The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing (1955) - film review

In the early 1900s, the successful architect Stanford White is smitten by the aspiring actress Evelyn Nesbit.  They pursue a brief love affair but whilst Evelyn is deeply in love with her admirer, White cannot bring himself to divorce his wife.  Arrogant tycoon Harry Kendall Thaw sees his opportunity to settle some old scores with White by luring Evelyn away from him.  He forces her to marry him but the marriage proves to be a disaster.  Paranoid with jealousy, Thaw forbids his wife to have any further contact with her former lover.  In a moment of madness, Thaw loses control and shoots White dead.  At Thaw’s trial, Evelyn finds she must testify in his defence, but what does she stand to gain in return?

This fictionalised account of a major cause célèbre of the early 1900s is directed with flair by Richard Fleischer and boasts some lavish production values, although the story itself is somewhat bland and lacking in surprises.  Originally conceived as a full-blown musical, Marilyn Monroe was lined up to play the part of Evelyn Nesbit, but when she refused it went back to the drawing board and was refashioned as a conventional melodrama.  Despite the lacklustre characterisation, the three leads - Joan Collins, Ray Milland and Farley Granger - all turn in exemplary performances.  Granger is particularly chilling as a vicious and ever-so slightly unhinged playboy and Milland is magnificently convincing as a man torn between desire and duty.  However, the film belongs to Joan Collins who, in one of the highpoints of her early career, fills the screen with her beauty and charisma, whilst delivering one of her most compelling performances.

© Steve Chandler 2011

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