Film Review
One of cinema's darker and more disturbing explorations of sociopathy
and sexuality,
The Strange Woman
is unusual in that it is a period melodrama made in the style of a
classic film noir thriller. It was one of a handful of films made by Edgar
G. Ulmer that contributed to the director's belated reappraisal by the
French film critics of the 1960s. Ulmer spent most of his
career turning out ultra-low budget productions for the poverty row
studios in Hollywood, but occasionally he was given the opportunity, as
here, to make a more substantial film. If Ulmer had had the good
fortune to pursue a career with the major studios (rather than be shunned
after he stole the wife of Carl Laemmle's nephew), he could plausibly
have been one of Hollywood's leading lights, rather than a relatively
obscure incidental player, making nondescript films on a shoestring.
Ulmer's approach to
The Strange Woman
is both revealing and distinctive. The film noir style feels
highly appropriate for the film, even though it is a period
drama. The high contrast photography serves to emphasise the dual
nature in every human being, but in particular the schizoid character
of the heroine, a full-blooded femme fatale played magnificently by
Hedy Lamarr. Neither truly good nor truly evil, Jenny is a
complex character who seems incapable of mastering the impulses that
compel her to perform acts of shocking cruelty one moment and selfless
generosity the next. Her entire life appears to be an act of
rebellion against the societal constraints of her time, constraints
which prevent women of her social milieu from expressing themselves
honestly and achieving any real fulfilment in their lives. The
film can be interpreted as an early salvo for women's rights, with
Jenny Hager representing the modern woman, a free spirit who seeks not
to perpetrate evil but merely to acquire the same status and
independence that the male sex take for granted. Seen in that light,
the film's title appears to be both fitting and highly ironic.
© James Travers 2009
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.
Film Synopsis
Bangor, Maine, in the early 19th Century. When her drunken father
takes to beating her, Jenny Hager turns to her neighbours for
help. The only man who can offer her shelter is Isaiah Poster, a
successful lumber baron, but he is a single man, twenty years her
senior. To avoid a scandal, Isaiah decides that he and Jenny
should marry. Despite the difference in their ages, Jenny has no
objection, and welcomes the sudden elevation in her social
standing. But she soon grows tired of her husband and begins to
flirt with his son, Ephraim, when he returns from college.
Knowing that he has fallen in love with her, Jenny tells Ephraim that
she is prepared to marry him, if his father were to die. During a
canoe trip down river, Ephraim inadvertently causes the death of his
father, but when he returns to Jenny she refuses to see him. She
has now switched her attention to John Evered, one of Isaiah's
employees, and the fiancé of her best friend. Will Evered
succumb to Jenny's charms like all the others, or will he realise her
true nature...?
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.