To celebrate Robert Montgomery’s birth and film career I watched Lady In The Lake. Robert Montgomery stared and directed the film. The film starts with Christmas music and credits listed on Christmas paper with holiday decorations. Robert comes on camera sitting behind his desk talking to the audience as Philip Marlow. “You’ll see it just as I saw it, you’ll meet the people, you’ll see the clues and maybe you’ll solve it quick, maybe you won’t.” Then it switches to camera point of view. You don’t see Robert’s face except in a few mirrors and his voice over. You see his hand, you see his eyes follow a pretty girl, he paces the camera goes around and smoke comes from the bottom of the screen. There are a few times where you see his shadow. When there is a view of Robert it is very strange. You expect to see you not Robert. There is a car chase and an accident where the car goes sideways. You see the accident happen. You see him try to get out of the car and stagger around and try to get to a call box from his point of view.
The whole film is done with the camera being a character. The few films that I have seen this way, only a few minutes or about half an hour are done this way. I like the point of view. I can understand how the audience at the time might have had a difficult time in understanding the style.
To do a film that you don’t see the star very often either takes a non egotistical actor or a great director. I think in this case it is both. There are very long scenes with few cuts. You are focused on the characters and their reactions to try to figure out what is going on.
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