User Reviews

Although technically made after more stringent censorship resumed, THE FLORENTINE DAGGER (1935) violates the expectations of both formula and the censorship of the time. The movie was the result of a hasty production that did not augur well for it. Director Robert Florey was designated to helm the project only a week before shooting began. Tom Reed's script was still being rewritten and substantially changed during photography, with the entire ending changed. Star Donald Woods was considered too inexperienced for the lead, and on the first day of shooting he became so nervous that he lost his voice. The movie was shot in a mere 20 days, on a $135,000 budget. Nonetheless, for Warner Bros., in 1935, this did not make THE FLORENTINE DAGGER, properly speaking, a "B," but instead it was intended as an unusual, high-quality item. 1. Writer Reed and director Florey had already collaborated in similar capacities on MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE (Universal, 1932). THE FLORENTINE DAGGER added themes not present in the Ben Hecht novel but which deepened it considerably. Using a "pre-noir" style, the consistently strange, unnatural behavior of each of the performers is augmented by Florey's expressionistic treatment, with painterly camera-work by Arthur Todd, full of oblique angles, dark lighting, shadow effects, and composition in depth, heightening moments of drama and character revelation. Many objets d'art from director Florey's own collection enrich the set design and enhance the chilling mood it creates. In a move seldom allowed contract directors, Warner Bros. permitted Florey to oversee the editing, so that pace, choice of shots, and narrative all combine together to memorably explore the psyche of its characters.

Operating on multiple levels, THE FLORENTINE DAGGER delves past a surface mystery into a domain where the apparently dead past intrudes on the present, releasing ungovernable passions. Woods plays a modern descendant of the Borgias, Cesare, driven to the brink of suicide by his belief that he has a dual personality, with his subconscious half inheriting the murderous proclivities of his ancestors. A misogynist psychiatrist, Dr. Lytton (C. Aubrey Smith) suggests Cesare exorcise his internal demons by writing a play on the Borgias, but no sooner has he done so, and been supposedly cured of his obsession, than events shed doubt on the viability of such a cure. Cesare falls in love with leading lady Florence Ballau (Margaret Lindsay), but it appears she is becoming her role--Lucretia Borgia. Florence is accused of murdering her father, theatrical producer Victor Ballau, but in investigating on her behalf, Cesare uncovers a maelstrom of revenge and bitterness stretching back over two decades. While Cesare's fear is the product of his own delusion, others are experiencing deep and far more real psychological turmoil. Victor, at first the apparent victim of a crime, turns out to be far more depraved than even Cesare could imagine. Victor was, in fact, Florence's stepfather, who tried to kill her mother, stage star Teresa (Florence Fair), by setting her dress afire. She survived, hiding her now hideously scarred visage behind a naturalistic mask and impersonating a servant to be with Florence. Not until Victor begins to nearly-incestuously force himself on stepdaughter Florence, having fallen perversely in love with her and jealously attempting to destroy her romance with Cesare, does Teresa finally take vengeance against the patriarchal power that has nearly destroyed the lives of two women. Overhearing Teresa's confession to Cesare, psychiatrist Lytton realizes his theories of patricide have been entirely wrong, and the police inspector in charge of the case allows Teresa, Florence, and Cesare, to escape together--without the compensatory suicide of Teresa called for by the original script and Hays Office policy. Only by assuming that the Hays Office was paying little attention to a modestly-budgeted thriller, whose conclusion was changed in production, can we explain how a film so obviously in violation of the tenets of the code was allowed. Somehow, this film was released, without much recognition by critics of just how unusual it was. Today, The Florentine Dagger can be recognized as one of the truly subversive films of its era, and one whose content would not be accepted in films until at least forty years later, making it decades ahead of its time.

1935's "The Florentine Dagger" finds director Robert Florey ("Murders in the Rue Morgue") doing a trial run for his 1941 Peter Lorre vehicle "The Face Behind the Mask," only here we never actually SEE the face in question. Sad to say, Donald Woods seems totally out of his depth as a tortured Italian descendant of the infamous Lucrecia Borzia, whose legacy of misdeeds get quite a lot of airtime during the picture's first half. Banishing his suicidal thoughts by scripting a play about his ancestors, he falls in love with the star performer (Margaret Lindsay), who also feels a kinship for the Borgias, which puts her in a bad light when her stepfather (Henry O'Neill) is discovered murdered by a Borzia Florentine dagger. There just aren't enough suspects for the whodunit angle, and Robert H. Barrat's grating comic police captain spends more time eating than investigating. The climax does at least feature some salacious and surprising elements, unusual for any Hollywood product of that time. Newcomer Donald Woods was barely passable in "The Case of the Curious Bride," only marginally better as Perry Mason in "The Case of the Stuttering Bishop" (most effective in "Charlie Chan on Broadway"). Florence Fair appeared in 15 titles that year, as did dependable Frank Reicher, but Ruthelma Stevens, so good opposite Adolphe Menjou in a pair of Thatcher Colt mysteries, is sadly wasted as an acting understudy.

Copyright 1 April 1935 by Warner Bros Pictures, Inc. A Crime Club Picture, presented by Warner Bros Pictures and The Vitaphone Corp. New York opening at the Mayfair: 26 April 1935. Australian release: 8 May 1935. 7 reels. 70 minutes.

SYNOPSIS: Who murdered impresario Victor Ballau? His daughter, currently playing Lucrezia Borgia in a play written by a direct descendant of Cesare Borgia (who is himself under treatment for possible schizophrenia)? A psychiatrist who is subject to sudden, unexplained mood changes? A grim, beaten servant, mousily unobtrusive, who admits she was alone in the house with the victim when the murder was committed? A cat-and-mouse police captain who seems too knowingly off-hand? Or a crazy-looking old woman who successfully bids for the murder candlesticks at an auction of the victim's effects?

COMMENT: Hecht's novel deals with three sets of dual personalities which are carried over into this moodily atmospheric film version in such a clever manner that we are really never quite sure of the genuineness or sanity of any of the principal characters.

In the best performance of his career, Donald Woods, normally a rather wooden and stodgy actor, not only provides an able and ingratiating study but gives his portrait a neurotic intensity that makes it doubly fascinating. Margaret Lindsay too infuses her characterization with a depth and an edge that makes it seem for a time as if the script is about to duplicate "A Double Life". And as for C. Aubrey Smith, how wonderful it is to see this fine actor filling a role worthy and large enough for his brilliant talents. Henry O'Neill excels too, whilst it's great to find Robert Barrat limning an unusual role in a most entertaining balance of comic/dramatic perfection.

Florence Fair made only ten or so sound films, all around this period. If this is a fair sample of her extraordinary histrionic gifts, we are certainly looking forward to seeing her again.

In addition to drawing these magnificent performances, director Robert Florey has infused the whole film with a beguilingly brooding atmosphere — assisted by some wonderful sets from Grot and Weyl, plus Todd's superlative lighting and camera-work.

The script rivets the attention throughout. The sarcastic and dallying dialogue provided to and so expertly delivered by Robert Barrat offers a neat contrast to the Gothic trappings of a fascinating plot.

ANOTHER REVIEW: Three suspects in the novel, but each has a dual personality. In solving the mystery, it's a question not only who benefits but which of the schizos did the deed. In translating this to the screen, the writers have made a large number of equally ingenious changes. Florey's direction is most competent. The set designers have wrought wonders. - JHR writing as George Addison.