You never hated Bette Davis so much before. She could be criminal and nasty but never quite abominable, which somehow she is brought here to become more or less against her will by too many unexpected visitors to her house, beginning with her husband, whom you never see except as dead. It's a damned tricky plot, and Val Guest was expert at such things, making a criminal intrigue as inextricable as possible in order to have the great pleasure of having it all dissolve in the most unexpected possible but percetly logical way. The Gothic atmosphere of this chamber play is gloomily enhanced by the whole thing being filmed in Bette Davis' own home, here situated far away in the desolation of the Yorkshire moors. The music also underscores the tension of the plot, and the colloquial doctor (Emlyn Williams) who knows everything beforehand, which you dont get to know until after the end, doesn't make things easier for anyone. Only the young couple (Anthony Steel and Barbara Murray) get away unharmed, while the most upsetting case and victim of injustice of all is, as the doctor clearly points out, a horse.
It's a major display of meanness and super-excellent as such, but in all these towering passions of possessive love you despondently miss and lack the faintest shade of any human varmth and tenderness.
It's a major display of meanness and super-excellent as such, but in all these towering passions of possessive love you despondently miss and lack the faintest shade of any human varmth and tenderness.