1947’s Time Out of Mind is largely a forgettable melodrama, but it has one scene I suspect I will remember for quite some time. I’ll probably remember it long after I have forgotten which movie it’s from.
In this scene, a concert pianist (Robert Hutton) is on the stage of a New York City symphonic hall, premiering his own composition with a symphony. He was late for the start of this concert because he had to be dragged out of a rough bar where he had been playing “Bicycle Built For Two” on its out-of-tune piano. And so he shows up on the stage completely plowed because, hey, it must be self-pity o’clock somewhere. His performance is passable, initially. But then he detours into that chestnut he had been playing at that dive, all the while locking eyes with his wife up in the balcony, nearly foaming at the mouth with hatred. He may be sabotaging his musical career, but he’s doing so only because he knows how much this will hurt her.
His wife is played by Helena Carter. She is the daughter of a wealthy man who has provided the funds for this spectacle. Had the concert been a success, it would have been a feather in her cap, as she has far more concern for her social standing than she does for her husband. I think she was born in the wrong century, and would have had great success as a social media influencer today.
Carter isn’t the first person to dominate his life. Leo G. Carroll, playing his father, had earlier insisted Hutton abandon his dreams of becoming a composer, and instead continue the family’s lineage of seafaring men. Hutton obviously isn’t cut out for the sailor’s life, as he arrives at the house in a coma after his maiden voyage, having taken a blow to the head in a shipboard mishap. As soon as it is apparent Hutton will recover, Carroll demands he serve again on that vessel.
I’m sure Hutton would have found a way to kill himself on that subsequent journey, though probably not in any of the manners which were so hilarious in the 90’s Cabin Boy. Instead, his sister (Ella Raines) and one of the household’s maids (Phyllis Calvert) sneak him out of the house to a waiting carriage. This will be the beginning of a journey that will take him to Paris, where he will spend three years studying under a famous composer.
When he returns, Calvert is saddened to discover he had married Carter while he was in Paris. Even more disappointing to her is his unhappiness concerning his musical instruction. He sarcastically asks her if she wants to hear his “masterpiece”, his voice dripping with sarcasm. Given the way the movie frames this musical work he bashes out on the piano, I guess it is supposed to be subpar. Honestly, it sounded unremarkable but not exactly bad to my ears. This will be the piece he was going to unveil at that fiasco on the New York stage I mentioned earlier.
Hutton plays a deeply unlikable character here, one whose primary attributes are whininess and a tendency towards self-pity. He is basically dominated by one person after another, seemingly having no will or motivation of his own. Neither did I like Calvert, who is presented as the protagonist. Never mind she is the last in a line of people who pushes him in a direction they feel is best for him.
There are many elements here that are intriguing only because they spark questions that aren’t addressed. It was hard to tell if that was a deliberate approach or just sloppiness. Eddie Albert wanders the margins of some of the scenes at the family homestead. At one point, he is revealed to be wealthy, though nothing before or after that moment hints at this. Also, it took me the longest time to work out who Raines and Culvert were in relation to Hutton. At first, I thought one or the other was a fiancée, then I later thought they were both sisters of his. Turns out I was half right, as Raines plays his only sister. Given I thought she might have been a love interest suggests something askew. Most confusing is Culvert, who is just a maid, but seems to interact with the family as if she was a blood relation. She even waltzes with Hutton at a ball thrown at the house, which seems to upend everything I thought I had learned from Upstairs Downstairs.
I didn’t think anything could trump the insanity of Hutton’s tantrum on the stage, but the film will do just that in a second concert he leads at the end of the film. I found it odd nothing seemed especially different to me about this new piece he conducts, when compared to what he showed so much disdain towards earlier. But what makes the climax such a bizarre spectacle is a ridiculous, and ridiculously convoluted, assassination Carter has arranged to take place during the performance.
I struggle to come up with anything positive to say about Time Out of Mind. There’s some solid matte work and set design, but that feels a bit like damning with faint praise. This is a curious melodrama, populated with characters I never felt I really knew and whose outcomes I couldn’t have cared less about.
Dir: Robert Siodmak
Starring Phyllis Calvert, Robert Hutton, Ella Raines, Helena Carter
Watched on Kino Lorber blu-ray