Introduction by Michael Barker of Sony Pictures Classics on January 1

An unsung gothic gem amongst Tourneur’s extraordinary 1940s work, this mood-drenched psychological mystery bristles with an air of anxious uncertainty. A chance encounter aboard a train plunges an inquisitive doctor (George Brent) into sinister goings-on at a turn-of-the-century Manhattan mansion, where the disturbed wife (Hedy Lamarr) of a wealthy social lion may—or may not—be going mad. Told in a complex web of flashbacks and shifting viewpoints, Experiment Perilous is an unsettlingly ambiguous tale of illusion versus reality etched in some of Tourneur’s most intricate mise en scène—including a startlingly surreal climactic image worthy of Magritte.

Explore the Jacques Tourneur brochure flipbook or read below.