Good movie but grossly overrated

As Good As It Gets

The acting in this movie is really good.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

Based on the play "Uncle Harry" by Thomas Job, this movie is a gripping psychological drama in which romance, obsession and murder all feature prominently. Its story charts how the mundane, well- ordered lives of three siblings who live together are suddenly disrupted by the arrival of someone who provokes strong emotions in two of them, and in so doing, brings the presence of some very dark desires to the surface.Middle-aged bachelor Harry Melville Quincey (George Sanders) leads a desperately dull existence in the small town of Corinth, New Hampshire where he spends his working days as a fabric designer in the local mill until he returns to his home where he lives with his two squabbling sisters, Lettie (Geraldine Fitzgerald) and Hester (Moyna MacGill). Lettie is a spoilt and selfish young woman who spends her days in bed complaining about a series of imaginary illnesses and bickering with her older, widowed sister, who she criticises for gossiping with some of the townsfolk. Harry's life suddenly brightens up when Deborah Brown (Ella Raines), a designer from the company's New York City office, arrives on the scene and is obviously instantly attracted to the man who the younger employees at the mill affectionately call "Uncle Harry".Harry and Deborah soon get to know each other better, fall in love and decide to get married. Hester is genuinely happy for her brother but Lettie, who's very attached to Harry and likes to monopolise his attention, easily becomes jealous of anyone (even his dog) who takes his attention away from her. As a cultivated person, she doesn't overtly show her displeasure at the presence of Deborah but instead, in her own refined and affected way, tries to discourage or undermine the relationship. When her scheming fails and it becomes clear that the two sisters should vacate the house for the future newlyweds to move in, Lettie uses the opportunity to frustrate the couple's plans by saying that every house that's offered to her is unsuitable. This goes on for so long that Harry and Deborah decide, in desperation, to elope together. On the day when they're ready to leave town and get married, Lettie fakes a collapse, gets rushed into hospital and Harry's conscience compels him to abandon his plans and instead, rush to her side.Harry's actions result in Deborah returning to New York City alone and he later hears that she has new marriage plans in place. In his sadness, he reflects on Deborah's words when she said that "Lettie has no intention of setting you free, not as long as she lives" and this inspires him to take revenge on his evil sister by using the poison that she'd bought to administer to his sick old dog called "Weary". The ramifications of his actions, however, go far beyond anything he could ever have imagined.As a rather passive man who'd felt a great responsibility to support his two sisters, Harry had tolerated their arguments and eccentricities and dutifully did what he considered to be the right thing until he realised how destructive Lettie's feelings for him had become and this provoked a profound change in him (which is contradicted by the movie's absurd censor-imposed ending). George Sanders, in an excellent performance, makes his character's descent to the dark side understandable and Ella Raines, whose expressions are priceless, is a pleasure to watch as her character never, even for a second, gets taken in by Lettie's antics. Sanders and Raines are also good in their scenes together and generate a few laughs when they launch into a rather risqué conversation about stargazer Harry's 9" telescope.Geraldine Fitzgerald is also perfectly cast as the manipulative Lettie who asserts that she has always known what's best for Harry and says that her devotion to him was the main reason why she never married."The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry" is a fine, well-acted movie which features a tagged-on ending which was necessary to placate the demands of the censor who, it seems, must have been totally unconcerned about the story's various allusions to Lettie's incestuous feelings for her brother.

Geraldine Fitzgerald is the sister from hell in "The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry," a 1945 film directed by Robert Siodmak, who knows a thing or two about suspense. The film stars George Sanders, Ella Raines, Moyna Macgill (Angela Lansbury's mother), and Sara Algood.The Quincy family, a brother (Sanders) and two sisters (Macgill and Fitzgerald) live in an big, old house - all that was left to them by their parents. Harry is the head designer of patterns in a cloth family; his sister Lettie (Fitzgerald) is a professional invalid; and his other sister, Hester (Macgill), is a rather silly, complaining woman who feels unappreciated.When a New York firm comes to town to look at the cloth factory, Harry meets and falls in love with Deborah (Raines) and announces they are going to be married. Hester is thrilled beyond belief for him; Lettie, on the other hand, is very upset. Deborah has her number immediately and is determined not to allow Lettie to break up her relationship with Harry.Lettie and Hester are supposed to move into another house, but that doesn't happen. On the day Harry and Deborah are to leave for Boston to be married, Lettie has one of her "attacks" and Harry refuses to leave town. Deborah realizes that he will never leave his sisters and walks out of his life. When Harry finds out that Lettie's inability to find a suitable house after six months and her illness were just manipulations to drive Deborah away, something in him snaps.Based on a play, this film proved somewhat controversial. Censorship would not allow the original ending, so five different endings were filmed and shown in preview. The ending that was chosen is derivative, drawing on a device used successfully in the past.I'm going to go out on a limb and say that I really loved the way it ended, in spite of some people seeing it as a cop-out. I liked it because of my sympathy for Harry, so well portrayed by George Sanders, who was cast against type here.Geraldine Fitzgerald gives a fantastic performance as the awful Lettie, an unbelievable shrew. Fitzgerald was perfect. Macgill is excellent as well, likable because she sincerely wants the best for Harry, and annoying because she's a whiner. Ella Raines made a lovely Deborah.Very entertaining - I loved it!

The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry (1945)George Sanders is a wonder of subtlety, and he rules this movie almost from secrecy he's so quiet and nondescript to a T. He lives in a small town with all the usual small town ways, including insularity. There are three women around him: a plain sister who is simple and sweet and loves him, a beautiful sister who is obsessed with keeping him a bachelor, and a newcomer, a New Yorker who is in town because of the fabric factory that dominates the town.This is pretty much the set up, and it's plenty because it is the subtle and not so subtle interactions and cross purposes of these three women and the somewhat hapless Mr. Sanders that makes the movie. It's really funny and sad and romantic in its own quirky way. It never loses its way, and the types that each women represent get developed with clarity enough to make you really want what Sanders wants. And doesn't get.The director Robert Siodmak would be famous soon for a series of great film noirs, but it was his next film that seems to mark a transition, "Spiral Staircase." In that, the photography soars and the sinister aspects surrounding ordinary people add a level of intrigue and fear that this movie simply doesn't want to have. And so you might in some ways find it a little plain, a little sweet without the hard edge that the nasty sister is meant to alone supply. Still, she convinces me just fine, and I rather like the confident New York woman (a little like Bacall in this way). It does come around to Sanders, the man who committed suicide with a note saying he was just a little bored with life. You can feel that in him here, remarkably. He's so perfectly weary, and yet rather content still. In fact, one treat in the middle of things is him playing piano (he does play) and singing. A remarkable man and unusual actor, worth seeing here.

The setting is a small New England town where the residents are, according to the disembodied narrator, "not much different from yourselves", which means, of course, that they're perfectly willing to contemplate murder when a loved one becomes an insufferable nuisance. George Sanders plays an otherwise kindly bachelor forced to take drastic measures after a too-possessive younger sister spoils his plans to wed a beautiful, sophisticated big city girl. His plot backfires, naturally, and the consequences proved to be so downbeat that a bogus Little Nemo epilogue had to be added by studio censors. It never was a major motion picture, but when seen today is certainly an enjoyable and well-crafted diversion.