My Name Is Julia Ross

Joseph H. Lewis worked his way up to become a director in the B-movie system and ultimately developed a cult following for his two classics of film noir: Gun Crazy (1950) and The Big Combo (1955). My Name is Julia Ross, a 1945 B-movie produced on a more a generous shooting schedule with the studio resources of Columbia Pictures, became his calling card. A Gothic psychodrama with a contemporary British setting seeped in old world flavor and a Gaslight-like plot, the film stars the elegant Nina Foch as an unemployed London woman who answers an ad for a private secretary and ends up being the prisoner of a psychotic killer (George Macready) and his controlling mother (Dame May Whitty). Foch brings the strength and smarts of a Hitchcock heroine to the role of Julia, who is not simply a victim but rather a resourceful woman who plots her own rescue. With the help of cinematographer Burnett Guffey, Lewis creates London and Cornwall settings on the studio backlot and gives the isolated mansion a distinctive flavor of old-money history and aristocratic elegance. Julia is often filmed through doorways and windows (looking at her through the bars of her upstairs window brings the feeling of imprisonment home) or framed by foreground objects. And Lewis injects a sense of unease into the situation with oblique angles and builds suspense with measured editing and dramatic compositions criss-crossed with threatening shadows. Bowing on Blu-ray, extras include audio commentary by film noir expert Alan K. Rode, and a featurette on the film’s style and themes. Recommended. (S. Axmaker)