Crossroads

A faithful remake of Curtis Bernhardt’s Carrefour (1938), Jack Conway’s Crossroads beautifully brings John H. Kafka’s novel to life in Hollywood style, polishing the tale of amnesia, identity, blackmail, and murder with MGM’s famous high gloss. William Powell stars as David Talbot, a French diplomat who, having lost his memory in a train accident years earlier (in the 1938 film, it was a war injury), is now accused of being Jean Pelletier, a bank robber and murderer who had boarded the same train and is now pretending to be Talbot. During a trial lasting the first act of the film, a mysterious man named Henri Sarrou (Basil Rathbone) arrives to testify on Talbot’s behalf, vindicating the diplomat so he can move on with his life with his devoted wife Lucienne (Hedy Lamarr) once and for all. Unfortunately, Sarrou’s testimony comes with a price: deception, lies, and blackmail. Claire Trevor plays Michelle Allaine, who claims to be Talbot’s former lover and may be working with Sarrou for a piece of the action, and the wonderful Margaret Wycherly plays Madame Pelletier, a poor old woman who lives alone in a dreary, candlelit apartment and may or may not be Talbot’s mother (the tenderness of their initial encounter is thoroughly undermined by the end). Visually, the film embraces the early noir style and shines in key scenes: for example, note the beautiful scene after Talbot’s encounter with his “mother” when he stares from the footbridge into the water.