GamerTab That was an excellent one.

Acensbart Excellent but underrated film

Ceticultsot Beautiful, moving film.

Fatma Suarez The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

gridoon2018 When she's good she's very good, but when she's bad she's better. Joan Fontaine uses her angelic features and soft voice to strong counter-effect as the poisonous Ivy; the best scenes have her in close-up, changing facial expressions as she overhears conversations in other rooms. Apart from the stunning Fontaine, the film is pretty dull, especially in the first half (the lack of spark between her and Herbert Marshall, even if she does only care for his money, doesn't help - he is literally old enough to be her father). When Ivy discovers her murderous tendencies it picks up a little, but the contrivance of her hiding incriminating evidence in her own apartment is hard to swallow - as is the unbelievable last scene. ** out of 4.

Favog Somebody told me this one was a good mystery, but there's no mystery at all -- the events are played straight and the audience is in on everything. Even the nice cinematography and set design and Joan Fontain's gowns and the interesting positioning of the camera behind a high-backed chair couldn't save the movie. Will Ivy get away with her schemes? Will anybody ever get around to looking inside that clock? What do you think are the chances? The William Cameron Menzies-influenced art direction goes totally overboard: Has any other movie ever featured quite so many fluffy white clouds in the sky? Even at night? What fireworks! What a potboiler! What an eye-roller. Gah.

calvinnme Joan Fontaine is terrific as Ivy, the villainess in this superb thriller. Ivy, like the plant for which she is named, just goes wherever she can without a plan. Ultimately, Ivy is driven by greed and opportunity. How she gets what she wants - and even what she wants - she figures out as she goes along. She and her husband, Jervis Lexton, are probably still married because Jervis is a very pleasant person who always lets Ivy get her own way. They were probably married in the first place because he had money at that time, but in the past five years they both have spent it all and are now living in cheap boarding houses in London.But Ivy is socially charming and a friend gets Jervis a job in the London offices of the very wealthy Miles Rushmore (Herbert Marshall). There is instant chemistry between Rushmore and Ivy, and then he ends things from going any further saying he can have no part of taking up with another man's wife.Ivy actually has two problems. First there is the husband who is now only good for wage slave money until death do they part, but there is also a doctor, Roger Gretorix, who constantly hounds Ivy to divorce her husband and marry him. You can tell that Roger getting this obsessive about her is not something that she wanted, even before Rushmore was in the picture.Then one day while in Gretorix' surgery, Gretorix is called out on an emergency case and a bottle of poison is left out on the table. Ivy puts some of that poison in her purse and goes home. When her husband gets home from a hard day's work and asks for a brandy and soda, she poisons it and gives it to him. Now realize Ivy doesn't know anything about this poison. It might kill in seconds, it might kill in hours, it might kill in days, and it might not kill at all in the amount she is using. But she gives Jarvis another poisoned drink the next morning when he is complaining about an upset stomach, and when the doctor tells her Jervis will recover, she poisons the broth that the doctor prescribed for him. Jervis dies that night, while Ivy is at the theatre (Jervis told her to go). Now hapless Ivy has not thought about there being an autopsy ordered (there is) and what the police will do when the results come back as poisoning being the cause of death (it is).Now at first luck is on Ivy's side. Without her knowledge, Roger was the last person to see Jervis alone and alive and is instantly a suspect given his obsession over Ivy. So it looks like Ivy has a two-fer. She is free to take up with Miles Rushmore and possibly have millions to spend, AND she won't have to worry about Roger being a pest anymore as he will be hanged for the murder she did. But then her luck turns. Inspector Orpington of Scotland Yard begins to think that Ivy is not acting like a friend to Roger or a grieving widow. Plus it helps that in Edwardian England you do not need a search warrant to dig around a person's (Ivy's) home looking for evidence, even in a closed case. Orpington gets some luck too - the clock where Ivy stashed her purse stops working just as he is creeping around her flat - the clock where she hid her purse with the poison.If you think Ivy takes this in stride and just marches stoically between two police officers into jail upon arrest you'd be wrong too. I'll let you watch and see how she does ultimately take all of this.There really are marvelous performances by the entire cast. I just don't know how it could have been done any better.

bmacv Poor Ivy: Though to the manner born, she had the bad luck to marry a charming wastrel (Richard Ney). As the movie is set in the 20s or 30s, when rigid Victorian ideas of class were starting to fray at the edges, this uncertain status vexes her unduly. The Gretorexes (for so they are called) don't know where their next shilling is coming from but there are yachting parties and fancy-dress balls in posh pleasaunces aplenty to tempt her. When Ivy (Joan Fontaine) makes the acquaintance of a wealthy older gent (Herbert Marshall, who must have been born middle-aged), she sets one of her extravant chapeaux for him. Luckily, one of the beaux she still strings along (Patric Knowles) is a physician whose consulting rooms provide a cache of poison, with which she bids her hubby farewell. The fact that it implicates Knowles doesn't phase her a bit, even as the hours trickle by until he should be hanged by the neck until dead. The turning of the plot depends on police inspector Sir Cedric Hardwicke; Knowles' mother (the redoubtable Lucile Watson); and Knowles' loyal housekeeper (Una O'Connor). Sam Wood adds some subtle touches to this well above average melodrama; Fontaine's luminous face supplies the rest.