A film noir (I've read a remake of The Letter) from 1947 starring Ann Sheridan, Zachary Scott & Lew Ayres about a tryst that threatens to destroy a marriage. Sheridan & Scott are a happily married couple (at least on the surface) w/Scott away for most of the time (he's a successful builder). One night when Sheridan is returning home from a party she's accosted by a man in her home & winds up killing him in self defense. That the man is the same fellow she had shacked up with sends the town & specifically her small circle of friends, led by the acid tongued Eve Arden, into a tizzy. During the police investigation, Ayres, a divorce attorney & close friend of the married couple, represents Sheridan but when the facts don't quite match up & Sheridan isn't entirely forthcoming, Ayres pushes until it hurts (especially when the dead man's widow & an opportunistic blackmailer enter the picture to put the screws to all involved). Great overheated melodrama to be sure w/all the actors, especially Ayres & Arden, stealing any scenes they happen to be in w/a pervading sense of dread running through the piece until the very end. Also starring John Hoyt as the detective in charge of the investigation.
Review of The Unfaithful
