British postcard in the Film Weekly series. Photo: Universal. Nancy Carroll and Frank Morgan in The Kiss Before the Mirror (James Whale, 1933).
A similarity to the events described in court
Noted attorney Paul Held (Frank Morgan) is defending his friend, Walter Bernsdorf (Paul Lukas), who has been charged with the murder of his wife Lucy (Gloria Stuart) in Vienna. By Walter's account, Lucy was unfaithful to him during their marriage.
After a court hearing, Paul returns home to his wife, Maria (Nancy Carroll), and watches her as she applies makeup in front of her vanity mirror. Paul recognizes a similarity to the events Walter had described in court and notices that his wife appears to pay special attention to her makeup for reasons unconnected with her love for him. Paul kisses Maria, and she angrily repulses him, claiming he has ruined her makeup; then she casually goes out.
Like Walter before him, Paul follows his wife through the streets of Vienna and observes her meeting with a male lover (Donald Cook). This enrages Paul, and he fantasizes about murdering Maria. He also becomes obsessed with vindicating Walter by proving that his love for his wife made him crazed with jealousy when he saw her with another man.
Maria becomes uneasy because the trial hits too close to home, but she continues to visit her lover. On the final day of deliberations in Walter's trial, Paul insists that Maria be present. He makes an impassioned closing appeal in which he claims that "the more a man loves and the more he is deceived, the greater his desire for revenge" and which he concludes by revealing a gun and pointing it at Maria in the audience. She screams in horror and loses consciousness, after which Paul finishes his speech.
While the jury deliberates, Paul meets Maria in his office, where she reacts in terror. She insists she still loves him despite her affair. Walter is ultimately acquitted and warns Paul against killing Maria, which he says he will regret. Paul heeds his advice and asks Maria to leave the courthouse. Upon returning home, Paul angrily smashes Maria's vanity mirror. Maria appears behind him, and the two embrace.
British postcard in the Film Weekly series. Photo: Universal. Frank Morgan, Paul Lukas and Nancy Carroll in The Kiss Before the Mirror (James Whale, 1933).
British postcard in the Film Weekly series. Photo: Universal. Nancy Carroll, Jean Dixon and Frank Morgan in The Kiss Before the Mirror (James Whale, 1933).
The film is chock full of surprises
English film director James Whale is best remembered for his four classic horror films: Frankenstein (1931), The Old Dark House (1932), The Invisible Man (1933) and Bride of Frankenstein (1935). He also directed interesting films in other genres, including screwball comedies and musicals. The Kiss Before the Mirror (1933) is a superior mystery thriller.
In 1933, Pare Lorentz wrote in Vanity Fair: "Director Whale was fortunate in having Frank Morgan and Paul Lukas as his leading men, and Karl Freund, the best man in the business, as cameraman for A Kiss Before the Mirror. I don't know how they happened to slip Nancy Carroll into the show, but we'll dismiss that. There is a pictorial quality about the opening scenes, and a maturity in the dialogue which makes a better part of the picture seem true and important."
"The film is chock full of surprises for the viewer, almost as much in the twenty-first century as it was in 1933", writes Bruce Eder at AllMovie. "The opening minutes seem to be shaping up as a horror film, complete with the image of a stalker moving toward a house where an illicit couple (Walter Pidgeon, Gloria Stuart) are having a rendezvous - but it also almost threatens to become a musical, as the couple are each heard humming and vamping to tango as they prepare to meet, in what is just short of an erotic pre-coital ballet. And then, just as it reaches a new height of implied eroticism, it becomes something entirely different, as murderous rage explodes before the camera and the audience.
Director James Whale carries us across this rapidly shifting cinematic landscape - much of it decorated in a beautifully understated art deco style (courtesy of art director Charles D. Hall) - in seemingly effortless fashion in just the first few minutes of The Kiss Before The Mirror, and then it gets really interesting - we're introduced to an array of deceptively complex characters, of whom the most interesting, other than the pairing of Frank Morgan and Nancy Carroll as the husband-and-wife headed into dangerous straits, is the lawyer played by Jean Dixon. Amid some amazing acting and character flourishes by the two leads, and quietly flamboyant support from Charles Grapewin as a dipsomaniac law clerk, Dixon's lady lawyer must constantly differentiate between her perceptions as a lawyer and a woman; when asked which she is, she remarks that by day she is a lawyer, and by night . . . 'you'd be surprised'."
The film was the subject of a remake by director James Whale himself. Five years later, he directed the same story under the title Wives Under Suspicion (James Whale, 1938), with a different cast including Warren William and Gail Patrick and on a much smaller budget. He made a few noticeable concessions for the more militant censors of 1938. However, Hal Erickson at AllMovie liked the result: "Indeed, Wives is a "B" picture, but one wouldn't know it from the care and attention that Whale gives it. An expressionistic opening lets the viewer know that Whale is going to do his best with the budget at hand, and he keeps the film visually interesting throughout."
British postcard in the Film Weekly series. Photo: Universal. Nancy Carroll and Frank Morgan in The Kiss Before the Mirror (James Whale, 1933).
Sources: Pare Lorentz (Vanity Fair), Bruce Eder (AllMovie), Mark Deming (AllMovie), Hal Erickson (AllMovie), AFI Catalog, Wikipedia and IMDb.
