The Upturned Glass

Plot synopsis:
A medical school class attends a lecture on the psychology of crime. The unnamed lecturer (James Mason) announces that while his past lectures have covered criminals with abnormal psychology, today's lecture will focus on "the sane criminal" who may have a "strong sense of justice". He then describes the case of a murderer who is a "perfectly sane, valuable member of society", a surgeon to whom he gives the fictitious name of "Michael Joyce" (also played by Mason). The film depicts Michael's story in flashbacks narrated by the lecturer, indicating to the film viewing audience that unbeknownst to the medical school class, the lecturer is telling his own story and that he and Michael are one and the same.
Michael is a skilled London surgeon and brain specialist with an established Harley Street practice. He is unhappily married and separated from his wife, has no close friends, and spends most of his time working. He meets Emma Wright (Rosamund John) when she brings her young daughter Ann (Ann Stephens), who is going blind, for a consultation. Michael performs a delicate operation to save Ann's sight. During Ann's treatment and recovery, Michael and Emma, whose husband is away on business travel, fall in love and have an affair, although neither is free to marry. Emma finally ends the affair and tells Michael they must never see each other again.
Soon afterwards, Michael learns that Emma has died from a broken neck after falling from her bedroom window at her country home. Michael attends the inquest, at which both Ann and Kate Howard, Emma's sister-in-law (Pamela Kellino), testify. Emma's death is ruled an accident, but Michael is suspicious and conducts his own investigation. In order to gather information, he romances Kate, who proves to be a greedy, shallow woman with debt problems and a grudge against her brother and Emma because her brother had inherited most of her parents' estate. Kate tells Michael that she knew Emma had a lover, but did not know who it was.
After speaking privately with the caretaker of Emma's house and with Ann, Michael concludes that Kate had tried to blackmail Emma by threatening to tell her husband and daughter about her affair. Emma, who had already ended the affair, refused to give Kate money, so Kate told Ann about the affair. Ann's upset reaction then drove her mother to commit suicide by jumping from her bedroom window. Michael, repulsed by Kate, tries to break up with her without telling her what he knows, but she insists she wants to be with him. So, on the pretext of them taking a romantic trip together, he lures Kate to Emma's former house on a night when he knows the caretaker will be away, and kills her by pushing her out the same window.
After recounting this story, the lecturer dismisses the class, reiterating in response to a student's question that the murderer was "perfectly sane - sane as I am". He then drives off campus and picks up a woman with luggage (also played by Pamela Kellino), thus confirming to the viewers that the story of "Michael Joyce" was really about him, but showing that he has not yet killed the woman he called "Kate Howard" in his lecture. He now begins to carry out the murder plan as described, luring her to the house and then revealing that he was her sister-in-law's lover. However, when he tries to push her out the window, she fights him, forcing him to choke her and thus leave evidence of a struggle. She finally falls out the window clutching the key to the locked bedroom door, causing him to have to force the lock open to exit the room. Realizing that he has left too much evidence, he moves her dead body to his car and drives away, narrowly escaping being caught by the caretaker who has unexpectedly returned.
The murderer then drives through dense fog with the body hidden in the back seat of his car, eventually encountering a local general practitioner, Dr. Farrell, whose car has broken down. Despite his fear that Farrell will discover the body in the car, the murderer reluctantly gives Farrell a ride after learning that Farrell is rushing to see a critically ill patient, a young girl who has suffered a head injury. He reveals to Farrell that he is also a doctor and that he has emotional feelings about his patients, never liking to lose a patient but also wishing that, instead of having to impartially provide medical care, he could sit in judgment and decide which patients live and which die. By contrast, Farrell is a cynic who freely admits he loses many patients and doesn't care whether they live or die, only going through the motions of expressing sympathy to the families of the deceased. Farrell is planning to tell the injured girl's mother that there is no hope of her recovery, and asks the murderer to come in with him to provide support for that opinion. However, upon seeing the patient, the murderer decides to operate and performs a complicated brain surgery in the girl's bedroom. Midway through the operation, the murderer sends Farrell to get a needed medical item from his car, forgetting that Farrell will likely see the body in the car. Farrell searches through the car to find the item and the film suggests that he sees the body, but chooses not to interrupt the operation, allowing the patient's life to be saved. Afterwards, Farrell congratulates the murderer on a good operation, but also diagnoses him as "paranoid" and "mad" based on his statements about judging who should live and who should die. The murderer leaves, with his victim's body still in his car, and drives to Beachy Head, where, disturbed by the realization that he is not sane, he commits suicide by jumping off the cliff.

Tags: revenge, murder

Review:
James Mason in one of his last British films before accepting that contract with MGM and leaving for America plays a doctor who may have become too detached from life.
