One On Top Of The Other - The Big Reveal
Then … George is running out of time - his execution date is just days away. His attorney and Henry visit him at San Quentin Prison in Marin County (map), where director Fulcio was allowed remarkable access for all of the prison scenes.
… and Now, decades later the main gate and gatehouse have changed very little.
Then … They are waved through, here approaching an observation tower with the prison buildings in the background. The crowded visitor’s parking lot is on the left.
… and Now, CitySleuth has been here before, successfully talking his way past the gate to get a matching photo for a scene from the 1947 movie Dark Passage. This time he wasn’t allowed to photograph inside the gate - “You’re wearing a blue shirt; the prisoners wear blue” - but through the open gate he took this fairly closely aligned match.
The attorney tries his best to comfort George in the cell.
There are many parallels between this movie and Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo, including what happens next: the director presents a surprising early whodunnit reveal. Alone in the cell with George, Henry stuns him by confessing, a smug sneer on his face, to framing George for Susan’s murder. He has always been jealous of his younger brother’s success and wealth; now he will inherit the valuable clinic. But that’s not the half of it, he tells him that he and Susan have been lovers for years and what’s more, she is not dead after all; he faked the death by killing her nurse Elizabeth O’Neill, burying her as Susan. Instead of Henry having to deal with George he has devilishly arranged for the State to do it instead.
Then … Of course Henry knows that George will tell his attorney but in the absence of corroborating evidence no one can be sure this isn’t just one more fake claim by a desperate man. Nevertheless, in a TV news interview the district attorney announces the Governor of California granted a 24 hour stay of execution to allow the police to exhume the corpse a second time to check it against Susan’s dental records.
… and Now, this was filmed alongside the lawn in front of the State Capitol Building in Sacramento, California’s capital (map). (Reader Paul Penna has pointed out that the TV reporter is Harry Martin from Sacramento’s KCRA Channel 3).
The coroner debunks George’s claim by declaring the corpse is indeed that of Susan based on a match with her dental records. But the records were from the Dumurrier clinic, provided by Henry - couldn’t he have given them the nurse’s dental records instead? But neither Susan nor Henry can be located and there’s no time to investigate further; the execution will take place tomorrow.
