starring Robert Young, Susan Hayward, Jane Greer, Rita Johnson
directed by Irving Pichel
95 minutes
Larry Ballantine (Robert Young) is getting ready to leave Greta (Rita Johnson), his wife of five years, for Janice Bell (Jane Greer), her friend. Larry calls off his plans abruptly after Greta reveals that she knows all about it. Greta convinces him not to leave her after suggesting that they should move from New York City to Los Angeles where she has already bought a home and bought him into a stock trading partnership.
Larry goes along with Greta’s idea. He remains faithful to her for a while until he meets Verna Carlson (Susan Hayward), one of the employees at the business that he now helps to run. Everything goes great for Larry and Verna until Greta meets Verna and sees how her husband is eyeing his employee.
Greta talks Larry into moving once again, this time to a home in the mountains far away from the big city. She sells his share of the stock trading partnership leaving him without any source of income. It isn’t long before Larry is once again scheming to get a divorce and marry Verna.
Greta does not get wise to Larry’s scheme, this time. He reconciles with Verna and sells her on his plan to run away to Reno but on the drive there they get into a car accident. Larry survives but Verna is killed and her body horribly burned in the fire that consumes the vehicle.
Larry digs himself an even bigger hole when he claims that it was Greta who was killed in the accident. He then returns home to actually kill Greta only to discover that she’s already dead. Larry hides Greta’s body, collects on the life insurance policy, and tries his best to move on with his life but this scheme also gets dashed when he runs into Janice once again.
Thoughts
This story is told in flashbacks while Larry is on trial for murdering Verna.
This is the second movie that I have seen that was produced by Joan Harrison, one of a very small number of women working as producers in Hollywood in the 1940s. The other film she produced that I have seen is Phantom Lady (1944).
This story is just as wild as my description implies. There are a few of twists in the tale that I did not describe or mention.
Did Larry kill anyone? How culpable is he for the deaths of Verna and Greta? How reliable is his testimony at his trial? Why did he do what he did at the end of the movie? How might the movie have ended if he had remained seated while the verdict was read?
This was a fun ride. I had my own guesses as to how things would turn out and how Janice would re-enter the story. My guesses were not spot on. I was expecting a different sort of ending in which Janice played a bigger part.
No comments:
Post a Comment