When Charles Laughton toured the US in the 1950s reading passages from Shakespeare and the Bible, did small town audiences remember there was a time he gleefully played some of the sleaziest characters in movie history? Sir William Porterhouse, William Marble, Dr. Moreau, Sir Humphrey Pengallan... and, in his first American movie, submarine commander Charles Sturm in Devil and the Deep. Laughton might have third billing, but his character's redolence hangs over the rest of the cast like London's Great Fog of 1952 -- almost as fatally.Sturm and his wife Diana have been dismally married many years because of some kind of monetary favor he did for her father. (No way I could ever be accused of that.) And so she is condemned to a lifetime of paying off a debt that she was never really part of. That's what you get for being born, sweetie!
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| Sturm takes great pleasure in ruining Jaeckel's career before the end of the second reel. |
What Sturm is too thick (figuratively and
otherwise) to realize is that Diana really has been faithful to him all along, which makes her in need of the "brain specialist" that he's been seeing. Faithful, that is, until running into a fellow named Sempter one evening... and doing the dirty with him under the desert moon faster than you can say, "What was your name again?"
But this isn't just a one-night lay for Sempter, because in the morning he asks Diana, "Do you love me?" -- which is probably what Pete Davidson does the first time with every woman, too. But if Pete looked like Gary Cooper, who plays Sempter, it's understandable why Diana answers in the affirmative. But since Diana is played by Tallulah Bankhead, Sempter should take her reply with a rock of salt.
Despite her feelings for him, Diana doesn't want to see Sempter again. So just imagine her surprise when he arrives at her house the next day as Jaeckel's replacement on Sturm's sub. That's some funny stuff there, lady, eh?
This time, Sturm knows there was more than tea and crumpets between his wife and subordinate. When Diana sneaks aboard the sub while it's still in port, Sturm decides everybody needs to pay the price for her affair. Setting sail without letting Diana out first, Sturm deliberately puts the sub on a collision course with a ship and blames Sempter for the "accident".
Wait, that's not enough madness? Well, how's this: Sturm demands that Sempter be thrown in the stockade, tells the crew about Diana's tryst, and then calmly waits for all of them to die. And the crew of the Caine thought Capt. Queeg was crazy!
Even by pre-Code standards, the first-rate Devil and the Deep takes things one step further by showing the sexual frustration running not-so-deeply in the marriage situation. Diana all but shouts I gotta get laid before my head flies off! every time she meets a new guy.
Sturm, on the other hand, is either impotent or, perhaps more likely, finds sex repulsive. What else can explain his compulsion to set up younger, handsome men in sexually-unfulfilled relationships with his wife, then secretly watch them as they share their feelings for each other? That way, he can get off by punishing his wife emotionally and the men professionally. That's definitely a two-fer in the sadism department.
Charles Laughton, however, must have been a glutton for masochism, because not a moment goes by when he isn't making himself look even homelier than he already is. Running his hands down his face, asking Cooper pathetically, "Have you ever felt sick to death? Sick of being alive?... Must be a happy thing to look like you do. Women must love that. I've never had that", you get a terribly uncomfortable feeling that Laughton isn't acting. It's a brave, brilliant, even moving moment: Sturm's ugliness has driven him to the brink of insanity. Of course, that doesn't mean his habit of loudly telling the same bad jokes day after day isn't doing the same thing to everyone else.
In his brief time onscreen, Cary Grant still gets to shine in what was only his fifth movie appearance. As in his debut, This is the Night, his charisma is on display, far more so than the then-bigger star, Gary Cooper, who, as usual, sounds like he's reading his lines for the first time straight from the script.
Cooper, however, figures in Devil and the Deep's most mesmerizing scene. When Diana leaves her house the evening Jaeckel is stripped of his duties, she stumbles into a parade of revelers celebrating a holiday. Director Marion Gering cuts quickly from Arab faces to hands banging drums to Diana and back again, over and over, creating a forbidden sexual tension broken only when Sempter rescues her from out of nowhere by blocking her against a wall with his long, stiff arm. Yup, we get the picture.
I almost forgot about Tallulah Bankhead, one of those actresses -- make that personalities -- who never quite became a movie star. Only 30, she already has the jaded personality, smoky voice, and tired eyes of a woman twice her age. She's good-looking and, I suppose, sexy, but in an uncomfortable way, as if she's seen too much of everything, including you. Especially you.
Bankhead's personality might have been too chilly even for Norway, where, on at least one poster, Gary Cooper's name came first, and his warm all-American face was the main draw. Must be a happy thing to look like him.
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To read about Cary Grant's movie debut, This is the Night, go here.
To read about the ridiculous Gary Cooper movie The Fountainhead, go here.
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| Sempter makes sure that they don't knock over the phony palm tree on the Paramount soundstage. |
But this isn't just a one-night lay for Sempter, because in the morning he asks Diana, "Do you love me?" -- which is probably what Pete Davidson does the first time with every woman, too. But if Pete looked like Gary Cooper, who plays Sempter, it's understandable why Diana answers in the affirmative. But since Diana is played by Tallulah Bankhead, Sempter should take her reply with a rock of salt.
 |
| "Dahling, didn't I see you inside of me last night?" |
This time, Sturm knows there was more than tea and crumpets between his wife and subordinate. When Diana sneaks aboard the sub while it's still in port, Sturm decides everybody needs to pay the price for her affair. Setting sail without letting Diana out first, Sturm deliberately puts the sub on a collision course with a ship and blames Sempter for the "accident".
 |
| "Sorry, men, that you have to pay the price for my psychopathy. But thank you for your service." |
Even by pre-Code standards, the first-rate Devil and the Deep takes things one step further by showing the sexual frustration running not-so-deeply in the marriage situation. Diana all but shouts I gotta get laid before my head flies off! every time she meets a new guy.
 |
| Look at them. If that's not love, I don't know what is. Which tells you all you need to know about me. |
Sturm, on the other hand, is either impotent or, perhaps more likely, finds sex repulsive. What else can explain his compulsion to set up younger, handsome men in sexually-unfulfilled relationships with his wife, then secretly watch them as they share their feelings for each other? That way, he can get off by punishing his wife emotionally and the men professionally. That's definitely a two-fer in the sadism department.
Charles Laughton, however, must have been a glutton for masochism, because not a moment goes by when he isn't making himself look even homelier than he already is. Running his hands down his face, asking Cooper pathetically, "Have you ever felt sick to death? Sick of being alive?... Must be a happy thing to look like you do. Women must love that. I've never had that", you get a terribly uncomfortable feeling that Laughton isn't acting. It's a brave, brilliant, even moving moment: Sturm's ugliness has driven him to the brink of insanity. Of course, that doesn't mean his habit of loudly telling the same bad jokes day after day isn't doing the same thing to everyone else.
 |
| Another fun evening with the Sturms. |
Cooper, however, figures in Devil and the Deep's most mesmerizing scene. When Diana leaves her house the evening Jaeckel is stripped of his duties, she stumbles into a parade of revelers celebrating a holiday. Director Marion Gering cuts quickly from Arab faces to hands banging drums to Diana and back again, over and over, creating a forbidden sexual tension broken only when Sempter rescues her from out of nowhere by blocking her against a wall with his long, stiff arm. Yup, we get the picture.
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| That's "Night Over Tunis" to you, pal. |
Bankhead's personality might have been too chilly even for Norway, where, on at least one poster, Gary Cooper's name came first, and his warm all-American face was the main draw. Must be a happy thing to look like him.
*********************
To read about Cary Grant's movie debut, This is the Night, go here.
To read about the ridiculous Gary Cooper movie The Fountainhead, go here.
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