Beware, My Lovely

Two of film noir’s most consistent stars, Ida Lupino and Robert Ryan, star in Harry Horner’s Beware, My Lovely, an intimate portrait of mental illness manifest as domestic torment. Lupino plays Helen Gordon, a war widow in 1918 who hires handyman Robert Wilton (Ryan), a sensitive schizophrenic who develops confused feelings toward Helen and ultimately traps her in the house. Wilton projects both emotional vulnerability and menace while Helen’s kindness toward Wilton often feels angelic (“Something’s troubling you, isn’t it? Would you like to tell me about it?”). The small town quaintness penetrates Helen’s darkened home in the form of her precocious niece Ruth (Barbara Whiting) and the adorable school children who knock incessantly to deliver presents and end up inviting Wilton to a Christmas party while Helen is quarantined in the basement. Set almost entirely in Helen’s modest Victorian home, cinematographer George Diskant is able to create some shadowy sequences, especially during the final confrontation upstairs, and a few attractive compositions (note, for example, Howard’s ominous reflection in a hanging Christmas bulb), but the main reason to watch is the lead couple.