A prominent brain surgeon he accepts the case of young Ann Stephens whose eyesight he saves with a delicate operation.
In the process he falls in love with Ann's mother Rosamund John.Both Mason and John are separated from their respective spouses and we never meet either of them in The Upturned Glass.
Shortly after they end things, Mason hears that John falls to her death in her own home.Mason had already met Pamela Kellino and formed a bad opinion of her almost immediately.
She's easy too hate and Mason courts her to get close.The film is told about 2/3 of the way in flashback as Mason lectures to a university class on the atypical murderer, the sane and logical one which he naturally takes himself to be.
The rest of the film is a revealing portrayal of how Mason should be seen.The Upturned Glass is a nice bit of melodramatic noir with Mason really carrying this film.
One of the earlier reviewers suggested that the film takes "the easy way out." I partially agree, but think that the real reason for the disappointing finale was the censors.
The Upturned Glass is directed by Lawrence Huntington and written by John Monaghan and Pamela Kellino.
It stars James Mason, Rosamund John, Pamela Kellino, Ann Stephens, Morland Graham and Brefni O'Rorke.
Plot finds Mason as Michael, a brilliant surgeon who falls in love with Emma Wright (John), the mother of a young girl whose eyesight he saves.
It's an investigation that leads Michael down very dark roads.....What a time to go buy a house, you must be demented!One of the last British films Mason made before leaving for America to work contractually for MGM, The Upturned Glass is a Hitchcockian like thriller that's tinted with a film noir edge.
There's some devilment in the narrative, even a bit of cheeky daring that shows its hand once Mason's lecture that opens the film is seen in the light it was meant to be.Today I sat in judgement.With Wyer's photography dealing in shadows and smoky lenses, and Huntington showing a keen eye for atmospheric composition during scenes involving the empty house and the village chapel, there's enough visual treats for the film noir crowd to feast on.
Doctor James Mason involved in a difficult jealousy drama with two women, one his mistress, the other her sister-in-law..
It is the first of James Mason's very few own productions and features his own wife, Pamela Mason, here Pamela Kellino, as the second of the two ladies he is involved with, both of them leading to disaster.
The intrigue cleverly leads astray at times while at the same time it sharpens as the doctor (James Mason) finds his own case constantly more crucial.
The film poses many questions, and the questioning becomes increasingly more critical, until in the end he is faced with the final trial as a doctor, when an emergency calls on him to perform one more brain surgery.
It's the doctor who assists him who puts him to the final test, and these scenes are the most interesting and important in the film.
James Mason as the doctor has no other choice than to be consistent with his own argument and conclude his own case after having received an understated sentence by his elderly colleague.
It's a remarkable film, not for its direction, which could have been better, but for its very thought-provoking story with the presentation of a case which not even doctors could in any possible way be called upon to give a fair judgement of.
The tragedy of this case is that James Mason, one of the best actors ever, a constantly brooding romantic hero, more Hamletian than Byronic, has no other choice, which probably no one could reasonably disagree with.In addition, you can't help recognizing some details here from other, later films, that boast its influence, especially Hitchcock's "Vertigo", displaying the identical problem of a man's involvement in two women related with each other, Hitchcock much developing the theme to an equally crucial crisis but in another direction, while the very vertigo scenes Hitchcock must have got the idea of from here.It should also be noted, that John Monaghan, the script writer, appears as an extra (the truck driver), He made some similar appearances in some films, but this is the only film he wrote, with Mrs Mason as co-script writer.
In this suspenseful movie, we meet James Mason as he lectures about crime to a group of students.
Pamela Mason is appropriately unappealing as the woman's nosy sister-in-law.
Mason, one of my favorite actors, is very good.As a suspense movie -- a noir, of sorts -- it is excellent.
A prominent neurosurgeon (James Mason) investigates the death of his lover (Rosamund John) in "The Upturned Glass" from 1947.Mason plays Dr. Michael Joyce, an unhappily married man.
He tells his students the story of a doctor who, after helping a young girl regain her sight, falls in love with the girl's mother, Emma (Rosamund John).
One way he does this is by getting close to her sister-in-law (Pamela Kellino).Kellino in reality was Mason's wife, Pamela Mason, who co-wrote an excellent script.
The Upturned Glass is really good, up until the ending, so if you like suspenseful, tense thrillers and don't mind lukewarm endings, rent it during your next movie night with the girls.
It's not the best movie to rent with your sweetie pie, since you'll spend the entire time sighing over James Mason!James stars as a brain surgeon and professor.
He tells a story to his students about how, in theory, someone can get away with murder.
In the past, James Mason operated on a young girl and fell in love with her mother, Rosamund John.
. .James's at-the-time wife Pamela Mason costars as Rosamund's sister-in-law, and it's always fun to see the Masons acting together.
