We're into familiar territory again with this would-be sleeper about a woman being drugged by her husband (DON AMECHE) for her inheritance and trying all manner of tricks to get her to think she's going insane.
It all has a familiar ring--although this time, under Douglas Sirk's direction, it's all much too contrived and not too convincing in its execution.
CLAUDETTE COLBERT is the poor victimized wife (but she's no Ingrid Bergman) and the cast-against-type DON AMECHE is much too affable to be chilling as the husband, unlike CHARLES BOYER in "Gaslight". Interestingly, ROBERT CUMMINGS is playing the same sort of role he essayed years later in "Dial M For Murder" whereby he helped Grace Kelly who was caught up in a sinister plot by her husband. Whatever, he's still pretty bland.
In fact, that's the trouble with the whole film. It's bland despite the makings of a plot that should be mystifying and terrifying. Maybe a director other than Sirk could have done things with the bare bones of the story that would have turned it into the kind of chiller it's striving to be.
Summing up: Not really worth your time.
It all has a familiar ring--although this time, under Douglas Sirk's direction, it's all much too contrived and not too convincing in its execution.
CLAUDETTE COLBERT is the poor victimized wife (but she's no Ingrid Bergman) and the cast-against-type DON AMECHE is much too affable to be chilling as the husband, unlike CHARLES BOYER in "Gaslight". Interestingly, ROBERT CUMMINGS is playing the same sort of role he essayed years later in "Dial M For Murder" whereby he helped Grace Kelly who was caught up in a sinister plot by her husband. Whatever, he's still pretty bland.
In fact, that's the trouble with the whole film. It's bland despite the makings of a plot that should be mystifying and terrifying. Maybe a director other than Sirk could have done things with the bare bones of the story that would have turned it into the kind of chiller it's striving to be.
Summing up: Not really worth your time.