From struggling poor girl to Park Avenue hostess to neighborhood doctor's receptionist, Barbara Bel Geddes takes a weird way around her life to find happiness. Apparently the charm school run by Natalie Schafer doesn't teach her girls how to be happy, only how to be a gracious wife and caretaker in society, in short miserable with poise and dignity. She makes the mistake of marrying an extremely wealthy but cuckoo heir (Robert Ryan) to a family fortune, doubling it and marrying only to save his pride, treating her as a piece of property which causes her after one row to run off.
That's where James Mason comes in as a doctor who takes care mainly of children, and memories of seeing him having played parts similar to Ryan's gives an interesting twist to this. Of course their relationship as doctor and employee turns to romance (doesn't it always?), and with Ryan stalking her, she's going to have a ton of misery, making her seem like a soap opera character. Except in this case, it isn't "Ryan's Hope" or "Dallas", and she's hardly Miss Ellie having breakfast in a house coat.
The German born Max Ophuls directed this as if it was a grand opera, overstuffing each set to the point where you wonder how the actors walked onto it, and how empty the studio prop room must have been. Ryan's mansion is quite audacious, but he's an extreme audacious character whose phony charm is mixed with sudden violent rage. This is very grand in scale and the more elegant the set, the colder the mood gets.
It's fascinating to compare him to similar men throughout modern history, and perhaps it was another slam at William Randolph Hearst or even one of the movie industry's bigger moguls. Frank Ferguson as Mason's partner gets to be noble, and Curt Bois as Ryan's right hand crony is absolutely creepy. A fascinating study of egotistical madness mixed with the suffering atonement brings on through Bel Geddes cringing with Mason bravely standing up to a very dangerous and deadly tower of unmitigated evil.
That's where James Mason comes in as a doctor who takes care mainly of children, and memories of seeing him having played parts similar to Ryan's gives an interesting twist to this. Of course their relationship as doctor and employee turns to romance (doesn't it always?), and with Ryan stalking her, she's going to have a ton of misery, making her seem like a soap opera character. Except in this case, it isn't "Ryan's Hope" or "Dallas", and she's hardly Miss Ellie having breakfast in a house coat.
The German born Max Ophuls directed this as if it was a grand opera, overstuffing each set to the point where you wonder how the actors walked onto it, and how empty the studio prop room must have been. Ryan's mansion is quite audacious, but he's an extreme audacious character whose phony charm is mixed with sudden violent rage. This is very grand in scale and the more elegant the set, the colder the mood gets.
It's fascinating to compare him to similar men throughout modern history, and perhaps it was another slam at William Randolph Hearst or even one of the movie industry's bigger moguls. Frank Ferguson as Mason's partner gets to be noble, and Curt Bois as Ryan's right hand crony is absolutely creepy. A fascinating study of egotistical madness mixed with the suffering atonement brings on through Bel Geddes cringing with Mason bravely standing up to a very dangerous and deadly tower of unmitigated evil.