Wife-in-peril productions were popular in the '40s. Hitchcock scored home runs with Rebecca and Suspicion, while Ingrid Bergman earned her first Oscar for this creepy remake of a British thriller.
Bergman plays a young singer sent slowly mad by her heartless husband (Charles Boyer), who keeps her holed up in a house haunted by memories of her aunt's violent death. Director George Cukor conjures up an oppressive atmosphere, both leads impress and a 19-year-old Angela Lansbury is suitably vile as a cocky Cockernee housemaid. But it's not quite enough to cover up the script's yawning gaps in logic, while shoehorning in an American hero (Joseph Cotten) smacks of cynicism.
