**SPOILERS** At their big wedding ceremony just as both the groom David McLean, Robert Ryan, and the bride Ellen Ewing, Claudtte Colbert, are about to say "I Do" this party, or wedding, crasher pops up out of nowhere. The crasher then announces that Ellen is already married and that he should know since he was the best man at her wedding. Giving out some information about what he knows about Ellen and her husband a Mr. Lucian Randell, David Barbour, the crasher takes off like a house on fire never to be heard or seen again. Thats until very late in he film when his reasons for putting on this strange surprising spectacle become very evident.
The priest is reluctant to continue with the marriage ceremony when what the crasher said checks out after a quick phone call by the town of Riverview's District Attorney Eric Lowell,Paul Kelly, where the supposed wedding took place. It turns out from the towns record department that it's a fact that a Ellen Ewing and Lucian Randell were indeed married there on March 21 just as the wedding gate crasher said before he took off!
Left high and dry on their wedding day both David and Ellen decide to travel to Riverview and get to the bottom of this mystery so they can get on with their lives as a happily married couple. At Riverview it turns out that not only do the records check out that Ellen is married to a Mr. Randell but that everyone there recognizes her as being married to him! Staying at the Shallman Hotel Ellen is even more shocked when the maid Leah, Vivian Vance, not only recognizes her as staying there, in fact in the very same room that she's now in with David, with Lucian Randell on their wedding night but also has a gold pin, that belonged to Ellen's late mother, that Ellen supposedly gave her as a tip!
It just get's too much for David and Ellen with everyone that they talk to in town remembering Ellen and Mr. Randell being married there and finally decide to see this Randell for themselves. Finding out that Randell hangs out at this local jazz club both Ellen and David go to see him and get to the bottom of this mess once in for all. At the club Randell comes up the a shocked and befuddled Ellen, to the annoyance of David, and chats with her as if he and her were married to each other. He then invites Ellen to go into a private room to talk things over as David is left behind paralyzed with his jaw almost dropping to the floor. A moment later behind closed doors a shot rings out and when the musicians and David rush in they find Randall dead from a bullet wound and Ellen standing there in a state of shock with a gun that belongs to her, the murder weapon, at her feet!
Arrested for her "husbands" murder Ellen goes into a deep depression that has her institutionalized but all the psychological and medical tests on her shows that Ellen is total incapable of committing a violent act! If this is true who was in the room with her and Randell to gun Randell down? Was it Ellen or did Randall who seemed so happy and gay at the time, commit suicide? Why if anyone did murder Randell why didn't Ellen see it?
The movie "The Secret Fury" gets more and more stranger as it goes along and as Ellen slowly loses her mind and grip on reality. David goes back to Riverview to find out the truth about his future wife and circumstances of Randell's death and the truth turns out to be even stranger then fiction or what we were lead to believe that it was up until then!
The mind is not only a terrible thing to waste but even more a terrible thing to play around with and manipulate. This is what happens in "The Secret Fury" with poor Ellen being driven insane and into a mental institution hopefully, in the mind of the person who's driving Ellen mad, for the rest of her life. The real murderous psychotic in the movie is someone who no one, especially Ellen, would ever suspect and his reasons for doing these terrible things to Ellen are even more insane that he is!
The killer made one big mistake in his subconscious and innocent quirks that are at first totally overlooked by everyone, including Ellen, in the film. It just happened that as Ellen became more and more psychotic, or paranoid, her subconscious mind picked up these quirks and putting two and two together she soon realized who the person is.
Getting the jump on Ellen the killer ,who also picked up Ellen picking up his very unusual mannerisms, quickly goes into attack mode revealing the real reason for his actions, cold blooded and naked revenge, but not for what she but her late father did to him. This sets off the final nail-biting scene where David comes to Ellen's rescue without knowing what exactly is going on and who exactly is trying to murder her until the very last, and most exciting, moment in the movie.
The priest is reluctant to continue with the marriage ceremony when what the crasher said checks out after a quick phone call by the town of Riverview's District Attorney Eric Lowell,Paul Kelly, where the supposed wedding took place. It turns out from the towns record department that it's a fact that a Ellen Ewing and Lucian Randell were indeed married there on March 21 just as the wedding gate crasher said before he took off!
Left high and dry on their wedding day both David and Ellen decide to travel to Riverview and get to the bottom of this mystery so they can get on with their lives as a happily married couple. At Riverview it turns out that not only do the records check out that Ellen is married to a Mr. Randell but that everyone there recognizes her as being married to him! Staying at the Shallman Hotel Ellen is even more shocked when the maid Leah, Vivian Vance, not only recognizes her as staying there, in fact in the very same room that she's now in with David, with Lucian Randell on their wedding night but also has a gold pin, that belonged to Ellen's late mother, that Ellen supposedly gave her as a tip!
It just get's too much for David and Ellen with everyone that they talk to in town remembering Ellen and Mr. Randell being married there and finally decide to see this Randell for themselves. Finding out that Randell hangs out at this local jazz club both Ellen and David go to see him and get to the bottom of this mess once in for all. At the club Randell comes up the a shocked and befuddled Ellen, to the annoyance of David, and chats with her as if he and her were married to each other. He then invites Ellen to go into a private room to talk things over as David is left behind paralyzed with his jaw almost dropping to the floor. A moment later behind closed doors a shot rings out and when the musicians and David rush in they find Randall dead from a bullet wound and Ellen standing there in a state of shock with a gun that belongs to her, the murder weapon, at her feet!
Arrested for her "husbands" murder Ellen goes into a deep depression that has her institutionalized but all the psychological and medical tests on her shows that Ellen is total incapable of committing a violent act! If this is true who was in the room with her and Randell to gun Randell down? Was it Ellen or did Randall who seemed so happy and gay at the time, commit suicide? Why if anyone did murder Randell why didn't Ellen see it?
The movie "The Secret Fury" gets more and more stranger as it goes along and as Ellen slowly loses her mind and grip on reality. David goes back to Riverview to find out the truth about his future wife and circumstances of Randell's death and the truth turns out to be even stranger then fiction or what we were lead to believe that it was up until then!
The mind is not only a terrible thing to waste but even more a terrible thing to play around with and manipulate. This is what happens in "The Secret Fury" with poor Ellen being driven insane and into a mental institution hopefully, in the mind of the person who's driving Ellen mad, for the rest of her life. The real murderous psychotic in the movie is someone who no one, especially Ellen, would ever suspect and his reasons for doing these terrible things to Ellen are even more insane that he is!
The killer made one big mistake in his subconscious and innocent quirks that are at first totally overlooked by everyone, including Ellen, in the film. It just happened that as Ellen became more and more psychotic, or paranoid, her subconscious mind picked up these quirks and putting two and two together she soon realized who the person is.
Getting the jump on Ellen the killer ,who also picked up Ellen picking up his very unusual mannerisms, quickly goes into attack mode revealing the real reason for his actions, cold blooded and naked revenge, but not for what she but her late father did to him. This sets off the final nail-biting scene where David comes to Ellen's rescue without knowing what exactly is going on and who exactly is trying to murder her until the very last, and most exciting, moment in the movie.