Rating: 
Summary: Great movie - Bad COPY !
Review: This movie is a great drama all about how you can't escape from things you have done in the past. The cast is near perfect Barbara Stanwyck is lovable and then scary all at the same time. (love her) Van Heflin is letter perfect throughout only Lizbeth Scott's over the top performance looks creaky at this time. (altho you do feel sorry for her which is the point I guess) and Kirk Douglas gives a strong performance. (if a little miscast - he is too manly and strong to be the cuckold husband)
Howeve this COPY of the film is atrocious. It is a bad print that at times had fluctuations in the lighting, weird blips and other things happen on the screen. Its just a bad copy that needs to be cleaned up. Then there is the fact that they have packaged it all about KIRK DOUGLAS which is really dumb. This is really Van Heflin and Stanwyck's film. Douglas isn't onscreen as often as Van Heflin. (and he doesn't have the best part) So true Kirk Douglas fans may be turned off.
The Kirk Douglas documentary is just a voice over with some move trailers. Really lame compared to documentaries on other DVDS.
Love the movie but this DVD is a rip off. Im giving mine to charity
Rating: 
Summary: Great Stanwyck Noir
Review: This movie isn't as well known as "Double Indemnity," but Barbara Stanwyck gives one of her legendary performances...she was always marvelous, regardless of the material she worked with. This film is interesting, complicated, strange...which describes Stanwyck's character in this story.
See it, it you can. I frankly have never seen anything else quite like it.
Rating: 
Summary: Van and Liz are a great team - ****1/2 / *****
Review: This review refers to the Alpha Video (Gotham) DVD.Overall Quality of DVD: ***1/2 /**** Sound: *** /**** Plot: ***1/2 /**** Acting: ***1/2 /**** Cinematography: ***1/2 /**** Direction: ***1/2 /**** You will be surprised at the quality of this GOTHAM transfer. There are some frame skips but other than that this DVD is a steal-of-a-deal and an "A"-rated film-noir! Kirk Douglas and Barbara Stanwyck are very intense in their roles but, in my opinion, Van Heflin and Lizabeth Scott steal the show. Lizabeth Scott plays the beaten-down, always-taken-advantage-of, world-weary, down-on-her-luck, cute, sexy girl that... well, you just want to take her in your arms and give her a hug, yet, you also know if you do, you will probably have to kiss her and then you'll probably fall in love with her (just as Van Heflin does). In my opinion, this is Lizabeth Scotts' best role that I've seen ("Dead Reckoning" she is also quite good in - "Too Late For Tears" she is not as strong). She seems to need a strong hand in direction and when she gets it she can give A-level performances. Mickey Kuhn as the young Kirk Douglas, Darryl Hickman (Dwayne Hickman's "Dobie Gillis" younger brother) as the young Van Heflin and Janis Wilson as the young Martha Ivers give riveting performances and are so "in character" in looks and mannerisms with the adult actors it will amaze you! Also, Judith Anderson (Mrs. Danvers (Danny) in "Rebecca") gives a wonderfully sinister performance. This is an "A+" story, acted well, directed well, filmed well, great production design and a very smooth transfer. This film is worthy of restoration but is worthy in its present incarnation as is.
Rating: 
Summary: Great Pot-boiler noir - almost great transfer
Review: This transfer is adequate, but could be sharper.
Rating:
Summary: The Guilt of Martha Ivers
Review: Van Heflin is a gambler who returns to his hometown and gets tangled up with some childhood friends. He left town the night Martha killed her cold-hearted aunt, a murder that was successfully covered up. Now the grown-up Martha, played by Barbara Stanwyck, and especially her weak husband, played by Kirk Douglas, fear he might reveal what happened that night. Heflin gets involved with Lizabeth Scott, a convict, who fears his past relationship with Stanwyck will take Heflin from her. In this film noir, none of the characters is particularly likeable, each trying to protect themselves. There is some biting dialogue and effective use of music, although sometimes it becomes a little overpowering. Stanwyck is terrific as usual, really delivering in the latter scenes. Douglas is too strong of a presence to play the weak, manipulated husband, and would have been better off trading with Heflin. Scott has a strange screen presence, and although it fits the character somewhat, she never seems quite comfortable. But the characters are fascinating (typical for film noir) and the story is really interesting, despite the poor choice of a title. Since so much of this film centres on guilt and how difficult it can be to escape one's past, I think a better title for the film would have been The Guilt of Martha Ivers.
Rating:
Summary: Nothin' so "strange" about this love!
