... because by the time Joan Crawford does away with Van Heflin's character at the end, the main thing I was afraid of was that she would stop with only one bullet. What a contemptible cad he played!
This was one of those post war films trying to get scientifically to the bottom of mental illness, specifically Louise's (Joan Crawford), when she is picked up on a city street catatonic and looking for David - that would be Van Heflin's character. But this film is not all test tubes and therapy. There's plenty of melodrama to keep the viewer interested.
Through flashbacks you see that David and Louise were having an affair, and that Louise fell deeply in love with David, the piano playing construction engineer who says he has wanderlust because of the war. He breaks it off with her because he says she is smothering him, but it's just not that he doesn't want to get married, it's just that he doesn't want to marry her.
But does David take Louise's pain seriously and give her time and room to heal? Nope. He shows zero consideration and goes down the next day and gets a job from Louise's employer. Makes fun of her pain and is constantly popping in and out of her life via his employment. When she marries her employer, the wealthy Mr. Graham, David invites himself to the wedding, says snide things to Louise, hangs around the house, and gets involved with and ultimately engaged to Louise's new twenty year old stepdaughter. David is 35. So the man that Louise has always loved will be her son-in-law? No wonder she goes insane.
Louise starts seeing and hearing things. Starts thinking that she has killed people only to realize it was a hallucination. So did she really kill David or just wish that she did? Watch and find out.
This film had great atmosphere and Joan is in fine form as a woman who is losing her mind. Would it have ever happened if David hadn't hit her so hard emotionally? Who knows. Massey is good as Dean Graham, a stern presence as always, but believe it or not he and Joan as newlyweds kicking up their heels on a ballroom floor is actually believable. Geraldine Brooks is good as Carol - daughter of Dean Graham. She plays it somewhat snobby and acts like, well, a twenty year old girl. Not 16. Not 25. So seldom did a production code era film get a college age girl's character and maturity just right. This is one of those times.
It's too bad Joan spent so many years at MGM being put into bad roles often in bad films and not more years at Warner Brothers, a studio that knew how to put her in roles that played to her strengths. This is one of my favorite Joan Crawford films. I'd recommend it.
This was one of those post war films trying to get scientifically to the bottom of mental illness, specifically Louise's (Joan Crawford), when she is picked up on a city street catatonic and looking for David - that would be Van Heflin's character. But this film is not all test tubes and therapy. There's plenty of melodrama to keep the viewer interested.
Through flashbacks you see that David and Louise were having an affair, and that Louise fell deeply in love with David, the piano playing construction engineer who says he has wanderlust because of the war. He breaks it off with her because he says she is smothering him, but it's just not that he doesn't want to get married, it's just that he doesn't want to marry her.
But does David take Louise's pain seriously and give her time and room to heal? Nope. He shows zero consideration and goes down the next day and gets a job from Louise's employer. Makes fun of her pain and is constantly popping in and out of her life via his employment. When she marries her employer, the wealthy Mr. Graham, David invites himself to the wedding, says snide things to Louise, hangs around the house, and gets involved with and ultimately engaged to Louise's new twenty year old stepdaughter. David is 35. So the man that Louise has always loved will be her son-in-law? No wonder she goes insane.
Louise starts seeing and hearing things. Starts thinking that she has killed people only to realize it was a hallucination. So did she really kill David or just wish that she did? Watch and find out.
This film had great atmosphere and Joan is in fine form as a woman who is losing her mind. Would it have ever happened if David hadn't hit her so hard emotionally? Who knows. Massey is good as Dean Graham, a stern presence as always, but believe it or not he and Joan as newlyweds kicking up their heels on a ballroom floor is actually believable. Geraldine Brooks is good as Carol - daughter of Dean Graham. She plays it somewhat snobby and acts like, well, a twenty year old girl. Not 16. Not 25. So seldom did a production code era film get a college age girl's character and maturity just right. This is one of those times.
It's too bad Joan spent so many years at MGM being put into bad roles often in bad films and not more years at Warner Brothers, a studio that knew how to put her in roles that played to her strengths. This is one of my favorite Joan Crawford films. I'd recommend it.