The film is disarranged with standard Gothic paraphernalia: a spooky abandoned house, ghosts (perhaps real, perhaps imagined), peals of rolling thunder, prominently displayed kitchen knives
Liz is nonetheless in familiar territory, playing yet another rich, unoccupied, unwanted wife She's not a shrew this time, though, she's a cool, cunning lady who pretends to be unhinged, cooking up an elaborate display of madness She sees or thinks she seesa murder in the deserted house across the courtyardby which she hopes to entrap her straying husband and her faithless best friend There are clues throughout, but we aren't fully alerted to her masquerade until the end
Taylor's part is not a flattering one: she plays a woman who has been rejected by two husbands Her character's acting emphasizes Liz's recent penchant for doing a lot of acting herself Her show of neurosis, in fact, is too mannered to be consistently convincing She's best when, at the beginning, she's the serene upper-class wife and again, at the end, when she lashes out directly at her antagonists In the last reel, when we're upon her and can see the calm deliberation beneath the affected hysterics, she's especially appealing
Liz is nonetheless in familiar territory, playing yet another rich, unoccupied, unwanted wife She's not a shrew this time, though, she's a cool, cunning lady who pretends to be unhinged, cooking up an elaborate display of madness She sees or thinks she seesa murder in the deserted house across the courtyardby which she hopes to entrap her straying husband and her faithless best friend There are clues throughout, but we aren't fully alerted to her masquerade until the end
Taylor's part is not a flattering one: she plays a woman who has been rejected by two husbands Her character's acting emphasizes Liz's recent penchant for doing a lot of acting herself Her show of neurosis, in fact, is too mannered to be consistently convincing She's best when, at the beginning, she's the serene upper-class wife and again, at the end, when she lashes out directly at her antagonists In the last reel, when we're upon her and can see the calm deliberation beneath the affected hysterics, she's especially appealing