Review: When I heard the title of this movie I had to see it since it piqued my curiosity--how unusual, I thought. Therefore I'm pretty sure the powers that be named it for exactly that reason, because although he's intriguing, there's nothing really "strange" about this love of Martha Ivers. Nevertheless, a fascinating and highly suspenseful overlooked noir starring a cunningly beautiful Barbara Stanwyk in one of the title roles as Martha Ivers, a wealthy heiress transformed by her heartless aunt (played by a wonderfully wicked Judith Anderson) and many empty years from a scarred and disillusioned young girl to a promiscuous and sociopathic vixen. The unaptly labelled "love" of Martha's which arouses much curiosity is played by Van Heflin as Sam Masterson, a rakish and successful young gambler who grew up with Martha before he ran away. In his film debut, although not in his niche Kirk Douglas does a reliable job as Walter O'Neill, a spineless suck-up who is an alcoholic to ease his tortured conscience. The story begins eventfully when young Martha kills her aunt in a fit of rage after her aunt thwarts her plans to runaway with Sam and bludgeons her beloved kitten to death. Walter is by her side when it happens and due to his loyalty and affection for Martha, corroborates her story that an intruder did it--which would later lead to an innocent man getting executed. The two kids then naturally assume Sam also saw what really happened just before he took off. Fast forward 18 years later as Sam inadvertently returns home to find himself enmeshed in a web of lust, murder, duplicity, dark childhood secrets and intrigue when now-husband-and-wife Martha and Walter naturally (but mistakenly) believe he has returned back and gone to see Walter--who's also D.A. due to his wife's power and influence--not to get his convict girlfriend out of the local clink, but that he wants to blackmail them. This wrong belief causes them to take actions which in turn leads Sam down a dark road toward discovering many disturbing things about two people he thought he knew but who have changed greatly (and for the worse) in the intervening years. Although Heflin and Douglas are good in their respective roles, one cannot help imagining it with Douglas instead in the role of principled tough guy Sam as he was initially promised before he was unceremoniously dumped and Heflin took over his role, after which Douglas had to submit to the indignity of auditioning for Walter the Weakling against Montgomery Clift and Richard Widmark (!). Hard to miss is breathtakingly lovely Lizabeth Scott as Antonia "Toni" Marracheck in her poignant performance as the sultry but sweet (and unjustly guilty) convict girlfriend of Sam, who stands by her man come rain or shine.
Rating:
Summary: "Don't look back, baby. Don't ever look back."
Review: Young Martha Ivers shares a terrible secret with her two childhood friends, Sam Masterson and Walter O'Neil concerning the death of her Aunt. Years pass, and Martha (Barbara Stanwyck) is now married to District Attorney O'Neil (Kirk Douglas). They still live in Iverstown (named for Martha's wealthy family). Their marriage is not a happy one, but it's sealed by shared guilt. Martha is now the wealthiest woman in Iverstown, and she and her husband either own or control everything in this corrupt small town. One night, a car accident strands Sam (Van Heflin) in Iverstown. It's mere coincidence that he's back after an absence of almost twenty years, but Walter and Martha assume he's there to blackmail them. Their guilt alerts Masterson to the possibilities of the situation, and so he sets out to exploit it. "The Strange Love of Martha Ivers" is a classic entry in the genre of film noir. Kirk Douglas, in his first screen role, stars as Walter O'Neil. Obviously the studios did not yet have Douglas type-cast in the strong hero roles he later assumed. In this film, he plays mealy-mouthed O'Neil--a spineless man who's pushed around by his wife. O'Neil's love for his wife is sick and corrupted. He knows she despises him, but he's going to hang onto her no matter what it takes. Lizabeth Scott stars as Toni--the girl Sam meets on his first night in town. Scott enjoyed a brief career--which was extinguished by an expose in "Confidential" magazine. Scott reminds me very much of Lauren Bacall, and this may sound like heresy, but I prefer Scott. She's rough around the edges and seems to be the genuine article. Bacall is just slumming, but Lizabeth Scott seems to belong with the dregs of society--just waiting for some man to rescue her and take her home. It's not a stretch of the imagination to envision her as Toni--the hard luck girl who's just released from jail. Barbara Stanwyck is, of course, one of film noirs great leading ladies. She's ice cold and cruel in this role. But there's more to Martha than meets the eye. In Martha's first hysterical scene with her aunt, we get a glimpse of the hard, heartless woman she'll become. And yet Martha claims to love Sam--but her love is twisted and sick too. She's not capable of loving anyone in any normal sense of the word. Van Heflin as Sam--is a cipher. He's a WWII veteran with a checkered past. As a child, he dominated Walter, and when Sam blows back into town, he picks up where he left off. Yet ultimately, Walter and Sam seem to recognize each other's position. The relationship between Martha, Sam, and Walter dominates this fascinating film. The DVD is excellent quality. For film noir fans, I wholeheartedly recommend "The Strange Love of Martha Ivers." It's a fantastic film--displacedhuman
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