If you like James Mason, this is a great movie to watch, since he's the hero with a bit of a villainous streak hiding underneath.
That's the advice that doctor Brefni O'Rorke (Dr Farrell) gives to surgeon James Mason (Joyce) when giving an analogy comparing insanity to an upturned glass balancing on a mantelpiece.
The film is told in flashback as Mason narrates a lecture to students on the topic of the criminal mind.
He presents a case of a sane man committing murder.
What is interesting in this technique is that we realize he hasn't actually carried out the act and we then find ourselves in real time at the end of the lecture as he goes ahead with his plan after what can be seen as his confession to the students.The root of his problem is a love affair with Rosamund Wright (Emma) which cannot be.
The young girl whose sight Mason saves at the beginning of the film is played by Ann Stephens who died aged 35 in 1966.
As for the film's title, I still don't know what an upturned glass means?
In a nutshell: James Mason plays a brain surgeon, who recounts in a lecture, an incident of crime to a university class.
Later, when she "falls from a window," Mason suspects murder.
We see the details of his plan to revenge himself on his lover's sister (Pamela Mason), and everything goes exactly as planned.
Brefini O'Rourke and Mason engage in an interesting debate at the close of the movie, that lays out the pertinent moral dilemma (as well as the significance of the title): Do we do what is right because it is right, or do we do it because of personal gain, flaws, obsessions, etc.?
Mason ends this movie, on the edge of the cliffs over Dover beach, where there lies "no certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain," as Matthew Arnold sees it: Mason ends his long day of murder and things gone terribly awry in blind ignorance, alone and -- as the camera does not even pick up his final fall or his broken body -- forgotten, lost.
Mason and his wife (who co-produced and co-wrote respectively) were experimenting with structure in THE UPTURNED GLASS; the result is an interesting story that feels to be told in two parts.
It takes its time to build (ever a British trait), but once the story gets going, it is relentless in its tension; especially during the twenty-minute or so sequence where Jason Mason attempts to escape with Pamela Mason's body.
James Mason is phenomenal, taking a role where he is ever so slightly detached from whatever scene is at hand.
Paranoia seems to be part and parcel of his make-up, and often throughout the movie, it appears as if we are often seeing events as *he* sees them: students asking questions, party-hosts with probing eyes, a good country doctor staring at you through his spectacles -- every one of them might be doing more than just looking at you, they might very well be looking *through* you...
Pamela Mason is simply the most readily available target for a fatal flaw, as was the poor girls that book-end the movie: the nameless, faceless one hit by the lorry at the end, or the young daughter a victim of a brain-splinter at the beginning.
In the sudden climax of THE UPTURNED GLASS, no one knows anything for sure -- not love, not hate, and hardly anything like certainty...
Up until about 80-90% of the way though the film, I was very impressed by "The Upturned Glass".
However, towards the end, the film seemed more hastily written and a bit dumb--especially when the murder occurred.James Mason plays a neurologist who is well-known for his great lectures.
While he changes the names of the characters, the film audience can see that the story is about Mason himself--he will eventually kill someone.
In 'The Upturned Glass (1947),' Mason stars as a prominent neurosurgeon giving a lecture on criminology.
He offers the case study of Michael Joyce, an upright British gentleman – considered perfectly sane by the good doctor – who is driven to commit murder by "his own ethical convictions." The film's first half is a slow, steady narrative build up, but the final act is perfectly suspenseful.
Michael Joyce (whom we learn is none other than the lecturer himself) has convinced himself that, unlike most common thugs, he has a superior moralistic justification for committing murder.
'The Upturned Glass' was released four years after the close of WWII, and was likely intended as a critique of state-sanctioned (that is, "justified") mass murder; Mason, the film's producer, was famously a conscientious objector during the war, a view which caused much consternation among his family.
However, the film ends on a definite moralistic note, suggesting the lengths to which one will go to maintain the delusion of sanity, and questioning whether it is even possible for a sane person to commit murder.
Even the impromptu saving of a young girl with brain injuries does not offset a murder already committed, and Michael Joyce dies by his own hand.
I couldn't help feeling that Joyce, and perhaps the film, were taking the easy way out..
As a popular British criminologist, James Mason tells a class full of intrigued students about a supposedly sane man who plotted murder over revenge.
Over the first hour, the writers present a very intriguing case involving a doctor who saves a young girl on the operating table then falls in love with her mother.
He plots revenge when the young woman dies mysteriously after falling out of a second story window in her house.
