The Chocolate Cobweb (Book) (1948)

The Chocolate Cobweb, by Charlotte Armstrong

New York: Coward-McCann, Inc., 1948

List of main characters:

Kate Garth

Amanda (Mandy) Garth, Kate’s daughter, twenty-three years old

John Garth, Kate’s husband, deceased

Tobias (Toby) Garrison

Ione Garrison, Tobias’s wife

Tobias Thone Garrison, Tobias’s son

Gene Noyes, chemist at Callahan, Amanda’s boyfriend

Fanny Austin, actress

Belle Thorne, Tobias’s first wife

Lieutenant Ellis (El) Kelly, officer with the Pasadena Police

The image on the right is the front and spine dust cover of The Chocolate Cobweb, by Charlotte Armstrong, from the 1952 hardcover edition published by Peter Davies, London. Quotations provided in this blog post are from the 1948 edition published by Coward-McCann, Inc.

The Chocolate Cobweb reads more like a Nancy Drew novel in some ways. The ending seems a bit saccharine, and it is certainly saccharine compared to the film, Merci pour le chocolat, which is based on Charlotte Armstrong’s novel. It’s a satisfying read, in spite of its ending, and it’s always great to discover another source for noir that is written by a woman.

The Chocolate Cobweb opens in Los Angeles, with Amanda Garth and her mother Kate entertaining a cousin, Edna Garfield, who is visiting from New York. On the morning of her departure, the local newspaper has a feature on Tobias Garrison, a famous painter who is showing some of his work in a local gallery. Edna lets it slip in front of Amanda that there had been a mix-up at the hospital twenty-three years ago, when Amanda Garth was born. It seems Tobias Garrison thought she was his daughter when his wife had actually given birth to his son, Thone. Amanda is immediately curious about this bit of family lore and decides to visit the Peck Galleries, where she can find a showing of Tobias’s paintings.

At the Peck Galleries, Amanda sees Tobias’s most famous painting “Belle in the Doorway” and falls in love with it, so to speak. Mr. and Mrs. Garrison make a surprise visit to the galleries while Amanda is there, and their son Thone Garrison arrives soon after his parents. Amanda resolves to meet them all, but not at the Peck Galleries. Instead, she finds their phone number and home address and pays them a visit.

The novel then switches perspective: to Ione Garrison. She makes hot chocolate, sleeping pills in her left hand, and plots Thone’s “apparent suicide.” She tries to formulate a logical motive for him to commit suicide—something about a letter from a female friend or girlfriend. No one suspected Ione when she slipped pills into Belle Garrison’s drink, and she doubts anyone will suspect her now. Tobias Garrison uses chloral (its use as a sedative was more common in the late nineteenth century) to help him sleep, and Ione does the same with barbiturates, so everyone knows that the pills would be easy to come by.

Amanda uses art as an excuse to introduce herself to the Garrisons and to meet Thone. She paints and works as a designer, and she decides a little bit of artistic license will suit her needs:

She rehearsed again her little speech. It wasn’t a speech to be said over the telephone, nor could she make an appointment to say it. No, she must just go, just barge in. . . . [ellipses in original]

Take her courage in her hand. Courage? Crust, thought Amanda. Oh, well, blame it on Art. She wanted to paint, ergo, she was a little bit crazy. (page 29)

Amanda’s ruse works. And Tobias is curious about her when she reveals that they “met” twenty-three years ago, that is, when she and Thone might have been mixed up at birth:

. . . She said, “I am an art student, Mr. Garrison. And I haven’t quite as much n-nerve as I thought I had. I came because we’ve met before.”

                “Is that so?” Tobias’ voice was smoother than she would have expected it to be. “I’m sorry. I don’t remember you. Perhaps you’ll remind me?”

                Something touched the backs of her legs. Thone had brought her an armless chair. Amanda sat down with quite successful steadiness. She kept her back straight and leaned forward. “It was a long time ago, sir.”

                His head cocked politely.

                She said. “Isn’t it true, Mr. Garrison, that when your son was born, the nurse showed you the wrong child?”

                He straightened, where he sat, with shock. “That’s so,” he said. His eyes held hers now and she was aware of nothing else.

