(Some Spoilers)Like the Sword of Damocles Michael Garroway, Robert Mitchum, hovers over the movie "Undercurrent" and is the one person who holds your interest and curiosity to what the film is trying to tell you yet you never see or hear from him until the movie is more then half over.
Michael's brother Alan, Robert Taylor,has become very wealthy by inventing the Distant Controller which turned the tide for the allies against the Nazis in the Second World War. Handsome charming and rich Alan swept Ann Hamilton,Kathreine Hepburn, off her feet almost as soon as she laid eyes on him when he came to visit her father Prof. "Dink" Hamilton, Edmund Gwenn, to do research in developing the chemical Tetrodyet for the US Army. It wasn't until the wedded couple moved back to Alan's family estate in Middleberg Virgina that Ann began to realize that her husband is keeping a deep dark secret from her:his brother Michael. In Alan's disturbed mind anything that has to do with Michael had to be purged from the Garroway home and Ann starts to wonder if Michael, who she never even knew existed, is even alive.
The Garroway brothers who started an electronic business before the war in the late 1930's had developed the Distant Controller that made Alan a millionaire. It was just then that his brother Michael disappear from sight. It's the true story behind the Distant Controller that has Alan paralyzed with fear.
Besides his loyal and faithful employee Warmsley(Clinton Sunberg), who Alan is obviously paying off to keep his mouth shut, Michael is the only one who knows the truth and that knowledge may very well cost him his life. Just before the Distant Controller was put into production Michael went underground over an incident involving his brother and one of the employees of the company Carl Stoyer.
Trying to put the Stoyer episode out of his mind Michael joined the US Army and spent the next four years overseas almost hoping that he'll end up getting killed thats how traumatized he was over his brother's actions involving Carl Stoyer. Finding out that Alan married Ann Michael resurfaced to warn her what he's really like and what he's capable of doing feeling that sooner or later he'll snap and end up murdering her.
You could see what an effect of even the mention of Michael's name had on Alan where he changed from his usual bubbly and charming self into a sweating and wide-eyed looking psychotic. Truly in love with Ann and not wanting to lose her Alan at first maligns his brother making up stories about his wild lifestyle and his embezzling the company's funds but Alan's story about his missing brother has a false ring to it and Ann senses it.
Ann gets conflicting information about Michael from his former acquaintance socialite Sylvia Burton, Jayne Meadows,that hint's to Michael being murdered by Alan and Alan's unsavory business practices. The deadly truth come out about Alan after he's confronted by his brother who tells him that he's not going to let happen to Ann what happened to Stoyler and the only way he can redeem himself is to tell Ann the truth about his dark and mysterious past before he will.
The movie "Undercurrent" takes a while to build up it's storyline and for a time your left hanging to what the connection between Michael and Cral Stoyer has to do with Alan's success in the world of electronics. As the truth about Alan comes out the more he becomes unhinged and in this case the truth doesn't set him free but frees those, like Ann, from him and the fantasy world that he's meticulously build around himself all these years.
Michael's brother Alan, Robert Taylor,has become very wealthy by inventing the Distant Controller which turned the tide for the allies against the Nazis in the Second World War. Handsome charming and rich Alan swept Ann Hamilton,Kathreine Hepburn, off her feet almost as soon as she laid eyes on him when he came to visit her father Prof. "Dink" Hamilton, Edmund Gwenn, to do research in developing the chemical Tetrodyet for the US Army. It wasn't until the wedded couple moved back to Alan's family estate in Middleberg Virgina that Ann began to realize that her husband is keeping a deep dark secret from her:his brother Michael. In Alan's disturbed mind anything that has to do with Michael had to be purged from the Garroway home and Ann starts to wonder if Michael, who she never even knew existed, is even alive.
The Garroway brothers who started an electronic business before the war in the late 1930's had developed the Distant Controller that made Alan a millionaire. It was just then that his brother Michael disappear from sight. It's the true story behind the Distant Controller that has Alan paralyzed with fear.
Besides his loyal and faithful employee Warmsley(Clinton Sunberg), who Alan is obviously paying off to keep his mouth shut, Michael is the only one who knows the truth and that knowledge may very well cost him his life. Just before the Distant Controller was put into production Michael went underground over an incident involving his brother and one of the employees of the company Carl Stoyer.
Trying to put the Stoyer episode out of his mind Michael joined the US Army and spent the next four years overseas almost hoping that he'll end up getting killed thats how traumatized he was over his brother's actions involving Carl Stoyer. Finding out that Alan married Ann Michael resurfaced to warn her what he's really like and what he's capable of doing feeling that sooner or later he'll snap and end up murdering her.
You could see what an effect of even the mention of Michael's name had on Alan where he changed from his usual bubbly and charming self into a sweating and wide-eyed looking psychotic. Truly in love with Ann and not wanting to lose her Alan at first maligns his brother making up stories about his wild lifestyle and his embezzling the company's funds but Alan's story about his missing brother has a false ring to it and Ann senses it.
Ann gets conflicting information about Michael from his former acquaintance socialite Sylvia Burton, Jayne Meadows,that hint's to Michael being murdered by Alan and Alan's unsavory business practices. The deadly truth come out about Alan after he's confronted by his brother who tells him that he's not going to let happen to Ann what happened to Stoyler and the only way he can redeem himself is to tell Ann the truth about his dark and mysterious past before he will.
The movie "Undercurrent" takes a while to build up it's storyline and for a time your left hanging to what the connection between Michael and Cral Stoyer has to do with Alan's success in the world of electronics. As the truth about Alan comes out the more he becomes unhinged and in this case the truth doesn't set him free but frees those, like Ann, from him and the fantasy world that he's meticulously build around himself all these years.