This film starts - and ends - outdoors, with meek and mild artist and 'good husband', John Hamilton (Alan Ladd) sketching away. A bunch of friendly local scamps cluster around him, although the stiff and puffy Ladd doesn't seem to actually have an easy rapport with them.
Returning home he finds 'ogre', local sheriff Garretty, with his feet up on the table. Garretty starts belittling John as soon as he enters the room. He's waiting for John's wife Linda to come downstairs. When she does, the movie immediately kicks up a gear. Linda (Carolyn Jones) is alcoholic, unfaithful, vindictive and lying - she has no scruples about presenting an accidental bruise to a party of moneyed locals as being evidence that hubby is a wife-beater. Hubby, being stoic and self-effacing, says nothing to deny it.
Tired of the rustic scene and longing to return to the bright lights of the big city, Linda puts her energy into trying to persuade John that he is not a real artist and that he should take the art-teacher job offer - with guaranteed high wage - that she has brought about through her feminine wiles. Yes, Linda is 'bad wife' but she's still the most attractive and interesting character in the film. Pity then that she gets killed off pretty quickly and poor old John, returning from his visit to New York (where he's turned down the jobb offer) finds Linda missing and the community suspicious.
The film now presents us with a doubt-inducing scene where John finds a bill for cement, rings the supplier to query it and is told that he, Mr Hamilton, did indeed ring in the order some days ago. Going to the woodshed he finds fresh cementwork under a pile of logs. Hmm... is this film taking a dark turn; is he a split-personality, one persona being capable of murder while the other has no memory of the deed?
But no, the film doesn't go down that road. Instead it goes down a patently fairy tale road where John, due to the sudden arrival of a Connecticut version of a western lynch mob, has to make a run for it and is rescued in the woods by small but resourceful Emily who literally takes him by the hand and leads him to a secret cave, which is presided over by another little girl, who is called Angel!
The woods are scoured by cops and posse but the cave must be magical because none of those locals know about it! Here John can hide out in relative ease (the pursuers thankfully having no tracker dogs) plotting meanwhile to find out who really did murder Linda and employing his elfin helpers in various ways to enable him to visit the house and find Linda's stuff and using his magical skills to engineer a trap to flush out the murderer and culminating - Columbo-style - in a complicated showdown involving a reel-to-reel tape recorder.
If it wasn't that the adults talk openly in front of the kids about Linda's murder and even carry out the (blanket-covered) corpse in front of them, one might be forgiven for mistaking this for a Hayley Mills-type Disney adventure!
The murderer turns out to be, somewhat unexpectedly, not obvious villain - older bossy British guy - but prince-like younger heart-throbby guy. With 'bad wife' dead and removed from woodshed, and 'bad husband' magically wafted away (prison/execution?) 'good wife' can now unite with 'good hubby' and enjoy a true fairy tale happy ending, featuring good hubby painting, good wife supplying, not only lunch to elfin helpers but newspaper article to hubby, showing that he has also won crock of gold, that is, the praise and recognition of the art world. Cue to scamps, now many more of them, happily whooping and playing - The End.
Returning home he finds 'ogre', local sheriff Garretty, with his feet up on the table. Garretty starts belittling John as soon as he enters the room. He's waiting for John's wife Linda to come downstairs. When she does, the movie immediately kicks up a gear. Linda (Carolyn Jones) is alcoholic, unfaithful, vindictive and lying - she has no scruples about presenting an accidental bruise to a party of moneyed locals as being evidence that hubby is a wife-beater. Hubby, being stoic and self-effacing, says nothing to deny it.
Tired of the rustic scene and longing to return to the bright lights of the big city, Linda puts her energy into trying to persuade John that he is not a real artist and that he should take the art-teacher job offer - with guaranteed high wage - that she has brought about through her feminine wiles. Yes, Linda is 'bad wife' but she's still the most attractive and interesting character in the film. Pity then that she gets killed off pretty quickly and poor old John, returning from his visit to New York (where he's turned down the jobb offer) finds Linda missing and the community suspicious.
The film now presents us with a doubt-inducing scene where John finds a bill for cement, rings the supplier to query it and is told that he, Mr Hamilton, did indeed ring in the order some days ago. Going to the woodshed he finds fresh cementwork under a pile of logs. Hmm... is this film taking a dark turn; is he a split-personality, one persona being capable of murder while the other has no memory of the deed?
But no, the film doesn't go down that road. Instead it goes down a patently fairy tale road where John, due to the sudden arrival of a Connecticut version of a western lynch mob, has to make a run for it and is rescued in the woods by small but resourceful Emily who literally takes him by the hand and leads him to a secret cave, which is presided over by another little girl, who is called Angel!
The woods are scoured by cops and posse but the cave must be magical because none of those locals know about it! Here John can hide out in relative ease (the pursuers thankfully having no tracker dogs) plotting meanwhile to find out who really did murder Linda and employing his elfin helpers in various ways to enable him to visit the house and find Linda's stuff and using his magical skills to engineer a trap to flush out the murderer and culminating - Columbo-style - in a complicated showdown involving a reel-to-reel tape recorder.
If it wasn't that the adults talk openly in front of the kids about Linda's murder and even carry out the (blanket-covered) corpse in front of them, one might be forgiven for mistaking this for a Hayley Mills-type Disney adventure!
The murderer turns out to be, somewhat unexpectedly, not obvious villain - older bossy British guy - but prince-like younger heart-throbby guy. With 'bad wife' dead and removed from woodshed, and 'bad husband' magically wafted away (prison/execution?) 'good wife' can now unite with 'good hubby' and enjoy a true fairy tale happy ending, featuring good hubby painting, good wife supplying, not only lunch to elfin helpers but newspaper article to hubby, showing that he has also won crock of gold, that is, the praise and recognition of the art world. Cue to scamps, now many more of them, happily whooping and playing - The End.