Cinematographer Russell Metty does an outstanding job of displaying ambience as well as capture Joan Fontaine's exquisite beauty as homicidal social climber, title character, Ivy. A Victorian noir it is both lush in costuming and setting featuring a solid supporting cast to deal with a sometimes farfetched script.
Impressionable Ivy wants it all, men money and the trappings that accompany. Married to loving husband, Jervis Lexton she's carrying on an affair with a local doctor ( Patric Knowles) when she sets her sights on wealthy Miles Rushmore (Herbert Marshall). In order to secure the relationship she must deal, harshly, with her other lovers.
Fontaine as the promiscuous, delusional Ivy draped in exquisite finery makes for a delicate fatale. One almost feels pity for her as the walls close in and her childlike dream (death resulting) of wealth and happiness with Miles implodes. Fontaine conveys her desperation with muted intensity while a cast featuring Cedric Hardwick, Lucile Watson, Sara Allgood, Richard Ney and Ona O'Conner in perhaps her most restrained performance as the fortune teller Matilda Thrawn ably support.
Rich in Victorian atmosphere and costuming, Fontaine's conniving man juggling with some decent atmospherics is well worth a watch.
Impressionable Ivy wants it all, men money and the trappings that accompany. Married to loving husband, Jervis Lexton she's carrying on an affair with a local doctor ( Patric Knowles) when she sets her sights on wealthy Miles Rushmore (Herbert Marshall). In order to secure the relationship she must deal, harshly, with her other lovers.
Fontaine as the promiscuous, delusional Ivy draped in exquisite finery makes for a delicate fatale. One almost feels pity for her as the walls close in and her childlike dream (death resulting) of wealth and happiness with Miles implodes. Fontaine conveys her desperation with muted intensity while a cast featuring Cedric Hardwick, Lucile Watson, Sara Allgood, Richard Ney and Ona O'Conner in perhaps her most restrained performance as the fortune teller Matilda Thrawn ably support.
Rich in Victorian atmosphere and costuming, Fontaine's conniving man juggling with some decent atmospherics is well worth a watch.