The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (Lewis Milestone, 1946)

Lizabeth Scott, Barbara Stanwyck, and Van Heflin in The Strange Love of Martha Ivers

Cast: Barbara Stanwyck, Van Heflin, Kirk Douglas, Lizabeth Scott, Judith Anderson, Roman Bohnen, Darryl Hickman, Janis Wilson, Ann Doran, Frank Orth, James Flavin, Mickey Kuhn, Charles D. Brown. Screenplay: Robert Rossen, John Patrick. Cinematography: Victor Milner. Art direction: Hans Dreier, John Meehan. Film editing: Archie Marshek. Music: Miklós Rózsa.

The Strange Love of Martha Ivers doubles up on Lorenz Hart's line about "the double-crossing of a pair of heels" to give us a quartet of duplicity. There are no really good guys in the movie, though it tries to persuade us that tough guy Sam Masterson (Van Heflin) and lost girl Toni Marachek (Lizabeth Scott) are more to be admired than ruthless Martha Ivers O'Neil (Barbara Stanwyck) and her weakling alcoholic husband, Walter (Kirk Douglas). After all, teenage Martha (Janis Wilson)  did kill her imperious aunt (Judith Anderson) and, with the connivance of young Walter (Mickey Kuhn) and his father (Roman Bohnen), not only cover up the murder but also frame someone else for the job. So when Sam returns to Iverstown after 18 years, Martha and Walter naturally think that he witnessed the murder and is there to blackmail them. Actually, young Sam (Darryl Hickman) beat it out the door before the aunt was conked on the head and fell downstairs, so he's ignorant -- until well into the film -- of their crime. It's not exactly clear why Sam, who makes a living by gambling, has drifted back in town, but he's not there long before he hooks up with Toni, fresh out of prison for a theft she didn't really commit, and the two of them get dragged unwittingly into the machinations of Martha and Walter. The movie was Douglas's film debut, so he receives fourth billing after Scott. He feels a little miscast as the manipulated Walter. For one thing, he was nine years younger than Stanwyck, but he also had, even then, a stronger hold on the screen than Heflin. This is, I think, a movie that doesn't have the courage of its own nastiness, trying to make us think that Sam and Toni really deserve a happy ending when it's more likely that they will eat each other alive. Trivia note: The sailor in the car with Sam when he has his accident is played by future writer-producer-director Blake Edwards. 

The Glass Key (Stuart Heisler, 1942)

The Glass Key (Stuart Heisler, 1942)

Cast: Alan Ladd, Brian Donlevy, Veronica Lake, William Bendix, Bonita Granville, Joseph Calleia, Richard Denning, Frances Gifford, Donald MacBride, Margaret Hayes, Moroni Olsen, Eddie Marr, Arthur Loft, George Meader. Screenplay: Jonathan Latimer, based on a novel by Dashiell Hammett. Cinematography: Theodor Sparkuhl. Art direction: Haldane Douglas, Hans Dreier. Film editing: Archie Marshek. Music: Victor Young, Walter Scharf.

There's something a little febrile about The Glass Key, and I don't just mean the movie -- it' s inherent in Dashiell Hammett's novel, too. The movie heightens it with the casting of Veronica Lake, who always seems a little out of it in her movies, on which she often clashed with directors and/or stars. And William Bendix's sadistic thug has a special menace for those of us who remember him in his familiar sitcom role, as the working-class schlub in The Life of Riley. It was a breakthrough role for Alan Ladd as the semi-conscientious right-hand man to Brian Donlevy's shady politician. Ladd gets beaten into the hospital by Bendix, where he spends a lot of time doing what he does best: flirting, in this case with the nurse. He also flirts with Lake, as the daughter of Donlevy's political rival turned ally, as well as with Bonita Granville, as Donlevy's sister, and even the wife of the corrupt newspaper publisher who wants to frame Donlevy for murder. And so on, in a reasonably faithful translation of Hammett's book that only misses the author's dryly tough prose style. 

The Most Dangerous Game (Ernest B. Schoedsack, Irving Pichel, 1932)

Fay Wray and Joel McCrea in The Most Dangerous Game

Bob Rainsford: Joel McCrea
Eve Trowbridge: Fay Wray
Count Zaroff: Leslie Banks
Martin Trowbridge: Robert Armstrong
Ivan: Noble Johnson
Tartar: Steve Clemente
Captain: William B. Davidson

Director: Ernest B. Schoedsack, Irving Pichel
Screenplay: James Ashmore Creelman
Based on a story by Richard Connell
Cinematography: Henry W. Gerrard
Art direction: Carroll Clark
Film editing: Archie Marshek
Music: Max Steiner

Director Ernest B. Schoedsack and actors Fay Wray and Robert Armstrong were literally moonlighting when they made The Most Dangerous Game: During the day they were working on King Kong (1933), which also used many of the same sets. While not the landmark film that King Kong has become, The Most Dangerous Game has some of the same sexy intensity, much of it provided by Wray's ability to look both wide-eyed and sultry. As in King Kong, she is a damsel in distress, trekking through the jungle in entirely inappropriate and flimsy attire. But although Wray is given little to do but shriek, writhe, and run, she manages to persuade us that if anyone could survive such perils, she's the one. Also like King Kong, The Most Dangerous Game carries an ambivalence about the sport of big-game hunting, articulated by Joel McCrea's Bob Rainsford when he admits that being hunted has let him know how the animals he hunted felt. Leslie Banks is the main show, however, using his war-paralyzed face to convey the madness of his supposedly Russian count -- who doesn't seem to speak Russian but instead some kind of gibberish -- with his credo of "Kill, then love." This is a pulse-pounding classic that moves along at a relentless clip from the exceptionally speedy shipwreck to the well-staged chase. It gets much of its energy from Max Steiner's score, which picks up the two notes of the count's hunting horn and embroiders on them effectively.