The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946) – L. Milestone

More melodrama than film noir (although the shock ending does tilt things in the direction of the bleaker genre). After a long preamble with child actors that sets up the three central characters and the basic plot dynamics, we join Sam Masterson (Van Heflin) as he re-enters Iverstown for the first time in 17 or 18 years. He meets cute with Toni Marachek (Lizabeth Scott) and decides to use his old childhood connections to help her out of a legal jam. So, he asks D. A. Walter O’Neil (Kirk Douglas in his debut film) to pull some strings to help Toni out; however, O’Neil is worried that Masterson is actually prepared to blackmail him and his now wife, heiress Martha Ivers (Barbara Stanwyck), over a past event that he may or may not have actually witnessed.  The melodrama comes in because Martha still loves Sam and feels she was manipulated into marrying Walter, just as Walter feels trapped in their marriage and bullied into doing what Martha requires him to do. Sam can only look on in pity and plot his escape with Toni.  It’s funny because none of the four principals plays a wholesome character – they’ve all got checkered pasts – but certainly Heflin seems the most level headed and clear thinking of the lot. But, my, there is a lot of drinking as a coping strategy in this film – it doesn’t seem to work.