This film was released at the height of the interest in psychological thrillers.the film starts up quite slowly works up to a crescendo and then rather falls flat at the end.It is nevertheless an intriguing film in many ways.Mason has it fixed in his mind just how easy it would be to kill Kellino.However the reality is that it turns into a violent struggle with him ending up strangling her then tossing her out the window.This rather anticipates the scene in Hitchcock's Torn Curtain with the gruesome killing of the Stasi agent.One wonders if Mason wished he had gone through with the actual deed bearing in mind his acrimonious divorce from Kellino a few years later!There is mention of an upturned glass but its meaning is never properly explained.At the end Mason commits suicide by leaping off a cliff.This is incorrect for 2 reasons.Firstly nowhere in the description of Paranoia,is there an indication that the symptoms include suicidal tendencies.Also there are no chalk cliffs near Portsmouth.One final point.I wonder if the American censors office asked for a change of endings.They would not sanction a suicide by a criminal as they considered it a mortal sin.Also they insisted on moral compensating values ie the villain must pay for his sins..
A clever plot; James Mason as an unsympathetic protagonist; and Pamela Kellino nearly steals the movie.
The Upturned Glass was directed by Lawrence Huntington, co-produced by the star, James Mason, and co-written and also starred Mason's wife at the time, Pamela Kellino.
We're in a medical school lecture hall and students are crowding in to hear a tall, dark man who looks like James Mason give a lecture on The Psychology of Crime.
"Now we come to that much more interesting phenomenon," he tells the students, "the sane criminalthe man who is prepared to pursue his own ethical convictions to the point of murder." He proposes to tell the story of a preeminent surgeon, so dedicated he has no friends and little social life, a cool customer, indeed.
The lecturer gives this man a fictitious name, Michael Joyce.
And as he speaks, the flashback startswith Michael Joyce examining the young daughter of a woman whose husband we never meet.
Michael Joyce looks just like the lecturer.
In this tale of irony and obsession, Joyce saves the eyesight of the child and he and the mother, equally lonely, start a relationship that can only lead to her divorcing her husband.
"This was a murder conceived in perfect sanity and faultlessly carried out," the lecturer tells his students.
It really irritated British critics when James Mason went to Hollywood at the end of the 1940s.
British films had improved during the war and no star was more highly regarded than Mason.
Not before "The Upturned Glass" which he also produced, a moody thriller directed by Lawrence Huntington who, the year before, had also directed the noirish "Wanted for Murder".Mason plays a criminology lecturer who starts to tell his "agog" students a story of what happens when sane, normal people commit murder.
Brilliant surgeon Michael Joyce (also Mason) meets Emma (the beautiful Rosamund John) when he successfully operates on her daughter to bring back her vision.
Michael has never liked her and when he goes to the inquest he is convinced something is going on: young Ann is nervous in the witness box and is given an imperceptible sign from Kate that she is not to tell of the real events that led to her mother's death.Up to now the movie had been a conventional British crime thriller but the psychological intricacies start when Michael puts into play a plan to find out the truth.
The angle of the camera also has Miss Kellino as the main focus for the audience so you almost see her through Michael's eyes.Of course Michael believes he is sane and sensible but when when, towards the end of the movie, he has an encounter with a completely disillusioned and mercenary doctor, that doctor feels that his overly compassionate nature is likened to an upturned glass precariously placed to fall and break, aligning him with people of unsound mind.
Pamela Kellino happened to be James Mason's real life wife at the time of this movie..
A very fine neurosurgeon, impeccably portrayed by James Mason, who teaches criminology as a sideline, recounts a certain case study to a class during a lecture.
He renders the murder as having been smoothly and successfully carried out, however we learn immediately thereafter that it actually has not yet been accomplished.Mason's skillfully controlled persona, as the neurosurgeon, is letter perfect and one gets the feeling that his assumptions regarding the way in which a guilt ridden former lady love died are most probably true.
Mason's doctor character feels compelled, out of vanity, to justify his revenge to the unwitting students and then sets out to put the final segment of the plot into action.Murphy's law and irony prevail causing the retaliation to not come off nearly as seamlessly as planned.
Moreover, while looking for a place to dispose of his murder victim's body Mason meets up with another more sardonic doctor, whom he's forced to give a ride to and is subsequently obliged to assist.
Mason operates on and saves a young patient's life, only to be castigated and labeled, as mad, by the other doctor for his motives.
The other doctor, who at one point is asked to fetch a medical supply from Mason's car, discovers the camouflaged body of his victim in the back seat but, without turning Mason in, rather asserts a moral dilemma, which figuratively then literally pushes Mason over the edge.The title of the film comes into play in the form of an analogy the other doctor makes to a glass precariously perched to fall, crack and break, comparing it to Mason's unsound mind.
We are left to ponder whether it was a consequence of being faced with his monumental conceit, or hypocritical notion of altruism, that ultimately causes his undoing.The noir aspects of its film techniques aside, this is a brilliant character study and Mason's superb achievement, alone, in creating a complex, sympathetic murderer makes the movie well worth viewing.