good back-story, and good acting

Expected more

Absolutely Brilliant!

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Once three childhood friends: now a ruthless, domineering woman is married to an alcoholic D.A., and a returning companion who was the only witness to her murder of her rich aunt seventeen years earlier.This film marked Kirk Douglas' screen début. Producer Hal B. Wallis was on his way to New York to look for new talent when he ran into Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, who suggested that he go to a play which featured Bacall's old drama school classmate, Issur Demsky, who later took the name Kirk Douglas.Barbara Stanwyck had considerable influence on how she was lit, and was not shy about putting her fellow actors on notice that she did not like to be upstaged. Unfortunately for her, now that the film is in the public domain, the picture is pretty washed out and most people will not see her fancy lighting at all.

Barbara Stanwyck plays the title role in this drama also starring Van Heflin and Kirk Douglas.As a child, Heflin left his small town on a train when it was suspected that he was responsible for a crime. He returns years later to find that the real culprit of the crime, Stanwyck, is married to the just elected district attorney, Douglas, though she wears the pants in the marriage given the fact that she inherited the family fortune upon her aunt's (Judith Anderson) death, the crime for which Heflin's character was suspected per his absence.Lizabeth Scott plays a transient woman Heflin picks up when he returns to town. Of course, Stanwyck is still attracted to her former beau, especially because her husband is rather wimpy and a drunkard to boot (that's right, Kirk Douglas against type!).Neither Stanwyck, who tries to seduce him, nor Douglas, who uses his newfound position to threaten him, want Heflin to reveal the true secret of the long forgotten crime.John Patrick's Original Story was nominated for an Oscar. Directed by Lewis Milestone with a screenplay by Robert Rossen.

This movie is no short of perfect. It tells a story of the lives of three childhood friends after a traumatic event. This story does a great job staying away of clichés which keeps it interesting. Every character is written and portrayed with so much depth and detail you can distinguish by the way they phrase each sentence. The music tells the movie itself. The constantly running, beautiful score makes it frustrating that they hardly use scores as such today. Like many film noirs, it has great use of symbolism. This movie parallels very well the story of Lot's Wife. After it leaves themes to be pondered as any good movie should.

'The Strange Love of Martha Ivers', a work of genuine art, and a masterpiece at that, lifts your mind into the ineffable; it's intriguing in a way only masterpieces are, and you might appreciate the smoothness and gusto of Milestone's filmmaking. It begins as a Gothic tale, with a dark old house (and assured teenage sexuality, a domineering girl and her submissive, meek sidekick, decadent patricians and ascending plebeians, hence it promises a story about submission), and it goes on with a sulfurous, _unendearing plot and bleak characters (but beyond that it's reasonably realistic in its set of characters), with certainly glamorous performances from the three main characters; unlike them, the every-men, the townspeople, the bit parts are made in a realistic tone (the policemen, a bartender who cheers Masterson's revenge). One gets the sense it was meant as a cool movie, which 'Love …' surely achieves. Authors like Milestone and Miklos Rozsa promise a spectacular show; so, a masterpiece with a sense of cool.The dialogs are exquisite, every line, some lines are very adult-themed (from the size of the west land, to becoming a woman officially, 'coming through that window'). Each thing you feel is checked by the script: the unburdened Martha seems indeed less sexy than her teenage ego, and she seduces Sam Masterson by appealing to his pity and commiseration. As an adult woman, she seems dry and drained, and the script checks that. Unlike many other noir movies of the age, 'The Strange Love …' is very crafty, with a set of disconcerting and believable characters, with smoothness as opposed to roughness and fierceness. There are forces at work within each of them, but they are earthly, innate, mundane forces, not a fatality which sweeps them; and when they crush, they crush from the inside, deteriorated, broken, dissolved by their own inner doom.With these movies, some enjoy the template, are eager after the template, while others enjoy the craft, the exquisiteness, the unmistakable uniqueness of the work, the ineffable that renders the template irrelevant.