The Strange Love Of Martha Ivers

Film Noir melodrama given two stars by Halliwells Film Guide. Directed by Lewis Milestone (All Quiet on the Western Front) screenplay Robert Rossen, Music Miklos Rosz... more >

Film Noir melodrama given two stars by Halliwells Film Guide. Directed by Lewis Milestone (All Quiet on the Western Front) screenplay Robert Rossen, Music Miklos Rosza. The film lives up to the music. It stars Barbara Stanwyck in a typical bad woman performance, Van Heflin is the rough but decent hero, Lizbeth Scott sensual and vulnerable, Kirk Douglas in his first Hollywood film as weak lawyer husband of Stanwycks character. There is a brief early cameo of an autocratic matron by the great actress Judith Anderson.

I cannot reveal the plot but it is not so much the facts of the story but the narrative drive that distinguishes Film Noir. Psychological concerns are dominant though there is a social content in which they operate. However these films are set in a closed context, Ivers town and the huge business owned by Martha Ivers is only a cardboard cut out through the window. This is a ‘chamber’ film in the way that Stendhels novels were said to be.

Martha and her public prosecutor husband are rich and powerful. They are Ivers town. They are bound together in guilt and contempt. A stranger arrives in town. He is connected with their past. This sets in motion the unresolved consequences of past actions. Lost love is rekindled, suspicion and murderous intrigue. There is a fatal conclusion though an intimation of hope.

These is implausibility in this film but so there is in ‘Othello’. The film is melodramatic but this form of heightened drama deals with moral issues in a stylised way. Indeed, film noir is vrey much and ‘art’ convention, despite its graininess it is not naturalism. Accuracy or real life probabilities are not the stuff of this as if we were looking into the frame of it as husband and wife themselves as the vainly grapple with the impossibility of their fate. Here we have writing, direction, photography and music combining to give us an unforgettable moment of art. This is not the greatest of films but this particular scene is a classic in itself

John Evans < less

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Film Noir melodrama given two stars by Halliwells Film Guide. Directed by Lewis Milestone (All Quiet on the Western Front) screenplay Robert Rossen, Music Miklos Rosz... more >

Film Noir melodrama given two stars by Halliwells Film Guide. Directed by Lewis Milestone (All Quiet on the Western Front) screenplay Robert Rossen, Music Miklos Rosza. The film lives up to the music. It stars Barbara Stanwyck in a typical bad woman performance, Van Heflin is the rough but decent hero, Lizbeth Scott sensual and vulnerable, Kirk Douglas in his first Hollywood film as weak lawyer husband of Stanwycks character. There is a brief early cameo of an autocratic matron by the great actress Judith Anderson.

I cannot reveal the plot but it is not so much the facts of the story but the narrative drive that distinguishes Film Noir. Psychological concerns are dominant though there is a social content in which they operate. However these films are set in a closed context, Ivers town and the huge business owned by Martha Ivers is only a cardboard cut out through the window. This is a ‘chamber’ film in the way that Stendhels novels were said to be.

Martha and her public prosecutor husband are rich and powerful. They are Ivers town. They are bound together in guilt and contempt. A stranger arrives in town. He is connected with their past. This sets in motion the unresolved consequences of past actions. Lost love is rekindled, suspicion and murderous intrigue. There is a fatal conclusion though an intimation of hope.

These is implausibility in this film but so there is in ‘Othello’. The film is melodramatic but this form of heightened drama deals with moral issues in a stylised way. Indeed, film noir is vrey much and ‘art’ convention, despite its graininess it is not naturalism. Accuracy or real life probabilities are not the stuff of this as if we were looking into the frame of it as husband and wife themselves as the vainly grapple with the impossibility of their fate. Here we have writing, direction, photography and music combining to give us an unforgettable moment of art. This is not the greatest of films but this particular scene is a classic in itself < less

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Film Details

Cast

Barbara Stanwyck, Kirk Douglas

Technical Details