What did you watch? Hangover Square, a period piece made in 1945 about…

…hangovers? The invention of squares? The math needed to overcome a hangover? A serial killer.

This movie is less about anything (it’s plot, love triangle, police on the tail of our protagonist) that it basically is about the lead, Laird Cregar. This is, I think, the third time we’ve seen Laird in these reviews: This Gun For Hire, where he was an effeminate fixer for a industrialist Nazi conspirator, and I Wake Up Screaming, a hulking skulking brooding creep of a detective. He also played a Jack The Ripper typed in The Lodger.

That’s a lot of bad guys, which maybe you think “this guy was great at playing bad guys,” and he was. Laird would have liked other jobs, though, we’re talking leading man roles, and he was incredibly talented. The problem is that he was 6’3″, and Hollywood already doesn’t like you because now they need to move the camera back to capture you with the scenery and there are few leading ladies who don’t need like four milk crates to stand on in order to make eye contact with you.

I kid but this is the 1940s Hollywood system here. Did I mention that Laird was incredibly talented? Could play a lot of roles? Was well received as a stage actor? Well, despite his wishes to stop being typecast as a bad guy, he asked that the studio adapt the novel Hangover Square to a movie. I don’t know anything about the novel so how it’s different, I don’t know. In reading up on this, Laird got cold feet, and almost didn’t make this movie that he championed for. Anyway, the plot:

Laird plays George, a composer in turn-of-the-century London. George has a problem: he blacks out for a day or so, which coincides with a nearby murder. And, throughout the movie, usually someone he has a problem with. It’s not a coincidence: we’re with George right from the beginning when he kills a shopkeeper for reasons unknown and somehow manages to escape. He ends up at home where he’s greeted by his girlfriend Barbara and her dad. Despite the admission he doesn’t know what happened, and that someone nearby was murdered, no one can make the connection. The police are suspicious of George, of course, but he’s an important musician, so if people could please back off while he composes music for a performance, that would be greatly appreciated.

However, George is distracted by a nightclub singer, Netta. She’s introduced to George, and wants to brush him off until her manager (?) informs her he’s an important musician. She conspires to have him write music for her, and he’s not shy about letting her know he’s in love with her. He kinda forgets Barbara, and his orchestra, exist. Netta leads him on and then makes up stuff like having a headache and she needs alone time, to which he then witnesses her leave to meet up with some other guy. As this happens, some metal pipes being dug into the ground happen to fall, causing a sound that causes George to go into a trance. He then goes to Barbara’s home and tries to kill her, and escapes without anyone seeing him after he fails. He still pursues Netta, but when she finally rejects him, some violins fall and cause another big noise that results in him killing her. He manages to take the body to a big bonfire and throws it at the top.

The police are looking for a missing Netta and put together a lot that George’s amnesia spells are caused by loud noises. When confronted by someone about it, he locks that person in a basement and runs to his perform his concerto. That person escapes and the cops confront him again at the concert hall, where George causes a fire. He refuses Barbara’s attempt to leave the building, and dies playing the piano as the place burns up around him.

The End.

Uh, that doesn’t seem like noir. Was it good? It was ok. Guess what, Laird was pretty good in it. It’s short. There’s no mystery. The best parts were Netta playing George along, while he was subconsciously ready to end all that in a heartbeat. Why, I almost forgot that Barbara and the police trying to keep tabs on him were in the film.

What’s interesting about this movie, then? This was Laird’s last movie. It was filmed in sequence, because he was in the middle of a strict diet in an attempt to lose weight, which he was, drastically. This sort of thing was tough on the production. He died as a result of this crash diet after the movie wrapped and before it came out. The movie wasn’t that well received, but it is known for not just being Laird’s last movie, but also for Bernard Herrmann’s score – that guy worked with everyone!

Well, not the most enthusiastic review. I enjoyed seeing Laird Cregar in the other movies we saw so at the very least we get see one of the few he was the lead actor, even it it was sadly last.