Bluebeard (1944)
In turn-of-the-century Paris, a puppeteer and portrait painter murders the women who sit for him, until a modiste who has fallen for him begins to suspect what happened to his vanished models.
Edgar G. Ulmer, still grinding away on Poverty Row a year before Detour, gives John Carradine one of his few starring roles — and Carradine, usually cast as a menacing supporting player, makes Bluebeard’s self-loathing as persuasive as his charm.
Background
Bluebeard was directed by Edgar G. Ulmer and released in 1944 by PRC, one of the Poverty Row studios that produced cheap genre pictures. John Carradine stars as a puppeteer and portrait painter in turn-of-the-century Paris, with Jean Parker as the modiste who grows suspicious of him. Nils Asther and Ludwig Stossel are also in the cast. Ulmer spent much of his career making inexpensive films on tight schedules, and the picture is a representative example of his work in that mode.
What to watch for
Carradine gives the title role a split personality: a charming, cultured figure who is also a murderer, whose victims are the women who sit for his portraits. The Paris of the film is largely studio-bound, with stylized lighting and an atmosphere of unease that Ulmer uses in place of spectacle. Watch the scenes between Carradine and the modiste as she begins to piece together what happened to the models who vanished. Ulmer’s visual approach emphasizes shadow and staging, which suits the film’s psychological focus and has helped keep it alive among horror fans.
