MartinHafer "A Woman's Vengeance" is unusual in that it was written by Aldous Huxley, they author of the brilliant "Brave New World" and the son of the famous evolutionist, Thomas Henry Huxley. I had no idea he wrote this sort of story...a murder mystery.When the story begins, Henry (Charles Boyer) and his wife, Emily, are having a fight. It seems that Emily is a very histrionic and demanding woman...the sort that would be nearly impossible to love. On the other hand, Henry isn't exactly an angel...he's got a VERY young girlfriend (Ann Blythe) on the side. He also has a family friend, Janet (Jessica Tandy), who loves him.One day after yet another fight brought on by Emily, Henry goes out to spend the day with his mistress. During this time period, Emily dies of a heart attack...thus freeing Henry to marry his girlfriend. But once he does, Janet and, especially, the family's maid (Mildred Natwick) begin to wonder if Emily died a natural death. Soon, there is an exhumation and it's determined that Emily was poisoned!! Did Henry do it? After all, he clearly had the most to gain and any man married to Emily would be likely to at least consider poisoning her! Or is there some other answer?The story is greatly helped by its cast. It's easy to make a good film with the likes of Charles Boyer, Jessica Tandy, Mildred Natwick, John Williams and Cederic Hardwicke in a movie...and it's obvious Universal Pictures put a lot of money into the production.It's also helped that the story is so clever and offers some interesting twists. I also appreciate that the characters are quite flawed...much like many real people. Overall, well worth seeing and wonderfully well acted.

Alex da Silva The very annoying Emily (Rachel Kempson) is not in good health. Thankfully, she dies. However, her death is treated suspiciously and number one suspect is husband Henry (Charles Boyer). He doesn't help matters by immediately marrying 18 year old Doris (Ann Blyth) who he has been having an affair with for a few months.This film has a good cast, especially Jessica Tandy as Henry's friend "Janet", Cedric Hardwick as "Dr Libbard" and Mildred Natwick as "Nurse Braddock". Boyer is good but Blyth is very irritating in a Shirley Temple kind of way. The film drags whenever she is on screen.The film has many good scenes, eg, when Janet and Henry are in the house sheltering from a violent storm - the use of German Expressionism in this scene (the use of darkness and lightning) will tell you all you need to know. Similarly, another good scene is when Janet visits Henry the day before his execution (the way the scene is framed will stick in your mind). And the scenes between Janet and Dr Libbard towards the end of the film are crammed with tension. I found that the film also had a particularly good moment of philosophical dialogue when Henry verbalized his acceptance of death to Doris. You will, no doubt, guess who the guilty party is from the beginning but it's still a good film to watch again.

vallerose WOMAN'S VENGEANCE, A ('47 UNIV) Dir: Zoltan Korda Critique: Jessica Tandy, fresh from her Broadway role as the original Blanche du Bois in "A Streetcar Named Desire" in the same year gives the greatest performance of her film career, and one of the greatest, measured by any standard in film history, in Aldous Huxley's brilliant, exceptionally intelligent and literate screenplay from his own "The Giaconda Smile." Tandy, who was unfortunately relegated to secondary roles for the rest of her career until she won an academy award near the end of her life for "Driving Miss Daisy" ('89) is a 35 year-old spinster (!) whose love is spurned by charming but callous philanderer, Charles Boyer, brilliant in his role as the object of Tandy's vengeance. The two stars are backed up by an outstanding cast, especially the cerebral Cedric Hardwicke as the kindly, understanding and extremely perceptive doctor who, in a scene of mesmerizing brilliance, ultimately draws out of Tandy the grim truth about the guilt or innocence of Boyer, who is condemned to death for the murder of his wife. Zoltan Korda, of the illustrious film family, directed this (his) masterpiece, with beautiful chiaroscuro photography by Russell Metty and a fine, understated score by Miklos Rozsa.Marc Feldman 2-4-05

bmacv Ah, English country life – all revenge killings and red-currant fool. That's the fate that conveniently befalls Rachel Kempson, the irritating invalid spouse to squire Charles Boyer. It's convenient for him, because the lid's just been torn off his affair with his teen-aged mistress (Ann Blythe), with whom he was whiling away the evening as the bell tolled for his lawfully wedded wife.At first, the demise of that royal pain causes a general sigh of relief. It leaves Boyer free to marry Blythe, which he does; it also left him free, in the view of neighbor and intimate family friend Jessica Tandy, to marry her, which he did not. When a trouble-making nurse (Mildred Natwick), outraged by Boyer's extramarital carryings-on, goes to the police, an autopsy proves her suspicions correct: The sudden death, at first though to have a heart attack brought on by those beastly berries, turns out to be poisoning by arsenic found in weed killer. Inquest, trial and death sentence all go badly for Boyer, who awaits the scaffold claiming his innocence. It sounds like an Agatha Christie country-house mystery – genteel homicide between rubbers of Bridge – but it's a bit more than that. Aldous Huxley wrote the script, from his story The Gioconda Smile, and he's less interested in the logistics of murder than its psychology. Today, he's remembered chiefly as author of Brave New World and as an apostle of LSD. But he was one of the more thoughtful and inquisitive popular novelists of his time, holding the sort of position Gore Vidal does today, and, like Vidal, found Southern California and The Industry congenial for living and working. He was lucky to get a director (Zoltan Korda) and a cast this good. Boyer breaks free from the debonair malevolence that, following the success of Gaslight, so often shackled him, and Blythe starts out recycling her Veda Pierce but finally realizes that this is a new role. Tandy, fresh from creating Blanche DuBois on Broadway, tackles her part – a lovesick spinster of 35 – cautiously at first, then deepens and underscores what turns out to be the movie's central role. There's a strikingly composed scene in which her face is severely framed in a high aperture overlooking Boyer's death cell when she unleashes her pent-up frustration, and Tandy does it full justice. Acting honors, however, go to Cedric Hardwicke, family physician turned psychoanalyst and father-confessor, who steals every scene simply by off-handedly underplaying. A Woman's Vengance is a Hollywood product so skillfully put together that its multi-national cast needs no cumbersome explication. It's literate, verging on the sedate, keeping attention though subtle shifts rather than clamorous developments. In its sense of the malice festering under a cultivated facade of manners, A Woman's Vengeance calls to mind another country-house movie of the same year, Sign of the Ram.