Reeling Backward: Time Out of Mind (1947)

This entirely forgotten melodrama starring Phyllis Calvert as a servant who falls for the family's tortured son is now out in a handsome Blu-ray issue from Kino Lorber.

If the legends are true, “Time Out of Mind” only played in a single New York City theater for one day before being pulled and sentenced to the dustbin of cinematic history.

The director, Robert Siodmak, who’d made the seminal film noir “The Killers” the year before, thought the novel by Rachel Field preposterous, left the project and had to be bribed/cajoled into returning. He demanded full control of the final version that he did not ultimately get, and essentially disowned the film.

Phyllis Calvert was a huge star in her native Britain who had just finished a five-year run of popular films known as the Gainsborough Melodramas, notably “The Grey Man,” and was lured to Hollywood by Universal to replicate similar fare. She did not enjoy the shooting experience or dealing with the Tinseltown P.R. machine, saying she felt like "an alien guinea pig."

So you’d think “Time Out of Mind” must be a pretty terrible picture. It’s not. It isn’t a great one, either, but it is interesting. And sometimes it’s better to be interesting than good.

With a screenplay adaptation by Abem Finkel and Arnold Phillips, “Time” is notable for an extremely bleak and depressing mood and storyline. Calvert plays Kate Fernald, a servant to the well-to-do Fortune family who grew up with the children, Christopher and Rissa, and is regarded as an unofficial third sibling. She has secretly pined for Chris her entire life.

She helps Chris and Rissa run away from their stern father (Leo G. Carroll), known only as “the Captain,” who insisted that Chris follow his footsteps in a nautical career. As the story opens in 1889, he was nearly killed in an accident on his first voyage. Instead Chris dreams of studying music in Paris and becoming a composer.

Kate makes this happen by borrowing $2,000 from Jake Bullard, a family friend and fishmonger with big ambitions — including Kate’s hand. He’s played pugnaciously by Eddie Albert, who originally was cast as Chris, dropped out and reentered the production in a supporting role.

It seems clear Jake does this with a tacit agreement — at least in his mind — that Kate will succumb to his marriage entreaties. But in the three years that the Fortune children are away, nothing comes to pass.

When they return for Chris’ London debut concert, after the Captain has died in bitter loneliness, Kate clearly expects to be rewarded for her loyalty and sacrifice. So she’s heartbroken when he presents his new wife, Dora Drake (Helena Carter), who comes from a very wealthy family.

It’s here the story takes a decidedly black turn. Chris, played by James Stewart lookalike Robert Hutton, seems to have aged a couple of decades, with a drawn face and affectatious mustache. He’s also become a heavy drinker who snaps at everyone, especially Kate.

It seems his dreams of becoming a great musician are just a sham. Dora’s rich, controlling father has “purchased” this debut, much as they did in Paris, to raise the Drake family’s standing in high society. Chris admits much of the concerto is copped from Debussy, and rages at being a “monkey on a stick” for Dora.

What’s interesting to me about “Time” is its depiction of a relationship that is fraught at best, and could even be described as emotionally abusive. Chris is a selfish, petulant man who puts his needs above Kate’s, or anyone’s. And the women more or less accept this power dynamic as the natural order of things.

Calvert plays Kate in a maximum of sympathetic light, turning her into an almost saint-like subservient figure who is willing to sacrifice anything for the man she loves — even when it’s clear he is not deserving of such devotion. This twisted romance is emblematic of the time it depicts and when the movie came out, when men were seen as the doers and the women as their supporters.

The film has no relation to the 2015 movie of the same name starring Richard Gere.

It is shot in the style of a film noir, and indeed is often described as such. I suppose you could make the argument based on its embrace of moral ambiguity. Though I tend to see noir as needing a backdrop of crime and punishment. I’d call “Time” a dark melodrama with terrific, extremely expressionistic cinematography (by Maury Gertsman).

Chris’ debut concert is a drunken debacle, Dora and Rissa abandon him, and Kate hides him away in the emptying Fortune mansion as it’s being readied for sale. At one point he physically assaults Kate when she tries to keep him from the bottle, and Jake decks him.

Of course, this only compels Kate to nurture Chris more. Strange — by all lights Jake has been the one who has behaved honorably, giving Kate what she wants and protecting her from harm, which are both one in the same. Chris is the object of Kate’s obsessive love but also the source of her greatest pain and sorrow.

Things work out in the end, of course. Chris gives up the drink and writes a new musical piece, using the wallpaper from the mansion as his manuscript. Kate enlists Max Leiberman (John Abbott), the music critic who’d savaged Chris before, to get him a chance to perform again.

Dora and Rissa return at the last moment to spoil Chris’ fortunes, but at this point Kate, the meek servant mouse, has learned to stand up for herself and the man she loves.

Chris’ musical compositions are quite good, though turbulent and chaotic by musical standards of 1947. They were written by Ferde Grofe, and because the film was shelved they’ve largely gone unheard till now.

“Time Out of Mind” has been restored beautifully and is now out in a Blu-ray reissue from Kino Lorber.

It’s well worth a look, a darkly handsome picture with some disturbing things to say about dysfunctional love. If everybody deserves a second chance at romance, then surely movies need more than a day to make their mark.