The Locket Reviews

They should have named this picture "Flashback" because that's what it is; one flashback after another with the tale told in the style of Akira Kurosawa from several points of view. The technique gets in the way of the story--not that there is that much of a story. The film winds up being a confused picture about a confused woman. Two years later, a better film was made on the subject of a mental breakdown, THE SNAKE PIT. In THE LOCKET, Day is about to marry the rich Raymond when Aherne, a psychiatrist, shows up and warns Raymond to break it off. He'd once been married to Day for five years and knows that she is seriously disturbed. He tells Raymond that Mitchum, another Day fiance, found a stolen bracelet in Day's purse, and Day explained that she'd once been accused of stealing a locket as a child and was innocent but that left her a kleptomaniac. Mitchum had her promise she'd never do that again but then she was arrested in a robbery-murder case and was exonerated when the dead man's valet confessed. Mitchum came to Aherne for help, because Aherne was her doctor. She denied having anything to do with the killing, so the valet got the hot seat, and Mitchum did himself in. Aherne married Day, then found a cache of gems she'd heisted from pals. Raymond doesn't believe these accusations and is convinced by Day that Aherne suffers from delusions. On the way to the altar, Emery, Raymond's mother, gives Day a locket, and Day recalls that it was the same one she'd been charged with stealing as a child. That triggers an emotional outburst, and Day has a nervous collapse, winding up in a mental hospital. Much too convoluted and a lot of psychological mishmash. Look for Hyer in a tiny role and note Joan Fontaine's and Olivia de Havilland's mother, Lilian Fontaine, as Lady Wyndham. A good cast in a diffuse film.