Easily among the darkest of courtroom dramas, James Whale’s 1933 The Kiss Before the Mirror, an adaptation of a play by Ladislaus Fodor, is a story of obsession and rage barely glossed over by legal trappings. When Dr. Bernsdorff (Paul Lukas) discovers his wife is having an affair, he shoots her dead at the home of her lover and then dials the police, confessing to the murder. His best friend, Paul Held (Frank Morgan), is the defense attorney who comes running to take Bernsdorff’s case, insisting the now guilt-tormented man tell him every detail, including his thoughts, leading up to the shooting.
Held wants to plead for Bernsdorff’s state of mind at the time of the crime, and as Bernsdorff eventually describes everything that happened—including his sudden realization that his wife must be in love with another man—a fever of suspicion grows in Held about whether his own wife, Maria (Nancy Carroll), might be having an affair of her own.
She is, in fact, having one, as we soon learn, and Held—aflame with his own desire to kill Maria while also defending Benrsdorff—insists Maria sit in the courtroom while he delivers an almost maniacally passionate speech in support of Bernsdorff’s temporary madness. As stories about marriage go, The Kiss Before the Mirror is astonishing in how it wades through deep waters of betrayal, reprisal, impulse, and elusive forgiveness.
The story is almost constructed like a musical composition, building to a stunning peak and a resolution you wouldn’t have bet is going to happen. Morgan (The Wizard of Oz) is quite powerful, and Whale (Frankenstein, The Old Dark House) digs into one of his pet themes: passions that lift the lid off the unknown. Visually sumptuous in this Blu-ray edition, the film is a wonder of light and dark contrasts. Strongly recommended.