As Julia Ross, a young Nina Foch is the mostly rootless American in London who is hired by a nefarious mother and son, Dame May Witty and George Macready, as a secretary. On her first visit, she's drugged and awakens two days later in a stone mansion in Cornwall. Her clothes and ID have been destroyed and she's been given a new identity. She finds she is now Mrs. Marian Hughes, Macready's wife.
She's kept from leaving, held prisoner, in fact, and soon learns that the Hughes plan to kill her and make it look like suicide because, in fact, Macready, a madman, has already stabbed his real wife to death and disposed of her body in the sea. This leaves something of a hole in the social fabric and they're going to plug it with Foch's fake suicide.
It's a short movie. It really resembles one of the mystery radio dramas that were popular at the time of its release, with names like "The Whistler" and "Inner Sanctum." Nina Foch is a decent actress with pleasant, even features, but not a stunning beauty in the usual Hollywood tradition. She doesn't have the kind of face you want to fall into, but rather paint, or at least run your fingers over and tweak. George Macready, whatever his role, always comes across as more or less the same character -- a Prussian officer with a smooth voice and a face with a Schmiss from sabre fights in a Heidelberg gym.
Dame May Witty is much better at likable roles instead of villainy. She was most enjoyable as the lady who vanished on Hitchcock's train. Oddly, I recall the day she died, 29 May, 1948, because I have a flashbulb memory of myself in childhood reading her obit on a sunny afternoon in the New York Daily News, and wondering who she was. Now that my brain is turning into tofu, I intend leaving it for analysis to the American Culinary Institute.
The plot is pretty much by the numbers. It was remade, I think, in 1976 with Mary Steenburgen. The first time I was aware of a similar tale -- a young woman hired at an isolated estate and being passed off as someone else -- was in Conan-Doyle's "The Copper Beeches." A seasoned mystery writer could have knocked out this plot as fast as he could type. It was merely a matter of setting up the situation and then figuring out the many ways she could try convincing others that she was sane, not nuts, and how many ways she could try but fail at communicating clues to possibly helpful figures from outside her prison. I counted three important notes from her or from a friend -- notes that would have ended the mystery pronto -- that were intercepted and ripped up.
Yet, withal, it's tautly written and enjoyable if you are looking for a diversion. Happily, it's only a bit more than one hour long.
She's kept from leaving, held prisoner, in fact, and soon learns that the Hughes plan to kill her and make it look like suicide because, in fact, Macready, a madman, has already stabbed his real wife to death and disposed of her body in the sea. This leaves something of a hole in the social fabric and they're going to plug it with Foch's fake suicide.
It's a short movie. It really resembles one of the mystery radio dramas that were popular at the time of its release, with names like "The Whistler" and "Inner Sanctum." Nina Foch is a decent actress with pleasant, even features, but not a stunning beauty in the usual Hollywood tradition. She doesn't have the kind of face you want to fall into, but rather paint, or at least run your fingers over and tweak. George Macready, whatever his role, always comes across as more or less the same character -- a Prussian officer with a smooth voice and a face with a Schmiss from sabre fights in a Heidelberg gym.
Dame May Witty is much better at likable roles instead of villainy. She was most enjoyable as the lady who vanished on Hitchcock's train. Oddly, I recall the day she died, 29 May, 1948, because I have a flashbulb memory of myself in childhood reading her obit on a sunny afternoon in the New York Daily News, and wondering who she was. Now that my brain is turning into tofu, I intend leaving it for analysis to the American Culinary Institute.
The plot is pretty much by the numbers. It was remade, I think, in 1976 with Mary Steenburgen. The first time I was aware of a similar tale -- a young woman hired at an isolated estate and being passed off as someone else -- was in Conan-Doyle's "The Copper Beeches." A seasoned mystery writer could have knocked out this plot as fast as he could type. It was merely a matter of setting up the situation and then figuring out the many ways she could try convincing others that she was sane, not nuts, and how many ways she could try but fail at communicating clues to possibly helpful figures from outside her prison. I counted three important notes from her or from a friend -- notes that would have ended the mystery pronto -- that were intercepted and ripped up.
Yet, withal, it's tautly written and enjoyable if you are looking for a diversion. Happily, it's only a bit more than one hour long.