Cause for Alarm (1951)

Suspense, anguish and jellied consommé. Loretta Young never looked more fraught or better lit

It's unlikely that his aunt's nice bowl of jellied consommé, packed on ice, will do much for George Jones's attitude toward his wife. Ellen Jones arrives back home in the nick of time to keep the aunt from going upstairs. If the aunt had made it, she'd have found George dead, collapsed half off the bed after a fatal heart attack. She most likely would have dropped the consommé.

In flashback told to us by Ellen (Loretta Young), we learn the story. Please note that elements of the plot are discussed. She and George (Barry Sullivan) have been married seven years. They live in a small but nice Southern California home with a white picket fence in front. Ellen busies herself with housework, making cookies, preparing meals. Young plays her to the hilt as an unambitious, sincere, not very deep Hollywood cliché who loves her husband, longs for a garden and yearns for a baby. She also waits hand and foot on George, who now is confined to an upstairs bedroom with a serious heart condition. This morning, Ellen is going to learn that George has secretly become dangerously paranoid, convinced that his wife and his doctor are conspiring to kill him so that they can wed. He has written a letter to the district attorney making his case. His evidence might all be circumstantial -- and we know it isn't even true -- but to an outsider it might look like the real goods. When George hands Ellen a letter and tells her to give it to the postman, he can hardly hide his delight in his cleverness. Ellen will be the instrument of her own comeuppance. George tells her of how clever he has been and pulls out a gun to shoot her. He didn't count on having a last, fatal heart attack. Now Ellen must retrieve that letter. She is sure no one will believe her if the letter gets to the D.A.. So off she goes, while George is stiffening upstairs, trying to deal with circumstances that have her on the edge of hysteria. First the postman, then a neighbor, then the jellied consommé, then a notary knocking on her door. Finally, late that afternoon, handsome Doctor Grahame stops by to check on George. "No, no, please don't, please!" Ellen cries as Grahame heads upstairs. "Please don't go up there! It's better for everybody. Just don't go up there!" By now we're almost as exhausted as Ellen. And then comes the ironic ending. It is such a low-key plot device that it's hard not to just shrug.

This quickie low-budget movie (it was filmed in 14 days) is above all else a vehicle for a fading screen queen who, like so many other major actors then, was having to deal with the rapid collapse of the studio system, the inroads of time after a long career, changing audience tastes and the appearance of new, younger stars. Young, who won a best acting Academy Award in 1947, runs the emotional gamut for us, every thing from wifely concern, hysteria, disbelief, love, confusion, anguish and ineffectual guile. She is in almost every scene. None of it is especially believable because Young is so carefully photographed and carefully made up. We know when she is in a particular bout of emotional distress because her hair is just slightly out of place. Young once said that "Wearing the correct dress for any occasion is a matter of good manners." This combination of appearing insufferably well bred and her off-putting high-social sweetness made her a difficult person to feel close to. Her unrelenting Hollywood-royalty graciousness probably turned as many stomachs as her beauty turned heads. Still, she had a long, carefully nurtured career that extended from the silents (at 15 she co-starred with Lon Chaney) well into the television era. She cultivated what some people would call lady-like class.

Cause for Alarm! is in the public domain and looks every bit of it. March 14, 2008

Meladrama

This is a very different story plot. Because of the era of the film it is very played, meladramatic. But that was the style. It is still a good story. December 26, 2007

Terrific suspense film!

Ellen Brown (Loretta Young) is having a really bad day. Actually that would be an understatement. Let me start from the beginning. A huge monkey wrench has been thrown into her comfortable, idyllic early 1950's suburban lifestyle. Her husband George (Barry Sullivan) has a serious heart condition which is making him deteriorate not only physically but psychologically as well. He was once very much in love with his wife, but now he suffers from delusions and is convinced that Ellen and his doctor and once friend Ranney Grahame (Bruce Cowling) are plotting to kill him. George writes a letter to the district attorney stating this and has Ellen mail it, not knowing of the contents until it's too late. George's condition worsens and he tries to kill Ellen and it is during this scene that she finds out about the letter he had her mail, right before he drops dead. Now Ellen has to hurry and get the letter back before she's wrongly implicated in her husband's demise. Things get interesting as we go along on Ellen's journey to get the letter back. It may sound like a simple mundane task, but numerous interruptions keep occurring that get in the way of Ellen's quest. The suspense grows and grows to a maddening level and as viewers we can feel Ellen's anguish and desperation. The suspense keeps up until we reach the end. You'll have to see for yourself how it turns out. Loretta Young does a perfect job in her role. We can almost feel and relate to every emotion that she experiences as if we were going through the ordeal ourselves. Barry Sullivan and Bruce Cowling also do a great job in their roles. While this may not be blockbuster material, it is worth watching and very well made. It's also notable as one of the last films Loretta Young starred in before she went on to work in television. See it at least once; I think you'll enjoy it! May 31, 2006

He planned for her to panic

Since there are several reviews already listing the outline of the plot I'll just mention a few key points that I feel were handled very skillfully.

