Summary
A prim Parisian atelier becomes the crucible for a schismatic soul when Claire Martin—brush-wielding ingénue from the American Midwest—tumbles from a scaffold; the thud of her cranium against flagstones detonates a moral metamorphosis. The concussion looses a libertine doppelgänger who prowls the gaslit boulevards, her charcoal pupils dilated to devour absinthe, applause, and the lubricious brushstrokes of Scott Houghton, a predatory portraitist trafficking in flesh-toned notoriety. Under his cobalt glaze she molts chastity like a snakeskin, posing for a canvas that ripples with bare-shouldered provocation. Yet when the painter’s caress crosses the covenant of pigment, the repressed maiden erupts: a silver easel lamp crashes against his temple, the mirror fractures, and the blowback knocks Claire into her former self—virginal, bewildered, clutching torn chiffon like a baptismal shroud. Repatriated to Manhattan’s brownstone respectability, she floats through high-society soirées, her memory a snowfield unblemished by Gallic scandals until Houghton reappears, portfolio tucked like a secret scar beneath his evening cloak. In a hushed Plaza alcove he vows to resurrect her occluded nights with whispered pigment and perfume; instead his own blood irrigates the Persian rug as his nephew’s stiletto finds the femoral artery. Claire, crimson-spattered and catatonic, believes the blade was hers; only the nephew’s lurid confession absolves her, allowing a return to pastel betrothal with steadfast Howard Kent, the fiancé who waited like a monochrome silhouette outside the Technicolor nightmare.
Synopsis
Diligent American art student studying in Paris, Claire Martin suffers a blow to her head that transforms her into a woman of questionable morals. She then becomes involved with Scott Houghton, an unscrupulous artist who paints a suggestive portrait of her. When Houghton attempts to seduce Claire, she resists and in the struggle strikes her head and is restored to her former personality. Claire returns to America with no recollection of her lurid life, but when she meets Houghton at a party, he promises to illuminate her past. He lures Claire to his hotel room where his nephew stabs and kills him. The violence traumatizes Claire, who believes that she perpetrated the crime. When Houghton's nephew confesses, Claire is cleared of the crime and her seedy past and is free to marry her sweetheart Howard Kent.
Review Excerpt
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Paris, 1919. Montparnasse exhales opium and turpentine; a lone skylight spills mercury moonshine across cracked floorboards while Claire Martin—pigtail-braided daughter of Peoria Presbyterians—climbs a wobbly trestle to varnish a cathedral-sized canvas. One misstep, a dull crack, and the atelier tilts into delirium. What clambers out of the coma is no ingénue but a velvet-lipped revenant hungry for every taboo the Left Bank can vend.
Viewed today, Body and Soul (1920) plays like a proto-noir f..."
