But I am not Jason Robards!
Jason Robards takes a star turn in Murders in the Rue Morgue (1971), a rather limp rendition of the Edgar Allan Poe classic. Not having read the original story myself, I am uncertain as to the fidelity of the movie to the original story; a quick glance at the Wikipedia entry suggests the fidelity may not be high. In any case, I prefer to judge a story on its own presentation terms.
And this one lacks tension. Part of this may be attributed to the characters, who fail to engage our sympathies. Between theater director Charron (Robards) who seems queerly unaffected as members and former members of his troupe begin to die in various & gory manners, and his wife, Madeleine (Christine Kaufmann), who appears to have nightmares at the drop of a hat, but has no will of her own, it was hard to feel sympathy for the leading characters. Meanwhile, other characters who are, at best, barely sketched in, die of slit throats, so messily done, or acid thrown on them, or they simply fade away. Basically, if they survive most or all of the movie, you don’t really believe they’re human, at least not one you’d wish to know, and if they die early, the sympathy is pro forma, as we haven’t a clue as to their wives, children, political aspirations, or even their favorite rock.
Another part of the problem is the style in which the story is told. A number of times we are presented with realistic action, only to discover it was really part of Madeleine’s recurring nightmare. Now, this is perfect permissible once, perhaps even twice, but this limit is far exceeded in this movie. A famous writer[1] may have once said, “If you’re going to break the rules, do it big, make it a virtue,” but in this case, it was not made a virtue[2]. It was merely confusing.
Finally, the resilience of the antagonist in the face of multiple physical attacks is truly remarkable, while the stage combat instances were more or less laughable. And if an attempt is made to attribute his fortitude to sheer will and love, it didn’t click for me. Perhaps it’s a temperament thing.
All that said, the basic technical features of the film, excepting the stage combat, were competent, as was the acting. But in the end, it felt like a waste of time, for the audience, the actor, even the director.
1Roger Zelazny, if memory serves, but I cannot find a quote online, so perhaps I misremember.
2A memorable case of such virtue would be Inception (2010).
