Please don't spend money on this.

Watch something else. There are very few redeeming qualities to this film.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

What's absorbing about this film is what's not said, not seen, and not dwelled on. The other reviewers pretty much have the movie nailed, but no one seems interested in exploring to their logical ends the situations presented here. Like the fact that the beautiful young woman the soldier guy thought he was writing to during the war and was coming home to marry was actually an old woman, and a demented one at that. When soldier guy finds this out it's like, "whatever." He apparently doesn't find disturbing the implications of his having been fooled. We however are left to go "yuck" and feel a sort of sympathy for the woman as a victim of ageism. After all, if soldier guy "loved her mind" why reject her just because she's old (and demented)?And what does smart doctor lady think of soldier guy, her soon- to- be husband, who is so confused and easily fooled?And then think about the whole bizarre existence of the old woman who not only created a fantasy daughter and had "her" "portrait" painted, but regularly has worship sessions in front of the painting in the cult of her nonexistent daughter--with her weak- willed loyal companion going along.Kinda makes you wonder how often in our own way we "regular folks" create fantasy versions of people and totally misread relationships.Paging Dr. Freud!

****SPOILERS*** Badly banged up in the fighting in the South Pacific all that Marine Sgt. Johnny Meadows, William Terry, has to look forward to after leaving the hospital is meeting up with his pen pal sweetheart Rosemary Blake whom he's never as much as seen a photo of. It's Rosemary whom he's kept in contact with and who kept his hopes high since he started writing to her after finding her name in a used book he picked up back in a San Francisco book store. Now recovered from his wounds Johnny takes a train ride to Monteflores California to finally meet Rosemary in the flesh and start up a romance with her. With a detour on the train when it derailed off the tracks Johnny meets young woman doctor Leslie Ross, Virginia Grey, who in fact is looking after Rosemary's crippled mom Hilda, Helene Thimig,who as we and Johhny soon find out is a bit wacko in the head as well as crippled in her legs! At the Blake house Johnny is disappointed not to find his love Rosemary but a painting of her and is told by Moma Blake that she's out of town temporarily entertaining returning US servicemen, like himself, coming back from the war! Told that Rosemary will be back in a few days Johnny for the time being starts up a romance with Dr. Ross that causes Moma Blake a lot of hard feelings; Both towards the doctor as well as Johnny.***SPOILERS*** It's Moma Blake's good friend and live in nurse Ivy Miller, Edith Barrett, who knows the whole truth about her and her obsession with her missing from the scene daughter Rosemary and tries to warn Johnny to get out of his obsession of meeting and romancing Rosemary before it's too late. Johnny himself notices that the painting of Rosemary was done, by the unique breast strokes he uses, by someone he knew and checked out to San Francisco to see him and tell him what he knows about the elusive, from everyone in the movie cast, Rosemary Blake! Somewhat ridicules final ending with Moma Blake going completely off the wall and doing in, by spiking her milk, Ivy as well as trying to off both Johnny & Dr. Ross for finding out what a total nut case she, as if we didn't know by then, really is. Totally crazed after failing to finish off, by causing them to fall off a cliff, both Johnny & Dr. Ross the end for Moma finally comes when Rosemary herself, through what can only be called supernatural powers, puts a final end to Moma Blakes insanity!

A strange cliff-top mansion, a handicapped widow with a mysteriously absent daughter, a nervous companion, and a handsome soldier in receipt of letters from the elusive Rosemary create a strange mystery to say the least. Mother is obviously two macadamias short of a cookie and despises the young female doctor who tends to the soldier after he collapses in the Mandalay like mansion. When the truth is revealed, mommy dearest gets desperate...and sinister! Don't expect any doo-bee-doo-bee-doo's in this oddly titled Gothic thriller. Sinatra's signature tune does not appear. In fact, other than the circumstances surrounding how soldier William Terry meets doctor Virginia Grey, the title has nothing to do with the bizarre plot line. Helene Thinig is the heavy accented matron who truly has many psychiatric problems and Edith Barrett is her petrified companion who must question the definition of loyalty as she faces the truth about her demented employer. As directed by cult director Anthony Mann, this is a very different type of mystery, a film with a plot that seems trite at first but will certainly make you think. You certainly won't forget the gallery of nuts you encounter in this spooky mansion by the sea.

This could have been a good movie. The main characters are well acted and believable in a melodramatic way.In spite of some unlikely coincidences like the unnecessary train derailment, and our hero, a marine, recognizing the painter of the portrait of his fantasy girl as an old buddy from college, the plot concept is reasonably engrossing, moves along well, and tension is built up to almost the end. This part is written like a classic thriller.Unfortunately,the last few minutes of the film seem as if the production crew had either run of of time or money and hastily contrived a hardly believable ending. That's the part that looks look it was written by a fifth grade class.I'm sure if you didn't watch the ending, the film would actually haunt you. Of course, you want to know how it's all resolved, and instead of haunting you, you come away very unsatisfied.Not a complete waste of time, but a certainly a waste of talent.