It's Curtains for 'The Cobweb' 1955

One flew away from the cuckoo's nest!

“The trouble began…” So begins the fevered film version of William Gibson’s novel, The Cobweb. Gibson, best known as the playwright of The Miracle Worker and Two for the Seesaw, wrote the story, inspired by his psychotherapist wife's tenure at The Menninger Clinic. I’ve never read the book, but somehow I don't think the brilliant Gibson plotted The Cobweb like another MGM Grand Hotel-style, all-star soap opera. 

Pulp fiction? Playwright William Gibson's novel.

The original casting for the film’s romantic triangle was MGM mannequins Robert Taylor, Lana Turner, and Grace Kelly—this was more apt for the super-glam soap opera. Instead, familiar film noir faces Richard Widmark, Gloria Grahame, and Lauren Bacall assumed the roles of the idealistic clinic head, dissatisfied wife, and the lonely art therapist—which gives the film a bit of grit.

Sensitive Stevie Holte talks about flowers, art, and life with the sultry and sweaty doctor's wife, played by Grahame.

Widmark’s Dr. McIver has the cockeyed notion that patients should be treated like people, not caged animals, which has the old guard gunning for him, natch. On the home front, his wife Karen is bored in EVERY way. Since the doc is an idealist, Meg, the other woman who pines for him, is also so very noble.

Chaos over curtains for the library!

The film depicts the institution's staff and family as neurotic as the patients. At one point, Widmark declares that he feels they are all trapped—yes—in a cobweb! Only in the melodramatic world of Vincente Minnelli would a film's drama hinge on drapes. And it's curtains for The Cobweb characters, as the various contingents are determined to have their way over the patient lounge's new decor: Lillian Gish as the domineering Miss Inch is aptly named, as she never gives an one, and wants the curtains made cheap; Gloria Grahame's Vicki needs a project, with money or permission no object; and Lauren Bacall's art therapist Meg has the progressive idea of letting an angst-ridden artist/patient design them. Who will prevail?

Susan Strasberg & John Kerr play two patients, attracted to each other,
who venture to the outside world on a date.

MGM's then-resident sensitive young man John Kerr plays the troubled Steve Holte, who runs away from the clinic at the start and near the end of the film! While his performance is as good as the rest of the cast, Kerr's somewhat feral looks make it easy to see why his career was short-lived in an era of Tab Hunter types. But I found Kerry quite effective. 

One of many strange moments, when Richard Widmark tucks in his unbuttoned shirt
without unbuttoning his pants!

Richard Widmark was one of those golden era actors who seemed so natural on the screen and makes the preposterous proceedings almost believable here. Gloria Grahame's natural brass as his wife gives the soapiness some much needed humor. Also, was it in Gloria's contract that she always must look slightly sweaty? I was getting a Maggie the Cat vibe from Grahame here, as the frustrated wife who needs to cool off.

Lauren Bacall got second billing, but fourth-billed Gloria Grahame got all the scenes!

The movie is so overstuffed with characters and situations that Lauren Bacall has nothing to do but look lovely and lonely from the sidelines. Bacall doesn't even have a scene of her own until thirty minutes in and her first kiss with Widmark comes near the film’s finale. There is pleasure to be found in Lauren playing a sympathetic lead rather than her usual snarky self. Then-rising star Susan Strasberg has it even worse. Aside from a few scenes with Kerr toward the end, Strasberg’s always in the group scenes. Surprising, since Susan broke out big in Picnic the same year.

Gloria grabs the fabrics situation by the horn in this climactic curtain scene!

Lillian Gish is amusingly hammy as the firebrand Victoria Inch. And whoever thought of Charles Boyer for Dev, the clinic's former head honcho, must have been out of their mind. As the deluded, drunken, ladies man, Boyer, with his inimitable French accent, is somehow stuck out in the Kansas cornfields. He comes across like Pepe LePew, especially when drooling over Grahame’s character. Was it considered clever to cast Hollywood's most famous neurotic, Oscar Levant, as a mother fixated patient? For me, while rightly famed for his wit, his screen presence always escaped me. 

Fans of golden era Hollywood melodrama will probably The Cobweb, but other movie watchers will probably draw the drapes on this florid film.

Gloria Grahame brings the fever AND the floral curtains to 'The Cobweb!'

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