                “I am the wrong child,” said Mandy. “So you see, we have met, although I don’t remember you, either.” (pages 31–32)

During this same visit, Ione Garrison takes Amanda to Thone’s room to see another portrait of Belle. Ione purposely knocks over a thermos of hot chocolate, the one that readers know also contains the sleeping pills. Amanda helps clean up the mess with an old handkerchief, and Ione demands to have it so that she can clean it for Amanda. Amanda makes a switch and gives her a new, monogrammed handkerchief because she is now suspicious of Ione Garrison’s motives. Another possible intrigue in the making occurs on Amanda’s way out of the Garrisons’ house: Thone accompanies Amanda and requests that she talk to Tobias only of art and painting, not of Belle. Amanda gives the soiled handkerchief to her boyfriend Gene to test at a friend’s lab, and he discovers that the handkerchief has what he calls “sleeping dope” on it. Amanda begins to wonder if someone means harm to Thone, and she wants to warn Thone.

Thone goes to the Garths to confront Amanda. She admits that she is trying to confuse Ione about the circumstances of her birth because she’s upset about what she thinks are Ione’s murderous intentions toward Thone. She and Thone argue because he doesn’t believe Amanda. Amanda tells Thone that she will accept his father’s and Ione’s invitation to return to their home and that she will prove Ione wants to murder anyone having something to do with Belle. Amanda will convince Ione that she thinks she is Belle’s daughter and thus tempt Ione to murder her. Thone finally agrees to Amanda’s plan because he sees that she cares about what happens to him.

From this point on in the novel, the plot concentrates on Amanda’s attempts to solve what she thinks is Ione Garrison’s murderous plot and to discover if it has any connection to the death of Thone’s mother, Belle Garrison.

(This blog post about the novel The Chocolate Cobweb contains spoilers.)

I first saw Merci pour le chocolat, the 2000 French film based on The Chocolate Cobweb, quite a while ago, and I decided that I had to read the book. I had already read Mischief, also by Charlotte Armstrong, which I found to be dark (and thoroughly noir) but almost demoralizing because the characters were so unpleasant. In fact, I found Mischief mercifully short and the film based on it, Don’t Bother to Knock, so much more enjoyable.

Click on each title in the list below to see my blog post about each:

◊ Don’t Bother to Knock (film based on the novel Mischief)

◊ Mischief

◊ Merci pour le chocolat (film based on The Chocolate Cobweb)

So imagine my surprise at the conclusion of The Chocolate Cobweb, which reads more like a Nancy Drew novel in some ways. Amanda solves the mystery and escapes harm, and the young lovers (I won’t give the names for this detail away) are engaged to be married at the end. Quite the surprise! The Chocolate Cobweb was published in 1948, three years before the publication of Mischief. Did life experience darken Armstrong’s views of life and romance in the interim? Her fiction was published during the McCarthy era, so maybe politics and political corruption played a part.

From everything that I have read about Charlotte Armstrong, most of it online, there seems to be little known about her personal life. I did discover that many of her stories were made into movies, both foreign and American. Here are some links for those who want to find more information (click on each website title):

◊ The Charlotte Armstrong website

◊ Wikipedia: Charlotte Armstrong

◊ The Full Wiki: Charlotte Armstrong

I enjoyed reading The Chocolate Cobweb more than Mischief, although the ending seems a bit saccharine, and it is certainly saccharine compared to the film. Isabelle Huppert gives a commanding performance in Merci pour le chocolat. Her character, based on Ione Garrison, is the focus of the film, and Huppert never lets viewers forget that shift in focus from Amanda Garth in the novel to Marie-Claire (aka Mika) Muller in the film, no matter who is on-screen. The plot in the book is easier to follow: Armstrong’s writing is very clear. The film is a neo-noir in which all the details matter, and I found that reading the book after seeing Merci pour le chocolat the first time helped a bit, especially for the opening sequences, when I saw the film a second time. Seeing the film again made me appreciate the story, in print and on film, that much more.

Merci pour le chocolat (2000)

October 25, 2000, release date

Directed by Claude Chabrol

Screenplay by Claude Chabrol and Caroline Eliacheff

Based on the novel The Chocolate Cobweb by Charlotte Armstrong

Music by Matthieu Chabrol

Edited by Monique Fardoulis

Cinematography by Renato Berta

Isabelle Huppert as Marie-Claire Muller (aka Mika)

Jacques Dutronc as André Polonski

Anna Mouglalis as Jeanne Pollet

Rodolphe Pauly as Guillaume Polonski

Brigitte Catillon as Louise Pollet

Michel Robin as Patou Dufreigne

Mathieu Simonet as Axel

Lydia Andrei as Lisbeth

Véronique Alain as Madame le Maire

Isolde Barth as Pauline

Sibylle Blanc as Nathalie

Distributed by MK2 Diffusion

Produced by MK2 Productions, CAB Productions, France 2 Cinema, Television Suisse Romande, YMC Productions

“A tendency to desire evil, often with a certain pleasure.”

