Voice in the Wind

Arthur Ripley was a minor director but contributed two films to the noir cycle, both of which were uniquely daring and dreamy for the time. While 1946’s The Chase is more traditional and accessible in story and style, Voice in the Wind is best described as an early art film for noir lovers. Set primarily on the island of Guadeloupe (with significant flashbacks to elsewhere), the film is weird, melodramatic, gritty, transcendent, and grim all at the same time, like a dirge in the form of a film. Francis Lederer stars as “El Hombre,” a mentally troubled, often catatonic-looking pianist and war refugee who, we later learn, was tortured by the Nazis in his home country of Czechoslovakia. El Hombre works for the compassionate refugee smuggler Angelo (Alexander Granach), whose brothers despise the nameless stranger and are waiting for an opportunity to eliminate him. Across the street live another refugee couple, Dr. Hoffman (J. Edward Bromberg) and Anna (Olga Fabian), along with the dying woman they smuggled out of Czechoslovakia (Sigrid Gurie) who may hold the key to restoring El Hombre’s memory. The film is deeply atmospheric — constant fog, dark hallways and stairwells, extensive use of framing — and establishes a bleak, claustrophobic setting which barely feels like an escape from the war, while the often-clunky plot can be disorienting, perhaps to reflect the derangement of El Hombre’s mind. Ambient sounds like the frequent groan of a foghorn alternate with Michelet’s powerful score (nominated for an Academy Award) which wraps around the film’s musical centerpiece: Bedřich Smetana’s “Vltava” (“The Moldau”).