The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946)
Directed by Lewis Milestone

Film Review

The Strange Love of Martha Ivers is one of the more compelling films noirs of the 1940s, an intense romantic melodrama intelligently scripted by Robert Rossen and directed with flair by Lewis Milestone.  This is the film in which Kirk Douglas made his screen debut, impressing with a convincing portrayal of a weak man tormented by guilt and insecurity, entirely at the mercy of a dangerous and devious woman - Barbara Stanwyck at her femme fatale best.  With Douglas uncharacteristically relegated to the spineless support role, Van Heflin gets to play the dominant male, and ends up in the invidious position of being torn between Miss Stanwyck and Lizabeth Scott, a recently discovered starlet with the looks of Veronica Lake, the voice of Joan Greenwood and the sultry sex appeal of Lauren Bacall - nice work if you can get it.  For what is effectively a four-handed chamber piece, you could hardly ask for a better cast, and with Stanwyck looking even more coolly psychotic than she did in Billy Wilder's Double Indemnity (1944) there is absolutely nothing to moan about on the acting front.

Film noir plots are at their best when they are driven less by incident and more by neuroses  - irrational fears and uncontrollable passions.  What The Strange Love of Martha Ivers offers is a neurotic avalanche, a twisted tale of murderous intrigue and deadly desire which is bound to end in a spectacular fashion.  Victor Milner's moody cinematography lends an aura of stifling oppression that intensifies as the three main protagonists are drawn ever nearer to their doom, each a victim of impulses that are too powerful to resist.  There is a darkly Gothic feel to this film that reminds us of Hitchcock's Rebecca (1940), and it is permeated by the same sense of hidden, calculating evil - an evil which, when it is finally revealed to us, chills the blood in an instant.  Rarely did Lewis Milestone live up to the promise of his early years as a filmmaker (Two Arabian Knights, All Quiet on the Western Front, The Front Page), but with this eerily atmospheric film noir, a bleak satire on the American dream, he showed a remarkable return to form.

Film Synopsis

In 1928, Martha Ivers is a young orphan girl who longs to escape from the domineering control of her cold-hearted aunt in Iverstown.  After an attempt to run away with her friend Sam Masterson is thwarted, Martha ends up killing her aunt.  Another friend, Walter O'Neil, backs up her story that her aunt was murdered by a stranger and, with the support of Walter's father, Martha avoids being prosecuted.  Eighteen years later, Sam returns to Iverstown and runs into Toni Marachek, an attractive young woman who is about to leave town after being released from prison.  Sam is surprised to learn that Walter O'Neil is now a district attorney and is married to Martha Ivers.  When Toni is arrested for breaching the terms of her probation, Sam calls on Walter, and asks for his help.  Convinced that Sam intends to blackmail him for his part in concealing Martha's crime, Walter decides a spot of intimidation is called for...