The Dark Truth Behind "The Locket"

As a dedicated film fan, I’ll often seek out the movies that have slipped through the cracks, the ones that I’ve missed viewing over the years. I recently caught up with the 1946 film The Locket, starring Laraine Day, Robert Mitchum and Brian Aherne. It’s an intriguing, noir-flavored story of a woman named Nancy, and her relationships with three very different men. As the story begins, Nancy (played by Day) is going to marry her fiancé John. But a man bursts into the house, and demands to speak to the groom. The man is Dr. Harry Blair (Brian Aherne) and he wants to warn the groom about the woman he’s about to marry. In fact, Blair says that HE was married to her, and it led to his ruin. He begs John to listen to his story. And what a story it is!

Robert Mitchum and Laraine Day

Thus begins the puzzle-box flashback structure of the film, as Blair relates the details of his relationship with Nancy. But it isn’t just his story. As his tale unfolds in flashback, we move into another flashback showing the story of the man Nancy was with when she met Blair, an artist played by Mitchum. During that story, we flashback even further, to a pivotal moment in Nancy’s childhood, which involves the locket of the title. So it’s a flashback within a flashback, within a flashback. Confused yet? It all works marvelously well in this moody tale of love, lies, deception and murder. Nancy appears to be the woman of these men’s dreams. But she’s a far more complex character than she seems on the surface.

Director John Brahm (who also helmed 1944’s The Lodger) does an excellent job of creating an atmosphere filled with dread and impending doom. He’s aided by master cinematographer Nicholas Musaraca, who also displayed his masterful talents on such classics as Cat People (1942) and Out of the Past (1947). The cast is perfect; Mitchum (who’s on the cusp of stardom here) is good in an atypical role as the artist who falls in love with his idealized image of Nancy, but realizes too late that his image of her is not the real person. Aherne is marvelous as Blair, who doesn’t heed the Mitchum character’s warnings about Nancy’s true nature, and comes to regret it. Laraine Day is excellent as Nancy, whose almost coquettish persona hides the darker shadings of her real self.

The offbeat structure actually works in the film's favor, as each flashback reveals a little more of the truth about Nancy, leading to a twist I won’t reveal here. Suffice it to say that you’ll be asking yourself at the conclusion of the film if her experiences are caused by fate or coincidence. The Locket is something of a “psychological noir,” a trend that was in vogue around the time of its release, along with films like Alfred Hitchcock’s Spellbound (1945) and the later Robert Taylor vehicle High Wall (1947), featuring psychoanalysis as a pivotal plot point. If you’re in the mood for an old-fashioned thriller, featuring a solid cast and an impressive visual style, seek out The Locket. It’s available on DVD from Warner Archive, and has also aired on Turner Classic Movies, most recently as part of host Eddie Muller’s Noir Alley series.