Poor Hilda Crane. She’s a rather unlucky-in-love intellectual turned socialite doomed to make the wrong choice in men, it seems. Unfortunately for her, it’s the 1950s, and too many marriages don’t bode well for one’s reputation. Such is the strange, social perversity that is Philip Dunne’s 1956 Hilda Crane, based on a play by Samson Raphaelson (of Hitchcock’s Suspicion, 1941), a woman’s picture which is in the similar soapy vein of something like a sanitized Peyton Place with its protagonist’s scandalous love triangle and yet allows its titular character a noble gentility despite thrice falling from grace. Nearly a decade after her Hamlet Oscar nod, Jean Simmons is a sumptuous object of desire in an obscure delight from a period which saw her headlining films directed by Mankiewicz, Wyler, Wise, Kubrick, and LeRoy.
Returning to her small-minded home town to live with her mother (Judith Evelyn) after fleeing the wreckage of her second marriage in New York, Hilda Crane (Simmons) is eager to start anew while retaining a semblance of independence without a man. This proves difficult considering her reputation, but she’s immediately set upon by Russell Burns (Guy Madison), who’s become a pillar of the community in her absence. While being wooed by Russell, she’s simultaneously courted by an old professor, the very aggressive and very French Jacques De Lisle (Jean-Pierre Aumont). Before she can make up her mind, however, the actions of others soon force her hand…
Director Philip Dunne is better remembered as a twice Oscar nominated screenwriter (for Best Picture winner How Green Was My Valley and Bible story David and Bathsheba), while his 1958 title Ten North Frederick won top honors out of Locarno. If his neglected legacy as a director is a contributing factor in the obscurity of Hilda Crane, Jean Simmons admirers should consider this as one of her most significant leads from her 1950s works, an emotional melodrama which allows her to keep her dignity while expelling a bit of agency over her limited romantic options. No sooner is she back in her hometown post-divorce number two, and in the bosom of her understanding mother, then she is immediately accosted by men seemingly lying in wait (and highlights how her troubled reputation exists only in the minds of the women).
The wealthy Guy Madison seems the most economically sound and age appropriate choice, but he comes with considerable baggage in the form of his controlling mother (an excellent Evelyn Varden as a wheezing battle-axe, a role that should be as equally loved/despised as her turn in LeRoy’s The Bad Seed, also 1956). Simmons is allowed a scene of intense aggression towards her mother-in-law the likes of which recalls Bette Davis impassively allowing her husband to expire on the stairs in The Little Foxes (1941), and yet the film still allows us to root for her to beat the odds.
Interesting because it shows us a heroine who is a troubled victim of circumstance, Hilda Crane is presented in 2.35:1 with 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio. Picture and sound quality are serviceable in this limited edition (3,000 units) high-definition transfer from Twilight Time. An isolated music track of David Raskin’s (Laura, 1944) score as well as an A&E Biography segment on Jean Simmons are the extra features on the disc.
Film Review: ★★★/☆☆☆☆☆
Disc Review: ★★★½/☆☆☆☆☆
