Advertised as a film-noir but in truth more of a dark, realistic melodrama, you'll find no detectives or murders here plus even her biggest supporters couldn't ever describe central character Barbara Bel Geddes as a femme-fatale. Even so, atmospherically and imaginatively directed by Max Ophuls this is a taut little B-movie which punches well above its weight.
Geddes is the ordinary average girl who at the start we see dreaming of the day when a rich millionaire will pick her out and marry her into a life of luxury and wraparound love. Well, careful what you wish for Babs, as a filthy-rich oil tycoon Miles Ohlrig, a thinly-disguised portrait of Howard Hughes, played by the ever-reliable Robert Ryan does just that but goes on to treat her as a mere chattel, allowing her no personal freedom and all the time stifling her spirit with his domineering ways. It gets too much for her and she effects an escape, finding herself in a busy baby-doctor's surgery where she talks the saturnine if initially starchy doctor James Mason into letting her have a low-paid job as a medical secretary.
Of course complications soon arise as she later finds she's pregnant by her husband, falls for Mason's cool but compassionate doctor and finally has to contend with a return visit from Ryan looking to somehow reassert his property rights over his wife. The film resolves itself over an ending that some might find artistically bold but many more I suspect will find callous.
The film has other flaws too, certainly you can't really imagine Geddes turning the heads of two such taciturn characters as Ryan and Mason portray here. Geddes actually is pretty good in her part, even if the goody-two-shoes persona she adopts here didn't seem to progress too much when arriving at her best-known big-screen role as Jimmy Stewart's adoring but insipid girl-friend in Hitchcock's "Vertigo". Ryan and Mason are always good value for my money and both deliver finely compressed depictions of their driven characters. Ryan's loathsome Ohlrig character demeans his young wife with his back to her, playing a pinball machine in their own living room while Mason's Dr Quinand rediscovers his moral compass through Geddes' example.
Max Ophuls direction is as lucid as you'd expect from the master of the tracking shot which is effortlessly demonstrated here on several occasions. Well directed and acted, if somewhat morally ambiguous, this hard-hearted little feature deserves to be better known.
Geddes is the ordinary average girl who at the start we see dreaming of the day when a rich millionaire will pick her out and marry her into a life of luxury and wraparound love. Well, careful what you wish for Babs, as a filthy-rich oil tycoon Miles Ohlrig, a thinly-disguised portrait of Howard Hughes, played by the ever-reliable Robert Ryan does just that but goes on to treat her as a mere chattel, allowing her no personal freedom and all the time stifling her spirit with his domineering ways. It gets too much for her and she effects an escape, finding herself in a busy baby-doctor's surgery where she talks the saturnine if initially starchy doctor James Mason into letting her have a low-paid job as a medical secretary.
Of course complications soon arise as she later finds she's pregnant by her husband, falls for Mason's cool but compassionate doctor and finally has to contend with a return visit from Ryan looking to somehow reassert his property rights over his wife. The film resolves itself over an ending that some might find artistically bold but many more I suspect will find callous.
The film has other flaws too, certainly you can't really imagine Geddes turning the heads of two such taciturn characters as Ryan and Mason portray here. Geddes actually is pretty good in her part, even if the goody-two-shoes persona she adopts here didn't seem to progress too much when arriving at her best-known big-screen role as Jimmy Stewart's adoring but insipid girl-friend in Hitchcock's "Vertigo". Ryan and Mason are always good value for my money and both deliver finely compressed depictions of their driven characters. Ryan's loathsome Ohlrig character demeans his young wife with his back to her, playing a pinball machine in their own living room while Mason's Dr Quinand rediscovers his moral compass through Geddes' example.
Max Ophuls direction is as lucid as you'd expect from the master of the tracking shot which is effortlessly demonstrated here on several occasions. Well directed and acted, if somewhat morally ambiguous, this hard-hearted little feature deserves to be better known.