—Definition of the word perversity according to the Petit Larousse.

Isabelle Huppert is the star of Merci pour le chocolat in every way imaginable. She carries the film, with its focus on the perversity of her character Marie-Claire Muller, who goes by the nickname Mika. Marie-Claire has most of the other characters fooled—but not the viewers. We are given the same hints that another character, Jeanne Pollet, sees. Although Jeanne’s perspective provides glimpses into Marie-Claire’s character, and Marie-Claire doesn’t appear in every scene, the film belongs to Marie-Claire and thus to Isabelle Huppert.

The film is based on Charlotte Armstrong’s The Chocolate Cobweb. The story is updated for the period in which the film was made (it was released in October 2000), but Merci pour le chocolat is a remarkably close adaptation of Armstrong’s novel, which was published in 1948. The director Claude Chabrol pays homage to the source material by incorporating Marie-Claire’s crocheting project: a large afghan in the shape of a cobweb! The yarn is even a chocolate-brown color.

For more information, click on each name listed below:

◊ Isabelle Huppert

◊ Claude Chabrol

◊ Charlotte Armstrong

Merci pour le chocolat opens with only a few credits—four short lists—and then a marriage ceremony: André Polonksy and Marie-Claire Muller are marrying each other for the second time. Various snippets of conversation among the guests at the wedding reception provide some odd observations that put viewers a bit on edge, for example:

◊ Patou Dufreigne, the manager of the Muller Chocolate factory, which Marie-Claire owns, says of André: “I admire him as a pianist but, as a man, he bothers me.”

◊ Dufreigne tells the same group of wedding guests, “A low-key wedding is better this time” and “The first one was so luxurious. There were 500 guests. And look where it got them.”

◊ The woman who officiated at the wedding ceremony tells Marie-Claire, “I know you like my own daughter.” Marie-Claire responds, “Personne me faite, ma chérie” (translated as “I’m no one’s daughter”).

Even when others are speaking or starting their lines of dialogue, the camera focuses on Marie-Claire. It’s almost as if she is listening to each conversation, but the way that she is photographed, viewers know that this is impossible.

The remaining credits appear over shots of a ferry crossing a rather large body of water. The ferry slips toward a dock, and the camera pans down to two women seated at a restaurant table across the street from the dock. The women are waiting for other people, Axel and Jeanne. When Axel and Jeanne arrive, the four order meals. Then the film cuts to them on the restaurant’s outdoor patio, where they drink coffee and have dessert. From their conversations, viewers ascertain that Axel and Jeanne are the children of the two women, but nothing is said directly about the relationships between the characters. Axel asks Jeanne if she would like to see a movie, and his mother produces a newspaper. While searching for theater listings, she finds Marie-Claire Muller’s and André Polonski’s wedding portrait and wedding announcement, both of which bring up a rather odd familial secret.

The connection between the Polonskis and the Pollets is explained by Axel’s mother, who knows the secret, to Jeanne, who is instantly curious about this story that she has never heard before. When Jeanne was born, there had been a mix-up at the hospital. It seems André Polonski thought Jeanne was his daughter, when his wife had actually given birth to his son, Guillaume. The hospital had run out of baby bracelets and used the first three letters of the families’ names (P-O-L) to identify each newborn. A nurse showed the wrong baby to André, and Jeanne’s father had to straighten out the facts.

Jeanne, still curious about this bit of family lore, decides to visit the Polonski home, where she introduces herself as the Polonski daughter that almost was. She shares her musical talent with André: Both play the piano. Jeanne is not above using her newfound knowledge about the name mix-up to insinuate herself into André’s good graces, and she is more than happy to return to the Polonski home to take up André’s offer of some piano coaching.

But Jeanne is not so smitten with her good fortune that she ignores some warning signs. While studying a framed portrait of Lisbeth Polonski, André’s deceased wife and his son Guillaume’s mother, she sees Marie-Claire purposely spill some chocolate that she had prepared for Guillaume. Jeanne is suspicious, so she asks her boyfriend Axel to test the chocolate residue on her sweater. (She had accidently stained the sweater helping Marie-Claire with the cleanup.) Axel is a lab assistant at Louise Pollet’s criminal laboratory, and he finds that the chocolate stain contains residues of Rohypnol, a benzodiazepine.

(This blog post about Merci pour le chocolat contains spoilers.)

Jeanne warns Guillaume, who refuses to believe her at first. He calls her crazy and tells her that she is out of her mind. He is annoyed because Jeanne imitates his mother’s poses in the photographs around his home, and he doesn’t appreciate the way Jeanne fawns over his father by imitating André’s piano technique. But as Jeanne and Guillaume continue to talk, he begins to describe the circumstances of his mother death. As a result of that conversation, he begins to wonder if there is something to Jeanne’s story and to her suspicions about Lisbeth Polonski’s death. Now both become wary of Marie-Claire—and with good reason.