First of all, I find the handling of George's (the husband's) character very elegant. The first time I saw the movie I bought it completely--the whole bit about him being wonderful until illness and despair drove him into psychosis. Upon my second viewing I realized a few things that give his character a whole different slant.

We see from the very beginning, in Ellen's flashback to their meeting and courtship, that although he is quite dashing he is also sly, self-serving, manipulative, and somewhat malicious. This is shown by the way he tricks her and takes advantage in the hospital room and then laughs at her. We also see in the beach and airport scenes that he relishes taking her away from his own best friend. Anyone with a real heart--get the symbolism there--would feel a little regret about that.

Later, after he is established as an invalid, the isolation and anxiety caused by his cardiac condition are becoming evident as he intersperses perfectly rational conversation with sudden flights of mania and flashes of paranoia. His delusions seem ridiculous compared to Ellen's obvious devotion and worry, but we do wonder if perhaps he isn't right, after all, about the involvement of the doctor (his best friend of old). Maybe the poor doctor really is guilty of secretly wishing George would hurry up and die, leaving the way clear for him to pursue Ellen once more; maybe he's too noble to ever think such a thing at all. Regardless, George believes it.

There is a lovely scene before he dies where we see precisely what his relationship is to these people and what he has planned for them. He describes for Ellen his childhood toy, the ship in a bottle, and the neighbor boy who touched it when his back was turned and whom he savagely attacks in return. Before his mother can force him to give up the ship in apology he purposely dashes the bottle to the floor, destroying it completely.

The parallel between the ship and Ellen is obvious--something lovely and fragile and completely captive. He has contained Ellen within their house without allowing her to form friendships or outside interests and he expects her to exist solely for him, just as he wanted no one else to touch or look at his ship. And now he believes his friend is secretly planning against him, or maybe he's making that up as a form of justification for what he is about to do. Since he's already convinced he's dying, he's furious that it now appears he's also giving up his wife to the other fellow in rather the way he was expected to reward the covetous neighbor boy. Just like the scene in his youth, he acts to damage his perceived rival and ruin the prize. The only difference is that now with maturity he is able to plot and scheme rather than strike out impulsively. I am left wondering if he truly is paranoid about their "plot" or if this is his crafty, nasty way of shattering the ship all over again.

The moments with Aunt Clara only reinforce the impression that George never was quite normal. She seems to have no trouble believing the lie about George turning against her, thus she immediately retaliates with a remark that leaves no doubt of a long familial history overlooking his cruel tendencies. I thought it was very nicely done, and all the more effective because Clara isn't a sympathetic character. We certainly see a resemblance to George in her utter self-absorption.

One wonders how a nice, intelligent being like Ellen could be taken in by George, but they say love is blind. This is evinced by the scenes where she always just misses seeing him at the window. Others notice him, or she detects the swaying drapery, but she never quite sees the whole picture of him sitting spiderlike among webs of curtain lace.

The film does a fine job of ratcheting up the suspense by using the most mundane scenarios. The almost ridiculous nature of the obstacles in her path contrast with just how sinister George's plan is. He must know that an investigation into his death would be inconclusive at best (even given the large life insurance policy as a motive). But a close review of Ellen's activities that day would cast new light on the details in his letter. We see Ellen driven by panic and pent-up stress into behaving less and less rationally and appearing more and more guilty. She certainly seems doomed, and this could only be brought about by the revelation from George. I feel this is further evidence that he has contrived the plot out of malice rather than paranoia or a desire for posthumous justice. He knows exactly how her innocent, beleaguered heart will react to the news. In fact, he is counting on it, he has carefully cultivated this moment.

I don't believe for one second that he ever intends to shoot her. Notice he never points the gun directly at her. I think he means to shoot the woodwork and cement the impression that he was trying to defend himself. He wants it to look like she was forcing him to take more drugs. He knows the overdose he took earlier will only add weight to the accusation, he just doesn't expect it to finish him off right at that moment.

The irony of her shooting the floor herself later on makes me think I'm right about that. It serves as a tidy little bookend moment.

I also love the ironic, abrupt ending that simply poleaxes Ellen and halts her in her steps. It's wonderful how the relentless, pounding pace of her mounting hysteria is like heart palpitations bounding out of control when suddenly it all just...stops. (Rather like George). Another great bookend moment. Delicious. November 16, 2005

Loretta Young in an exceptional performance

CAUSE FOR ALARM is a very entertaining film in the noir-suspense vein. Loretta Young plays a housewife whose terminally-ill husband becomes mentally unbalanced and accuses her of trying to kill him. When he writes a damning letter to the District Attorney, she must embark on a race against time to retrieve it.

A prime Loretta Young vehicle. She offers an amazing performance in what turned out to be one of her last movies before focusing on a lucrative television career. With Margalo Gillmore, Barry Sullivan, Bruce Cowling, Irving Bacon and Brad Mora. CAUSE FOR ALARM was directed with great skill by Tay Garnett, who several years before had directed the noir masterpiece THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE. The score was composed by Andre Previn.

Alpha's DVD offers a fine-looking Public Domain print (taken from a good quality VHS master). For Loretta Young fans and admirers of the noir genre, this is quite the treat. November 3, 2005

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