Humphrey Bogart gets to play both saint and sinner in Edward Dmytryk’s The Left Hand of God, one of his last film performances. Based on a best-selling book and produced in a style that made the most of its Cinemascope proportions, The Left Hand of God doesn’t push the boundaries of melodrama that it might have given the various personalities which are mixed together in its story, and it manages to hold one’s attention despite a lack of real action or intense romance. Star power counts for quite a bit in this otherwise fine but somewhat forgettable film.
The Left Hand of God
Directed by Edward Dmytryk
Studio: Twilight Time (Fox)
Year: 1955
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1 anamorphic
Running Time: 87 minutes
Rating: NR
Audio: Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo English
Subtitles: none
MSRP: $19.95
Release Date: November 8, 2011
Review Date: November 1, 2011
The Film
3.5/5
After his plane is shot down in China in 1944, pilot James Carmody (Humphrey Bogart) becomes the go-to military adviser for local warlord Mieh Yang (Lee J. Cobb) for three years, never quite able to barter or buy his freedom from him. With the death of a priest on his way take over a troubled mission in the province, Carmody dons his clothes and assumes his identity as Father O'Shea arriving just in time for the needy outpost. To his great surprise, the villagers trust him, and he’s able to do much good instilling a kind of peace and calm over the area they hadn’t known in quite a while. But Dr. David Sigman (E. G. Marshall) and his wife Beryl (Agnes Moorehead) find him slightly off the beaten path for a priest and urge him to leave. His wanting to escape is complicated by nurse Anne Scott (Gene Tierney) who begins to have romantic feelings for the “priest” which she knows are wrong but she can’t explain, and Carmody feels similarly but can’t act on his feelings for fear of blowing his cover.
Alfred Hayes’ screenplay features much more talk and much less action than one might be expecting in a movie set during the 1947 civil war in China. Director Edward Dmytryk doesn’t move his camera much but instead relies on the wide Cinemascope screen to block characters interestingly within the broad frame often placing them on opposite sides of the screen from one another. The staging of an early scene where Bogart on his donkey attempts to cross a rickety bridge and is dumped into the river is beautifully shot but constitutes about the only real action in the movie. Hayes is smart, however, in keeping Bogart’s true identity a secret from the audience (unless they had read the book) for fully half the movie before he reveals all. The viewer, like the doctor and his wife, knows something is vaguely off about the priest’s demeanor (we see him with a gun, and he handles the warlord’s messenger with a couple of no-nonsense punches that puts him on the ground), but we don’t get the whole story until much later where we see as do the villagers that the man does have goodness within him and an ability to get things done with a positive and assertive attitude.
Humphrey Bogart’s performance is a quieter but no less commanding portrayal than one might expect from him in this kind of movie, and it’s easy to understand why the villagers so quickly put their faith and trust into this charismatic man. Gene Tierney offers nothing special as the nurse struggling with her emotions. She’s lovely, but she doesn’t quite catch fire during the movie, at least not as much as the other highly billed actors. Agnes Moorehead likewise doesn’t show the fire and dynamism that marks her best work though she’s perfectly fine as the doctor’s wife who seems to have little more to do than butt into everyone else’s business. E. G. Marshall holds his ground as the doctor who’s ready to give up and call it a day until O’Shea arrives and turns things around. Though casting Lee J. Cobb as the Chinese warlord Yang probably didn’t raise many eyebrows at the time, it seems completely ridiculous now (to his credit or not, he doesn’t even attempt any kind of Oriental accent). Victor Sen Yung as the priest’s right hand man John Wong is lovably agreeable and endearing.
Video Quality
4/5
The Cinemascope aspect ratio of 2.35:1 is delivered in a transfer that’s anamorphically enhanced for widescreen televisions. Sharpness is mostly excellent throughout the presentation, but color saturation levels vary somewhat from richly saturated to slightly less so at random intervals. Flesh tones also vary, usually appealing and realistic but occasionally veering toward brown. Black levels are nothing special but not disagreeable. The transfer is mostly very clean indeed with only a stray dust speck or two showing up on occasion. The film has been divided into 9 chapters.
Audio Quality
4/5
The Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo sound mix offers Victor Young’s wonderful music in a solid sound presentation. The vocal track, however, is not confined to the center channel but rather is also spread across the entire sound spectrum though there are obvious instances of directionalized dialogue where voices are not in the center channel at all but only in the front left and right. Dialogue has been well recorded and is always discernible, but it takes some getting used to when one hears it in all of the available channels. There are no age-related artifacts like hiss or crackle to disrupt the listening experience.
Special Features
2/5
Victor Young’s superb background music for the film is contained in an isolated stereo track which can be chosen from the main menu.
The enclosed seven page booklet contains appealing color and black and white (and tinted) stills from the film, the poster art on the booklet’s back cover, and film historian Julie Kirgo’s always interesting information about the film’s production and key personnel.
In Conclusion
3.5/5 (not an average)
As part of Twilight Time’s limited availability program, only 3,000 copies of The Left Hand of God are available. Those interested in experiencing this Cinemascope melodrama with one of Humphrey Bogart’s last film performances (he was to make only two more films after this) should hop to www.screenarchives.com to see if copies are still available. They're also available via Facebook at www.facebook.com/twilighttimemovies.
Matt Hough
Charlotte, NC
