The Flame

One of the best-looking films to come out of low-budget specialist Republic Pictures, John Auer’s The Flame is a dreamy, elliptical, and sophisticated film whose beautiful cinematography more than makes up for any flaws in the script. (Viewers are advised to go with the flow.) Vera Ralston, who would go on to marry the head of Republic, plays Carlotta Duval, a live-in nurse for terminally ill multi-millionaire Barry MacAllister (Robert Paige), who seduces her patient into marriage as part of a plot with his half-brother George MacAllister (John Carroll), Carlotta’s actual lover. Unfortunately for all involved, Carlotta hadn’t planned to fall in love with Barry, and George hadn’t planned to be blackmailed by acquaintance Eddie Hicks (Broderick Crawford), who discovered the marriage plot through his own investigation. Introduced singing enthusiastically on a nightclub stage in a black satin dress, Constance Dowling nearly steals the film as Helen, a tough, sassy siren with a softer, coquettish side who plays George and Eddie off of each other for her own material gain, but losing both in the end. Academy Award winner Hattie McDaniel is reduced to playing a jubilant “yes’m” housemaid, and Victor Sen Yung, a familiar — and usually uncredited — face from many noirs plays Confucius-spouting manservant Chang (“Someday, everybody loses everybody”). Barry’s constant playing of funereal organ music adds to the film’s surreal quality, as do the low-key lighting and late Art Deco stylings; even the church, in which Carlotta’s prayers alone throw up the shutters so that rays of light can rest on the Eucharist, has the feel of a dream.