The Strange Love of Martha Ivers

Rating:
Summary: Liz Steals It!
Review:
Most would guess that any movie including Barbara Stanwyck, Van Heflin, Kirk Douglas and Lizabeth Scott in the cast is guaranteed to please. In the case of "The Strange Loves of Martha Ivers", this disappointed reviewer certainly is in the minority. As SL opens, Martha (as a child) accidentally murders her domineering aunt. The child Douglas is a witness. (Heflin, the child, was not at the scene!). Years go by and the 3 adults are suddenly reunited when Heflin's car breaks down in their small eponymous town. Douglas and Stanwyck are married and run the place. They fear Heflin knows more than he really does and their suspicions boil. Heflin's own doubts percolate when he learns that an innocent man was framed in the murder. Meanwhile, Heflin meets that little scene-stealer, Lizabeth Scott. The classic good girl/bad girl is down on her luck-and just out of the cooler! Heflin, the designated good guy, defends her. How the mutual -and unnecessary-suspicions of Douglas/Stanwyck vs. Heflin/Scott play out could have been the basis for a classic noir suspencer. Instead SL turns into an overlong, overblown melodrama unworthy of all the talent on the screen. Director Lewis Milestone should never have allowed the run time to reach an absurd 115 minutes. Many noir classics are 90 minutes or fewer! The "resolution" would be laughable if not so serious and what could have been a happy fadeout merely falls flat. The worthiest feature of SL is Scott who walks over the cast with half the effort of the others. That good girl/bad girl gambit wins every time. Unless one is a fierce LS fan, fans should pass SL by.


Rating:
Summary: I Loved Martha Iver's Strange Love
Review: "The Strange Love of Martha Ivers" is a film noir tale that will leave you on the edge of your seat throughout viewing. It is a real potboiler of a story, that involves greed, jealousy, hatred and obsession. All four leads in this sordid tale are excellent. Barbra Stanwyck is wonderful, as the town's richest, women who is torn by keeping a terrible secret and the man she really loves, but cannot have.Kirk Douglas is in his first role as Stanwyck's jealous, but weak husband.Van Heflin is great in the center stage role of an innocent guy who gets caught between the two schemers. And last but not least, lizbeth Scott turns in a very sexy performance, as the grade B bad girl, who always winds up in trouble.For fans of the film noir movie genre, this one is right up there with "Double Indemnity". A must Have!

Rating:
Summary: I Loved Martha Iver's Strange Love
Review: "The Strange Love of Martha Ivers" is a film noir tale that will leave you on the edge of your seat throughout viewing. It is a real potboiler of a story, that involves greed, jealousy, hatred and obsession. All four leads in this sordid tale are excellent. Barbra Stanwyck is wonderful, as the town's richest, women who is torn by keeping a terrible secret and the man she really loves, but cannot have.Kirk Douglas is in his first role as Stanwyck's jealous, but weak husband.Van Heflin is great in the center stage role of an innocent guy who gets caught between the two schemers. And last but not least, lizbeth Scott turns in a very sexy performance, as the grade B bad girl, who always winds up in trouble.For fans of the film noir movie genre, this one is right up there with "Double Indemnity". A must Have!

Rating:
Summary: DON'T MESS WITH MARTHA!
Review: A great example of the film noir films which abounded in the forties. This is an enjoyable, glossy melodrama that reaches a boil! Stanwyck is hard as nails in her interpretation of Martha who, as a kid helped her aunt (who was threatening to kill Martha's pet cat with her cane) to her death. Martha had a witness to the incident, however and years later the it comes back to haunt her in the form of an old friend.........Kirk Douglas remarked later in his career that Stanwyck was rather icey to him and not helpful at all during the filming (this was his debut). Perhaps she was just staying in character before it became fashionable! Lizabeth Scott is peculiarly artificial and shallow as always, but in this it works somehow. I don't think any actress of her day including Crawford could play a tough quite as convincingly as Stanwyck!...she could be CHILLING in her amazing realistic naturalness; maybe she just thought about her bitter years as an orphan living in poverty in some Brooklyn tenement. Whatever the case, she's terrific and my vote for the most underrated actress of Hollywood's Golden Years.

