Starring Nina Foch, George Macready, Dame Mae Witty, Roland Varno

(7-Very Good Film)

Tight. Spare. Gripping.

Julia Ross (Foch) thinks she’s applying for a job as a personal secretary, but she when she wakes up the day after being hired, she’s told that her name is Marion and that she’s married to the volatile Ralph Hughes (Macready). Imprisoned within the walls of an English mansion, she’s told that she’s suffering from mental illness as she fights against what she believes to be a conspiracy to murder her. Old B- movies possessed a style and imagination that a lot of “prestige pictures” of the era lacked. This is an extremely short feature film at 65 minutes, but it makes the most of it. Macready and Dame Mae Witty are excellent villains (that’s no great spoiler, as the film never really flirts with the idea that they’re not actually gaslighting her). Very strong noir thriller.

-Walter Tyrone Howard-

(474)