Whoa!, chalk one up for Aunt Martha - she sends poor old Evelyn over the edge (really, right over) with the missing bird trick there at the finale in a stunning conclusion that leaves an empty guest room at the Proctor's. Hitchcock would have done it with an entire flock of black ravens, but here director John Brahm simply simulates the flapping of wings in the mind of Evelyn Heath (Anne Baxter). Up till then I thought she might have been the one to kill young Lee's pet bird Skipper, but I'm glad I was wrong. This made for a much more fitting conclusion.
Not that we didn't see some kind of tragic ending coming, just not this one. Throughout, Anne Baxter takes her manipulative and quite mentally unstable character through the paces of turning the Proctor home upside down. But even if she had never arrived, I have to believe Doug Proctor (Ralph Bellamy) and wife Ann (Ruth Warrick) were already inviting trouble with a live-in model (Marie McDonald) occupying still another room upstairs. How did the wife ever go along with that little arrangement? And if that wasn't enough, how could she stand that weird bathrobe with the over-sized polka dots? If this was in color, I think I would have gone blind.
Well even 'Liebetraum' gets a bad rap in this picture, as daughter Lee (Connie Laird) starts turning into an invalid after Evelyn puts ideas into her head. Give the kid credit, she tried to size up the situation on her own and didn't like the studio arrangement between Dad and Miriam either. There was enough going on here for a double feature when you come right down to it. I'm glad nothing bad happened to the kid.
Like little Lee, I'll go out on a limb of my own and say I'd recommend this one for it's psychological angle and the way Baxter sets up everyone in the story for a dramatic conclusion. Maybe she's not as ambitious here as Eve Harrington (1950 - "All About Eve"), but when she sets a goal, she sticks to it. Just don't talk to her about birds.
Not that we didn't see some kind of tragic ending coming, just not this one. Throughout, Anne Baxter takes her manipulative and quite mentally unstable character through the paces of turning the Proctor home upside down. But even if she had never arrived, I have to believe Doug Proctor (Ralph Bellamy) and wife Ann (Ruth Warrick) were already inviting trouble with a live-in model (Marie McDonald) occupying still another room upstairs. How did the wife ever go along with that little arrangement? And if that wasn't enough, how could she stand that weird bathrobe with the over-sized polka dots? If this was in color, I think I would have gone blind.
Well even 'Liebetraum' gets a bad rap in this picture, as daughter Lee (Connie Laird) starts turning into an invalid after Evelyn puts ideas into her head. Give the kid credit, she tried to size up the situation on her own and didn't like the studio arrangement between Dad and Miriam either. There was enough going on here for a double feature when you come right down to it. I'm glad nothing bad happened to the kid.
Like little Lee, I'll go out on a limb of my own and say I'd recommend this one for it's psychological angle and the way Baxter sets up everyone in the story for a dramatic conclusion. Maybe she's not as ambitious here as Eve Harrington (1950 - "All About Eve"), but when she sets a goal, she sticks to it. Just don't talk to her about birds.