Rating:
Summary: WHISPER her name!
Review: After her spectacular launch into the genre as Phyllis (Duplicitous) Dietrichson in 1944's Double Indemnity, Barbara Stanwyck consolidated her reputation as the First Lady of Film Noir in this malevolent gothic. The broken-backed narrative lines spans a key bit of Martha Ivers' shall-we-say rebellious girlhood then jumps to the (postwar) present, when she reigns absolutely as industrial queen of Iverstown. (The original movie posters warned, "WHISPER her name!") One leftover from the past is her husband, Kirk Douglas, a once-brilliant district attorney going seriously into bourbon and paranoia. Back into Iverstown drives another chum from the bad old days, Van Heflin, with a waif in tow (Lizabeth Scott -- how much more noir can you get, short of Marie Windsor?). They're a flammable foursome. While in many respects this film is quintessentially noir, it eschews slapdash, brutal pace and energy in favor of a creepier, more brooding tone -- in many ways, it's closer kin to older movies like Kings Row than, say, Stanwyck's subsequent The File on Thelma Jordon. {P.S. Beware cheaper VHS versions; some are recorded on EP speed, and so unacceptably murky --both visually and aurally. Even in crisp black-and-white, this is a murky enough picture.)

Rating:
Summary: The title is very strange
Review: and doesn't match up with the movie.
Very much of its time and not many surprises.
Kirk Douglas, in his first film, is very good.
Very pat ending..the bad guys have to pay, right?

Rating:
Summary: Strange title, good drama
Review: Barbara Stanwyck wasn't everyone's idea of a raving beauty but her roles had leading men all over Hollywood wrapped around her finger. This worthy potboiler features a very skillful debut performance by Kirk Douglas as her emotionally tortured, semi-sympathetic husband. Douglas nicely handled what had to be one of the most difficult, unheroic roles of his long career. The real male lead of 'The Strange Love of Martha Ivey' is a young Van Heflin as a sharp-talking, world-weary loner who drifts back to his hometown to learn what happened to his childhood sweetheart--and a lot has! Somehow this dark, episodic movie seems older than 1946 but it has a lot to offer if you like a good time-capsule melodrama.

Rating:
Summary: Satisfying well acted melodrama
Review: Barbra Stanwyck plays a two timing rich bitch with as many faces as the situation demands. An interesting nature/nurture about causes - was it genetic - is she a bad seed? or was it her evil Aunt that drove her her to murder, duplicity, lying, deceit, jealousy? The aunt is played by the wonderful Dame Judith Anderson - how do we know she's evil? She gives a nice pussy cat the what for with her walking stick, again, and again, and again - where are the animal cruelty people when you need them? The two schmucks Ms Stanwyck does over are played by Daddy's boy Kirk Douglas and kid from the other side of the tracks out to make his way in the world Van Heflin. Message - give money the heave ho, be true to yourself and get a job for a living. An enjoyable flick played to the hilt by all concerned though the coin trick carried out by Van Heflin in many scenes pales somewhat the fifth time around. Method acting al la George Raft?

Rating:
Summary: Lizabeth Scott on nurturing a relationship:
Review: Call me an old romantic but there's something GREAT about B&W movies where megagorgeous girls say to ordinary guys things like "Go ahead and slap me; I had it coming!"

Rating:
Summary: Stanwyck noir at its very best
Review: How else but the terrific Barbara Stanwyck could have performed this largely unsympathic role and still had us, the audience , rooting for her?
"Strange Love" is a great film which doesn't seem to be as well known as the great classic "Double Indemnity" but it deserves to be.
Barbara Stanwyck tends to be known for her tough lady characters but in reality alot of her best performances were in very sympathic and feminine roles like "Stella Dallas" and "My Reputation" She was a great actress who could easily play both comedy and drama. In this film she is a ruthless lady hiding a dark secret from her childhood involving murder and deception who believes that her evil past has come back to haunt her in the form of childhood cohort Van Heflin.
What develops in this story is a tense cat and mouse game with both parties waiting to see who will make the next move. Tense stuff indeed and the film is quite rivetting right up to the end.Judith Anderson has a brief but telling role in the first flash back section of the film and ends up a murder victim. She plays Barbara's aunt as a mean, vicious monster which I feel almost lends Barbaras later character a little sympathy. That is what is so unique about "The Strange Love of Martha Ivers" no character is really as they first seem , every character has other elements to their makeup not obvious at first. It really is intriguing. Lizabeth Scott also has an important role as the girl from the wrong sid eof the tracks just trying to go straight and make good. Hers is a great performance and her one scene with Stanwyck positively crackles.
The overraul look of the film is lavish with that certain noir quality. Barbara , although not acclaimed as a great beauty is here as always a very attractive woman even when playing a nasty character. As always she is dressed superbly by the great Edith Head. The collaboration of these two women on so many films over the years was definately one of the great partnerships of Hollywood's golden age.
Settle back and enjoy one of the great Stanwyck classics!