Proto Disney Teen Noir Hamlet: Strange Illusion

1945, directed by Edgar G. Ulmer

Ulmer has a permanent place in horror and noir history for The Black Cat and Detour respectively. But his lesser known Strange Illusion has much to recommend it, including a mixture of noir conventions with bizarre dream sequences and a plot involving teens trying to foil crooks that foreshadows such future Disney teen adventure masterworks as The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes. The lead is played by James Lydon, surely the forties' precursor of Tommy Kirk. Lydon is perhaps best known as the Young Man in Love character in The Time of Your Life. The plot of this movie is Hamlet-esque, as Lydon is bothered by a dream that tells him that the man his mother is now involved with was the killer of his father. One advantage the Melancholy Dane never had in his pursuit of the king's true killer was a crack team of teen sleuths and one kindly older doctor. Strangely, another actor that Lydon retroactively reminds me of is James Franco in the similar role of Harry Osborn of the Spider-man movies. The look of glazed obsessiveness as a son pursues the true killer of his father is similar, and I got to wonder if Franco looked at this film, perhaps at director Sam Raimi's request or suggestion. Certainly much of the style of the Spidey films, from acting to scoring, channels forties movies.

Special mention should got to Jimmy Clark, as the friend of Lydon's character. With spunky good humour he steals every scene he's in and is unfortunately absent a lot of the time, as Lydon goes undercover at a mental institution. One of the many factors that makes this film interesting is hearing some teen lingo of the forties as teen culture was only beginning to exist. It would still be a few years until the appearances of Catcher in the Rye and films like The Wild One and Rebel Without a Cause.