After Ray Milland won his Oscar for The Lost Weekend Paramount started giving him more challenging parts than the light leading men he had been playing mostly up to that point. Like Tyrone Power at 20th Century Fox he'd been longing for better roles showing his range. Like Tyrone Power he got them, especially this one in So Evil My Love.
There's a lot of similarities between Mark Bellis in this film and Stan Carlisle in Nightmare Alley. Both are degenerate conmen who pray on people without mercy. One thing that Power didn't do in Nightmare Alley is turn any women into evil accomplices. That's what Milland does in So Evil My Love.
The woman he turns is the beautiful Ann Todd a missionary's widow whom he met on ship. She was recently widowed and not in the best financial health. Milland is a charmer. She thinks of him as a painter and he is, but the starving life of an artist isn't for him. He's taken up all kinds of crime so he can live well. Unfortunately he's between ill gotten gains at the time he meets Todd.
Bit by bit Milland draws her in. In the end Todd not only commits murder, but is willing to let an old friend Geraldine Fitzgerald pay for the crime.
Milland would be playing against his former type now on a few occasions. His next film would be Alias Nick Beal where he plays a Satanic minion. And the public accepted him in a way they didn't with Power.
It's really Todd though that dominates this film. Her's is a wonderfully restrained performance of someone falling deeper and deeper into a pit of Milland's amorality that she can't climb out from. There's also a nice performance from Raymond Huntley who is Fitzgerald's husband. Not a terribly nice man, when he dies no one will mourn for him. But justice has to be served.
So Evil My Love definitely opened new vistas for Ray Milland and you'll appreciate that it did.
There's a lot of similarities between Mark Bellis in this film and Stan Carlisle in Nightmare Alley. Both are degenerate conmen who pray on people without mercy. One thing that Power didn't do in Nightmare Alley is turn any women into evil accomplices. That's what Milland does in So Evil My Love.
The woman he turns is the beautiful Ann Todd a missionary's widow whom he met on ship. She was recently widowed and not in the best financial health. Milland is a charmer. She thinks of him as a painter and he is, but the starving life of an artist isn't for him. He's taken up all kinds of crime so he can live well. Unfortunately he's between ill gotten gains at the time he meets Todd.
Bit by bit Milland draws her in. In the end Todd not only commits murder, but is willing to let an old friend Geraldine Fitzgerald pay for the crime.
Milland would be playing against his former type now on a few occasions. His next film would be Alias Nick Beal where he plays a Satanic minion. And the public accepted him in a way they didn't with Power.
It's really Todd though that dominates this film. Her's is a wonderfully restrained performance of someone falling deeper and deeper into a pit of Milland's amorality that she can't climb out from. There's also a nice performance from Raymond Huntley who is Fitzgerald's husband. Not a terribly nice man, when he dies no one will mourn for him. But justice has to be served.
So Evil My Love definitely opened new vistas for Ray Milland and you'll appreciate that it did.