Wow! Such a good movie.

Just perfect...

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Joan Fontaine is riveting here and is more like a poison Ivy.When she meets wealthy Herbert Marshall, she seems to forget about husband Richard Ney and her lover-doctor, Patric Knowles, who is willing to die for her as the film goes on.Ivy decides to eliminate Ney. Just as in Mrs. Miniver, Ney's leading lady appears to be too old for him. Fontaine looks like his mother in their scenes together, but with Ney quickly out of the way, you forget that. Remember that in real life at the time of Mrs. Miniver, Ney married Greer Garson, who was his mother-in-law in that great Oscar-winning film.Circumstances seem to fall into Ivy's favor when the doctor is accused of killing Ney. The film does a splendid job of creating this with Ivy and Knowles giving conflicting stories, and the promise that housekeeper Sara Allgood had made to Knowles.Lucille Watson is wonderful as Knowles's mother and Cedric Hardwicke, as the police official, steals the scenes he is in with his suspicion of Ivy as the real killer.To say that Ivy went out with a bang at the end of the film is to put it mildly. It's the old story of getting what you deserve.

Warning: contains a spoiler. Corny plot and in many cases terrible acting. Fontaine is great, but some others, particularly Richard Ney, Ivy's husband, are exceedingly wooden. Ney lies in bed, dying of arsenical poisoning, with every hair in place. Yet the movie is so juicy and so suspenseful. More faithful to the book than most movies of its era. Casting Joan Fontaine as a poisoner (and an adulteress, which was just as shocking then - I'm not kidding, kids) was a masterful stroke. She's just her usual Joan Fontainey self. As murderers were supposed to, she dies by falling "feet foremost through the floor into an empty space."

An excellent period murder melodrama, with Fontaine effectively playing against her earlier naive wallflower type, in a role that reportedly Olivia DeHavilland turned down. That's fine, because Fontaine is wonderful. Scripted by Charles Bennett, who had written for Hitchcock in the thirties and also later penned the excellent script for the classic British horror film Night of the Demon. The opening scene, where Ivy visits a sinister fortune teller played by the wonderful Una O'Connor (the screecher of James Whale fame), is a tour de force, and the film maintains interest throughout the numerous sinister machinations. I hope to see this film on DVD someday, but despair of that ever happening, because it seems to be an undeservedly obscure film. Fortunately I got to see it on AMC some seven or eight years ago, but have not seen since. Catch it if you can!

Joan Fontaine stars as the villain in this Victorian era film. She convincingly plays the married woman who has a lover on the side and also sets her sights on a wealthy man, Miles Rushworth who is played by Herbert Marshall. Mr. Marshall is quite good as Miles. Miss Fontaine acted her part to perfection--she was at the same time cunning, calculating, innocent looking, frightened and charming. It takes an actress with extraordinary talent to pull that off. Joan Fontaine looked absolutely gorgeous in the elegant costumes by Travis Banton. Also in the film is Joan's mother, Lillian Fontaine as Lady Flora. I highly recommend this film.