Originally promoted with the wild tagline: "Ruled by a female Svengali, he tortured women with his world prophecies!", "The Clairvoyant" has no female Svengali and no world prophecies. And the main character does not torture women anywhere near as much as the screenwriter tortured the actresses who had to speak his lines with straight faces. Maybe women in the theatre audiences were tortured by the sight of Claude Rains' wide eyed expression in close-up whenever he is supposed to be going into a clairvoyant trance.
If trying to interest friends in old movies, this would be a poor choice. The audio is so poor that lip reading skills would be a great asset. The picture quality of the TCM print is poor, especially the contrast which has almost no mid-tones (grays). That this was a low budget production with lots of stock footage is immediately apparent but does not become glaring until they stage a really lame mine disaster, flashing the film stock to simulate the explosion and cutting in frames to create unconvincing shock waves.
Max, billed as "The Great Maximus" (Rains), is a sideshow mind reader whose act is a harmless scam. His beautiful wife Remmy (Fay Wray) and his parents feed him verbal clues from the audience and from backstage. They usually manage to fool the audience but are strictly small-time.
Then early in the film he suddenly discovers that he has actually become clairvoyant, at least when in the presence of Christine, a newspaper owner's daughter who attends one of his shows. What follows are predictions about a train wreck, a horse race, and a mining disaster. Max begins to make big money from his growing reputation. As his standard of living increases his marriage begins to unravel.
Then things get really bad for Max when it is pointed out that his actions in stopping the train and trying to keep the miners out of the tunnel actually set the events in motion that led to the disaster.
The fundamental problem with "The Clairvoyant" is a lack of unity. The first half of the film (through the horse race) and the tacked-on ending are going for humor and are quite enjoyable. Rains and Wray play off each other quite well. But the wheels fall off for most of the second half as the film changes into an overwrought melodrama with a hint of suspense and the supernatural.
Although 45, Rains was very new to films and had not yet developed the style that would make him one of Hollywood's greatest character actors. Wray is unbelievably beautiful (even more attractive minus the blonde look from "King Kong") and already had plenty of experience to go with her considerable talent. As long as she is in the frame the film is worth watching, but things bog down almost immediately when she is not present.
Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.
If trying to interest friends in old movies, this would be a poor choice. The audio is so poor that lip reading skills would be a great asset. The picture quality of the TCM print is poor, especially the contrast which has almost no mid-tones (grays). That this was a low budget production with lots of stock footage is immediately apparent but does not become glaring until they stage a really lame mine disaster, flashing the film stock to simulate the explosion and cutting in frames to create unconvincing shock waves.
Max, billed as "The Great Maximus" (Rains), is a sideshow mind reader whose act is a harmless scam. His beautiful wife Remmy (Fay Wray) and his parents feed him verbal clues from the audience and from backstage. They usually manage to fool the audience but are strictly small-time.
Then early in the film he suddenly discovers that he has actually become clairvoyant, at least when in the presence of Christine, a newspaper owner's daughter who attends one of his shows. What follows are predictions about a train wreck, a horse race, and a mining disaster. Max begins to make big money from his growing reputation. As his standard of living increases his marriage begins to unravel.
Then things get really bad for Max when it is pointed out that his actions in stopping the train and trying to keep the miners out of the tunnel actually set the events in motion that led to the disaster.
The fundamental problem with "The Clairvoyant" is a lack of unity. The first half of the film (through the horse race) and the tacked-on ending are going for humor and are quite enjoyable. Rains and Wray play off each other quite well. But the wheels fall off for most of the second half as the film changes into an overwrought melodrama with a hint of suspense and the supernatural.
Although 45, Rains was very new to films and had not yet developed the style that would make him one of Hollywood's greatest character actors. Wray is unbelievably beautiful (even more attractive minus the blonde look from "King Kong") and already had plenty of experience to go with her considerable talent. As long as she is in the frame the film is worth watching, but things bog down almost immediately when she is not present.
Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.