Joaquim da Silva Fontes, Significação e Estabilidade do Género no ...

Chris meets by accident, is a hellcat, no less the bitch of the title they couldn’t use.
She knows her power over men like Chris, and comes on like a strong perfume or a
slug of booze. All the same it is strange she is such a purring fool for Johnny.
(McGilligan 1997:326)
In the meantime, the allegedly dead first husband of Cross’s wife reappears all of a
sudden. He explains he had not drowned, but had stolen money from the woman he
theoretically was saving. Already suspected of corruption, he thought he had better to hide
away. Taking this chance, Cross understands his marriage will be nullified when he
confronts his wife with her “live dead” first husband. Having arranged that, he believes he
can then marry Kitty, only to catch her in Johnny’s arms when he unexpectedly shows up
in the apartment. Johnny finds it difficult to know what to say to justify his presence there,
but he manages to sound convincing. For the second time we hear Chris proposing to her,
yet she reacts straight away: “But you can’t,” adding afterwards: “Of course, I’d marry
you, if you were free. But you are not…” to which Chris adds: “Something might
happen…” At this point, the recurrent idea of something bad happening to his wife
reinforces the presentiment that a tragedy will soon overtake his life. And indeed this is
what happens: Kitty’s contemptuous accusation of him as old and emasculate generates a
murderous fury which takes him to stab her continually with an ice-pick, as fig. 67 above
shows. His brutal thrusts certainly translate in a monstrous manner the erotic pleasure he
has been deprived of, underlying the relationship between sex and death that the film
seems to maintain. Sarcastically, it is Johnny who gets accused, convicted and executed for
Kitty’s murder, despite his attempts to lay the blame on Cross.
Eventually the paintings get displayed in an art gallery under the name of
“Katherine March”. Just as an early stroke of fatal luck - from which the cataclysm of
other fatal actions will follow - Adele happens to walk by it and with a Medusa-like face
rushes back home into the kitchen where her husband is and asks him: “How long have
you known Katherine March? Answer me!” Chris, who is again with his apron on and his
huge chopping knife cutting pieces of liver, is perplexed that she would ask him such a
question. Having the knife pointed at her, she says “keep away that knife… do you want to
cut my throat?” No answer is required as his eyes speak for themselves. Chris is shocked
when his wife calls him a liar and accuses him of copying the work of a “real artist” as she
saw the paintings signed “Katherine March”.
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