Beware, My Lovely: A Treatise on Masculinity and Inadequacy

Rewatching movies is such a fun and interesting thing to do.  I feel like once you know the basics of the plot, you can pay attention more to the performances, the art direction, the costumes/hair, or the direction.  This was especially true when I recently re-watched Beware, My Lovely.  I first saw this movie at the Noir DC film fest and I really enjoyed it.  So this time around since I knew plot,  I was able to pay attention to the staging and the motivation of the characters.  The basic plot is Ida Lupino hires Robert Ryan to do odd jobs around the house.  Ryan turns out to have some psychological issues (probably schizophrenia) and after locking Lupino in her own house, begins to menace her. The most is set just after World War (1918) and Lupino has been widowed by the war (he husband was in the Army).  The source of Ryan's psychological issues seem to arise from feelings of inadequacy.  He wasn't able to join the Army for some unmentioned health reason (um, probably because he is mentally ill) and therefore he feels the need to continuously prove himself.  Additionally, he talks about being a handyman and no one keeps around more that a day (which may be because he kills the people who hire him, at least one that we see at the beginning of the movie).  Fueling this feeling of inadequacy seems to be comments from other characters that he is not masculine enough.  Early in the movie, Ryan is frightened by a dog and is angry when Lupino's boarder laughs at him.  Later when he is waxing the floor, Lupino's niece says comments like "waxing the floor is women's work" and "what kind of man waxes floors for money".  Later in the movie, Ryan tries to show Lupino that he is just as good as her dead husband.  I feel like if this movie was made slightly later (it was made in 1952) and slight changes were made to the script (removing the fact that he locks her in the house), this movie could have been a exploration of treating a psychological condition with understanding and talk therapy (there are not a ton of depiction of treating psychological conditions with prescription drugs).  Thinking about these issues made watching Beware, My Lovely again much more interesting.