The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946)

Martha Ivers was orphaned young and taken in by her wealthy aunt (Judith Anderson) who wanted to mold her into the kind of cold matriarch that could run the family empire (Iverstown, PA and the associated factory).  Martha tried to run away with a local boy but the police found her and took her back to her aunts, the two then have a dispute about a cat, and Martha accidentally on purpose causes the old lady's death. Martha's tutor (Roman Bohnen) takes custody as a sort of regent, and in a kind of blackmail more or less forces Martha to marry his son Walter, who had been long smitten with her.

Flash forward from Judith's death in 1928 to the present day (1946). A grown Martha Ivers (Barbara Stanwyck) has herself become a cold, powerful matriarch. Under her leadership Ivers Industry's has grown six fold, and her husband (Kirk Douglas, in his first screen role) is the district attorney, and if Martha can help it, bound for much larger things politically. Walter alas is unhappy, he drinks, cuts corners, and is tragically in love with his wife who is cold to him and has taken many lovers over the years. The boy who young Martha once tried to run away with is now grown and has taken the form of Van Heflin. Heflin stumbles unintentionally into Iverstown (the old car trouble plot device), where he meets Lizabeth Scott, they become quite taken with each other. Lizabeth is in a little legal trouble so Heflin goes to visit his old friend Walter and see if he can't work it out. Walter thinks Heflin knows about the circumstances of Judith's death and wishes to blackmail him and Martha. Martha wants to take Heflin as a lover, Heflin kind of wants too to do that, but then there's Lizabeth, and what about poor Walter? That Miss Ivers is pretty deep in some strange love.

Anyway this is a real good movie, kind of a classic in some circles. Heflin's good but the Douglas/Stanwyck dynamic is what fascinates. A strong first performance by Douglas, he keeps up well with Stanwyck who was already very established at this point. Lizabeth Scott, a Lauren Bacall type, nuff said. A fair amount of psychological complexity, a noir, but not a particularly dark one, mostly character study stuff. It's in public domain so you can see it just about anywhere. Worthwhile. ***