This post started with a definition of the word perversity, which is actually a quotation from a featurette on the DVD that I watched called “Introduction by Claude Chabrol.” The featurette is a short text essay, and its discussion of the word perversity sums up the character of Marie-Claire, although her name is never mentioned in the feature. Marie-Claire and her husband André share a conversation that reveals her perversity to her husband; viewers, on the other hand, already knew that she was capable of inflicting harm:

• Marie-Claire: “I have a knack for doing wrong.” [Film cuts to Jeanne and Guillaume in the car, with Jeanne driving. They hit a wall and the screen goes black.] “It’s wrong when I pervert good. The more violent it is, the more it appears good. I give, I give, I give, and I can never ask. I didn’t even ask to live.”

• André: “You received life like everyone else. You can’t deny that.”

• Marie-Claire: “I don’t understand. I never understand when you speak. I know what I am. I’m nothing. So . . . .”

• André: “What have you done to them? Tell me what you’ve done. You know how I cherish Guillaume.”

• Marie-Claire: “You should tell him. Guillaume’s like me and we’re not like you. My mother never thought I was a genius. I’m just a hanger-on.”

• André: “You don’t realize how much you’ve helped me. Thanks to you, I . . .”

• Marie-Claire: “I know, I help everyone. I helped Lisbeth too.”

• André: “But you adored Lisbeth . . .”

• Marie-Claire: “I let her do what she wanted. I only put Rohypnol in her cognac.”

• André: “Why did you do it? You loved her . . .”

• Marie-Claire: “That makes no difference. Instead of loving, I say, ‘I love you,’ and people believe me. I have real power in my mind. I calculate everything. It’s in God’s hands. I think I need to feel tired occasionally. You understand? Why am I telling you all this?”

• André: “What have you done to them?”

• Marie-Claire: “To whom?”

• André: “The children.”

• Marie-Claire: “Nothing. Why would I do anything to them? I put Rohypnol in the coffee. Are you angry?”

• André: “What a question!”

• Marie-Claire: “Are you angry?”

• André: “You fool everyone.”

• Marie-Claire: “Some people fool themselves.

The way that Marie-Claire talks with her husband about his son Guillaume and Jeanne, who he has been coaching, is chilling. And yet she has two lines that stand out for their lucidity. When André says that he cherishes Guillaume, Marie-Claire responds, “You should tell him,” which makes perfect sense because André devotes so much of his time and energy to his music. When André tells Marie-Claire that she has fooled everyone, she seems to imply that it was easy and that she really did nothing when she says, “Some people fool themselves.”

The first time that I saw Merci pour le chocolat, I was confused by the opening sequences, which made it hard for me to follow the plot and identify the relationships between all the characters. The opening wedding sequence ends with the woman who officiated at the marriage ceremony asking Marie-Claire about taking a photograph of the newlywed couple: “Sorry, I have a favor to ask. For the press . . . A photo. Just one little photo.” When the film cuts to Louise Pollet at the restaurant with her friend, the connection between them and Polonskis isn’t introduced right away. Louise Pollet and her friend sit at the restaurant waiting for other people, but viewers have to infer from the conversation that the two people are their children. And the newspaper story about Marie-Claire Muller’s and André Polonski’s wedding, accompanied by the wedding photo, comes rather late in the sequence, when Axel’s mother finally explains to Jeanne the story about André Polonski thinking that Jeanne instead of Guillaume was his child.

After my first viewing, I read Charlotte Armstrong’s book, which helped me follow the plot of the film more easily when I saw it a second time. The story is updated to 1999 and 2000, when the film was made and released, respectively, but Merci pour le chocolat is a remarkably close adaptation of Armstrong’s novel. Whether or not you read the novel, Merci pour le chocolat is one of those films where it really helps to pay attention to every detail. And Isabelle Huppert is superb in the role of Marie-Claire. The perversity of the character is unsettling, and Huppert doesn’t shy away from showing Marie-Claire’s complexity. The setting and the family seem ordinary on the surface, but Huppert’s performance allows us to see all the cracks.

My blog post about Merci pour le chocolat is my entry for the Vive la France! Blogathon. Click here for the complete list of participants and links to their entries. The blogathon is hosted by Lady Eve at Lady Eve’s Reel Life and Christian Esquevin at Silver Screen Modes. Click on each blog title to visit their respective blogs.