Cebalord Very best movie i ever watch

Steineded How sad is this?

Chirphymium It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

Neive Bellamy Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

moonspinner55 A strange little tale that intrigues with its premise but hasn't a very interesting or satisfying conclusion. Out of work for four months, Ida Lupino interviews for a job as caretaker at a palatial estate for a family she's been warned is very eccentric. The manor is empty most of the year with the family out of town, so Lupino doesn't do much except stroll the grounds and investigate rooms. She's also obsessed with the woman who had the job before her--the mysteriously missing Jennifer--who was cousin to the woman who hired her. Curious item from Allied Artists only runs 73 minutes--and doesn't even have enough plot for this brief length! Howard Duff, talking from one side of his mouth as a gangster might, is totally inappropriate as a love-interest for Lupino, who is skittish and curt around men without explanation. Legendary James Wong Howe, of all people, was the cinematographer; he might be the one to blame for a cheat-shot near the climax, which arrives with a lot of questions still unanswered. ** from ****

Ripshin First and foremost...this film is not a "noir"! That term is easily the most abused on the IMDb site. Yes, it's black and white. Yes, it's shot on location in the early 50s. NO, it is in NO way a "film noir".This is a suspense thriller, with more than a bit of the haunted house genre thrown into the mix. It's also a well-made "B" flick, with the surprising services of cinematographer James Wong Howe, as a bonus.The film is quite moody, with wonderful location filming. (I hope to find out the location of the mansion, and if it still stands.) Granted, the whole thing falls apart in the final ten minutes...the ambiguity is surprising, for a film of the early 50s. Did Jennfer really die? What's with that weird "college" kid? The opening/closing shot...not sure what to make of it. While I don't mind a film leaving questions unanswered, the ending here is rather pointless.However, I do recommend it. If for nothing else, the locations, the cinematography and Ms. Lupino.

ptb-8 I wish I could have met Ida Lupino. When people ask who you if you could have 6 extraordinary 20th century persons over for dinner, well, for me one person would be her. I think she is now one of the great unsung and unprofiled personalities in the film industry. Her life story would make a great tele movie (Hey, Mr Bogdanovich........). Ida Lupino has been the driving force in many fascinating noir films of the 40s and 50s. I can remember being saddened at seeing her reduced to a horrible part in a ghastly AIP film is the late 70s. She was bitten by a big worm at the kitchen sink. Ugh. I should have contacted her then as she died not long after.. more from the part than the worm too. From High Sierra, Roadhouse and the extraordinary RKO thriller On Dangerous Ground, Ida Lupino was often the producer and the lead actress. Later, with her husband Howard Duff they produced many now timeless noir dramas that are still very engrossing today. One of them is JENNIFER which I think is the last film with a Monogram Pictures copyright. Monogram changed the company name formally to Allied Artists in 1953 and JENNIFER has both company names on the opening credits. This is a superior haunted house thriller equally as scary as both The Innocents and The Haunting made 8 years later. Really chilling and very creepy, this tiny film is exactly the sort of really good film Ida Lupino made and was responsible for. Try and find it...you will always remember it and as I feel, much admiration for this great and almost forgotten actress/producer.

bmacv I first caught up with Jennifer years ago while out of town when it showed up on TV in the middle of the night; I fell asleep before it ended but it stuck with me until I had to track it down. Its appeal is that, though there's not a lot to it, it weaves an intriguing atmosphere, and because Ida Lupino and Howard Duff (real life man-and-wife at the time) display an alluring, low-key chemistry. Lupino plays a woman engaged to house-sit a vast California estate whose previous caretaker -- Jennifer -- up and disappeared. (Shades of Jack Nicholson in the Shining, although in this instance it's not Lupino who goes, or went, mad). Duff is the guy in town who manages the estate's finances and takes a shine to Lupino, who decides to play hard to get. She becomes more and more involved, not to say obsessed, with what happened to her predecessor in the old dark house full of descending stairways and locked cellars. The atmospherics and the romantic byplay are by far the best part of the movie, as viewers are likely to find the resolution a bit of a letdown -- there's just not that much to it (except a little frisson at the tail end that anticipates Brian De Palma's filmic codas). But it's well done, and, again, it sticks with you. Extra added attraction: this is the film that introduced the song "Angel Eyes," which would become part of the standard repertoire of Ol' Blue Eyes.