Someone Behind the Door

The Sleeping Tiger, classic psychoanalysis…

The films opens with Mrs. Esmond coming home, finding Frank Clemmons seated in the living room reading a book.  Frank Clemmons has been given a reprieve from prison in lieu of staying with Dr. Esmond and his wife Glenda, for 6 months upon the recommendation of Dr. Esmond, in hopes of curing the habitual felon; the repetition compulsion.  Clemmons looks at Mrs. Esmond with child like sexual interest, the transference, while Mrs. Esmond passes a sardonic look toward Frank, oppressing any relief from his depressed state, making him angry, the counter-transference induction or grafting (Heinrich Racker, chapter, The Counter-transference Neurosis), which he later acts out on the maid while she is cleaning up, tripping her and causing her to fall. The benefits of Mrs. Edmonds’ counter-transference is not immediately evident although it has its advantages as Frank introjects these traits onto himself. Or, is Frank simply recovering his own attitude towards the Establishment and upper class society?

The film is a classic example of the Oedipus Complex with a twist, the way I see it.   Dr. Esmond and Clemmons begin to delve into Frank’s past uncovering piece by piece the cause of Frank’s criminal behavior.   Though, in this story, during the course of Clemmons’ treatment he confronts Mrs. Esmond about her own past which had little difference to Frank’s. She is quick to point out she refused to let her past affect her future, unlike Frank who appeared to be letting his past ruin his life. She is still projecting her own self loathing onto Clemmons, as she is in an unhappy marriage and begins to identify more with Frank, his lifestyle and the people with whom he associates finding her current marriage to be boring and less than she had dreamed it might be, her husband often treating her like his daughter.  This is the counter-transference on Frank’s part as he was apt to deduce her disgust with him had been with herself and her present situation.   Frank, who now refers to Mrs. Esmond as Glenda, seems to fall in love with Mrs. Esmond and Mrs. Esmond with him, compensating for a lack of affection in both their lives and is at first like a mother-son relationship.  They seem to ineptly struggle with each other enmeshed in their depressions and self loathing, both sinking further into emotional and psychological depravity. They arrange various encounters kept secret from Dr. Esmond. In the realm of psychoanalysis this is an unhealthy sexual bonding called sexual acting out. In psychotherapeutic treatment it can cause serious damage to the patient’s mental health, Heinrich Racker, Transference and Countertransference, page 144, Use of Countertransference and Transference.  This continues even after Dr. Esmond walks in on a scene in the kitchen where Mrs. Esmond is preparing dinner. 

Dr. Esmond refuses to dismiss Frank from his home and after Clemmons commits a robbery, he takes sides with Frank in an attempt to win Frank’s confidence and prevents the police from searching his home where Frank has hidden stolen money. This event triggered a breakthrough in Clemmons’ analysis after which Dr. Esmond and Frank take a two day fishing trip. Frank, having faced the destructive impulses ruling his thinking and behavior, is free and wants to move on with his life, trying to end his entanglement with Mrs. Esmond, now suffering from her own mental and emotional problems. She goes to extremes by biting herself claiming Clemmons assaulted her in an attempt to prevent Frank from leaving. Frank was giving her what her husband did not, because of her husband’s own problems and his commitment to Frank, who, at one point, begins to confront this when he offered to take Mrs. Esmond on a long vacation.

After Dr. Esmond reported to his wife that Frank was gone, she leaves the house in a frenzied mental state and races down the road where she picks up Frank and they speed off. Frank tries to console her and reason with her. Now, herself in the throes of a depressed state, unable to cope with her own deprivation and wanting to hold onto the one thing she believes is giving her life back to her, she speeds toward an oncoming truck. Frank grabs the wheel and they crash through a sign. Frank survives the crash, Mrs. Esmond appears to have lost her life at the scene.

Taking the story one step further it was evident to me, Mrs. Esmond may have been the true cause of Frank Clemmons’ problems all along and through synchronicity, he found his way into her home for psychotherapy. It also seems possible Dr, Esmond, already aware of his wife’s mental instability, sought out the help of a resident student to assist him with his wife’s therapy or the good Doctor found a way to manipulate her demise, deluding both her and his patient. There are a few allusions to it but the film fails to expound on this part of the story.

Seems it could be related to Someone Behind the Door.