Wednesday, January 24 @ 7:30 PM / NEIU — The Auditorium at NEIU — 3701 W Bryn Mawr Ave
Tickets: $10 at the door
THE WOMAN ON THE BEACH
Directed by Jean Renoir • 1947
Joan Bennett’s face is illuminated by flames in the hallucinatory nightmares of a Coast Guard officer with PTSD in Jean Renoir’s wild, visually ravishing, and atmospheric melodrama. An adaptation of a reasonably popular 1945 novel that might have been straightforward in other hands, The Woman on the Beach turned out to be the idiosyncratic coda to Renoir’s wartime stint in Hollywood. The shoot was marked by the abrupt departure of producer Val Lewton, after which RKO left Renoir to helm the largely unscripted and freewheeling production. The lack of studio encroachment allowed Renoir to execute a long-simmering vision: “a film based on what we call today sex…. a love story based purely on physical attraction, a story in which emotions played no part.” After a disastrous preview screening, a discouraged Renoir was forced to heavily reshoot and reedit the movie. “You know, a preview is a horrible test. You sit in a theater, and it’s as if someone were stabbing you with knives all over your body,” Renoir recalled. The film’s choppy 71-minute final cut has a fractured feel, like the feverish dreams of its protagonist. Robert Ryan stars as the troubled Lieutenant, who resides in a small seaside town. He has a sweet blonde girlfriend—that is, until on a deserted beach, he comes across Peggy (Joan Bennett), a brunette stunner married to Tod, a blind painter (Charles Bickford). Peggy and Tod’s marriage is itself a nightmare, complete with drunken fights, violence, and bitter allegations. All three corners of this love triangle are loose cannons. What anyone wants, other than chaos, remains a mystery. Would any of them choose happiness? Probably not on purpose. Lucky for us! Restored by the Library of Congress and The Film Foundation. Funding provided by the Hobson/Lucas Family Foundation. (RIN)
71 min • RKO Radio Pictures • 35mm from Library of Congress
Preceded by: Schlitz Playhouse: “Bitter Parting” (Paul Henreid & James Neilson, 1957) – 30 min – 35mm
NEXT UP: CUTTER’S WAY on Wednesday, January 31 at NEIU