored the film, and later expanded the concerto to publish it.

The cast are Bette Davis as Christine Radcliffe, Paul Henreid as Karel Novak, Claude Rains as Alexander Hollenius, John Abbott as Bertram Gribble, Benson Fong as Hollenius’s manservant Jimmy,  Richard Erdman as music student Jerry Spencer, and Einar Neilsen as orchestra conductor Neilsen.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2,708

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