Michael Draine's Twisted Vista
The Edgar Ulmer Collection, Vol. 1:
The Strange Woman/Moon Over Harlem
The Edgar Ulmer Collection, Vol. 2:
Bluebeard
(Allday Entertainment) DVD
Revered by horror fans for The Black Cat
(1934) and by the Cahiers du Cinéma
set for Detour (1946), Poverty Row auteur
Edgar G. Ulmer (1904-1972) touched
on nearly every conceivable genre in his
directorial career, from the Western
(Thunder over Texas, 1934), to women
in prison (Girls in Chains, 1943), to the
nudie (Naked Venus, 1958). All Day
Entertainment has paired two of the
most rare Ulmer films, an unusual
A-budget feature, The Strange Woman
(United Artists, 1946), with Ulmer’s
only black-cast picture, Moon Over
Harlem (1939).
For The Strange Woman, Hedy Lamarr
requested Ulmer (then at PRC) as director.
Acquaintances from Europe, Ulmer and
Lamarr had been members of Max
Reinhardt’s circle; Ulmer as a set
designer in Vienna, Lamarr (then
Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler) as a student
in Reinhardt’s Berlin drama school.
In The Strange Woman, Ulmer laces
a routine historical drama with a
dark psychological streak. Lamarr plays
Jennie Hager, a dispossessed young
woman who leaves a wake of murder
and suicide in her rise from rags to		Music Review Index
riches in 19th century Bangor, Maine.
The script is adapted from a novel by
Ben Ames Williams, whose thematically
similar Leave Her To Heaven had		Twisted Cinema
been filmed the previous year.
Eager for a break from decorative parts,
Lamarr obviously savors the complexity of
the title character. Unfortunately, she isn’t
equal to the role a guilt-ridden, upwardly
mobile seductress. As her Austrian accent
rings false for a Bangor belle, she’s most
effective in scenes with little or no
dialogue. In the film’s most powerful
sequences, Ulmer swathes the actress in
darkness, intensifying the expressive
qualities of Lamarr’s alabaster features.
The studio hierarchy at United Artists
precluded Ulmer’s taking control of
production design--the very area in which
which Ulmer excelled, regardless of		Drowning is a common motif in Ben
budget.  Aside from an intriguing open-		Ames Williams' Leave Her to Heaven
ing marrying two tracking shots via a		and The Strange Woman
nearly subliminal wipe, the film is largely
bereft of the director’s signature
minimalist invention.
Prior to his Forties tenure at PRC, where he
made Bluebeard (1944), Strange Illusion
(1945), and Detour, Ulmer directed a handful
of ethnic films in New York, aimed at Yiddish,
Hungarian or Ukrainian audiences. During this
period, Ulmer directed a 16mm black-cast
melodrama, Moon Over Harlem (1939).
Prior to desegregation, black theaters
in the South and late shows in Northern
cities (called “midnight runs”) provided a
guaranteed audience for “race movies.”
The plot concerns the trials of Sue (Ozinetta
Wilcox), who lives in Harlem with her widowed
mother. Trouble begins when Sue’s mother,
Cora, marries the strutting badass Dollar Bill
(Percy “Bud” Harris), an officer of the local
protection racket. When Cora catches Dollar
Bill making a pass at Sue, she blames her
daughter and throws her out. Sue has to quit
secretarial school and take up singing in
a nightclub. Bad begets worse when
Dollar Bill’s embezzling brings the wrath
of the mob down on the family.  Drawing
on the humanism of the Yiddish dramatic
tradition, Ulmer emphasizes the pain
of lives with few options, and the comfort
provided by strong personal bonds.
The use of a nonprofessional cast (which
Ulmer retrospectively justified as “the
Rossellini style”) yields flat, inexpressive
readings. The film’s strongest performance
comes from Percy “Bud” Harris, who
personifies a volatile mix of cunning,
ego, and slickster charm.
The Strange Woman and Moon Over
Harlem both depict disenfranchised
individuals making their way in the
world on the backs of others, only to be
undone by their own immorality. A common
Oedipal thread runs between the two films,
in Dollar Bill’s predatory stance toward
stance toward Sue, and Jennie Hager’s
seduction of a stepson her own age,
played by Louis Hayward.
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