
AMONG THE LIVING (1941, d. Stuart Heisler)
When the tyrannical Southern town boss Maxim Raden dies, his son John (Albert Dekker from DR. CYCLOPS) returns with his wife (Frances Farmer about a year and half from shock therapy) for the funeral and to settle affairs. The Raden mills have been closed and many people are out of work and disgruntled; the ramshackle Raden mansion-- rumored to be haunted by the townspeople-- is in a state of shocking disrepair.
Town physician Dr. Ben Saunders (Harry Carey, reminding me here of Philip Baker Hall), a longtime friend of Maxim's, tells John that there is something else that needs to be attended to: Paul Raden (also Dekker), John's maniacally insane brother whose death was faked 25 years before and who has been living as a prisoner in the Raden mansion ever since. While John is still reeling from the news that his long-thought-dead brother is alive and insane, Paul escapes from the house and takes an apartment in town under an assumed name and begins obsessing over the landlady's flirty daughter (Susan Hayward). Before long, young women are being murdered; John & Saunders search for Paul while a reward-crazed vigilante mob turns the town upside down in the hunt for the killer.
Maybe it is just my rather soft, dupey, and bruised copy of a copy of a copy of a TV broadcast, but this Paramount picture sure seems like Monogram movie in places, especially around the "haunted" Raden house. I'm not a big fan of evil twin movies, but Dekker does a decent job here establishing the existence of two separate people who look exactly alike. The film noir feel is strong here: while most of the depressed atmosphere of the Southern town with its violent ruling-class boss (who liked to beat John and Paul's mother and either killed her or at least drove her to suicide) made me think of THE STRANGE LOVE OF MARTHA IVERS, the vigilante mob at the end also had me thinking of Lang's FURY. But Heisler made this movie right after THE MONSTER AND THE GIRL, so it is not difficult to see a horror-movie pulse at this movie's core.
I'd like to see it again with a decent DVD release, but I won't hold my breath.

