The Sign of the Ram

From the wheelchair to which the actress was confined as the result of a hunting accident three years earlier, Susan Peters builds a controlled, subtle, expert performance that's the centerpiece of John Sturges' The Sign of the Ram. As the paralyzed young stepmother of three children living in a great Gothic pile on the Cornish coast, she conceals her frustrations under a mask of serenity (she writes mawkish poems for a London newspaper under the name Faith Hope) only to unleash them in sly, vindictive manipulation.

The wheelchair may render her immobile, but her hands, restless and expressive, are ever on the move: posturing with cigarettes and lighter, picking out waltzes on the keyboard, plying her pen, knitting and purling. They seem to have a life of their own – a slithery, reptilian life, fueled by the cold instincts of the brainstem alone.

The cast around her pulls its weight, too, in particular husband Alexander Knox, best remembered as the president in Darryl Zanuck's overblown biopic Wilson; Phyllis Thaxter as a hired secretary/companion; and Peggy Ann Garner, as an adolescent girl whose warped loyalty to Peters almost has irreversible consequences. Sturges maintains the pace, a brooding andante, while Burnett Guffey coaxes the most out of the labyrinthine house and crashing Irish Sea.

But it's Peter's movie, and her last (she died four years later). When her machinations come to light, with the fog rolling in, Sturges devises a superb final scene – a cinematic `schlussgesang,' as they called those overwrought soprano passages that rang down the curtain in German opera. She deserved nothing less.

Susan Peters stars as a mentally imbalanced matriarch of a rich English family. As part of the back story, you learn that the man of the house, Mallory (Alexander Knox), remarried a very young woman, Leah (Peters). Shortly after the marriage, Leah is severely injured in an accident and she is paralyzed. On the outside, she is a very happy and well-adjusted woman despite her being stuck in a wheelchair. However, very slowly during the course of the film you start to see that there is a hidden malevolence--a malevolence that is manipulative and just plain nasty. But, because she does all this cleverly, it takes folks a long time to realize what a horrid person she has become. See it yourself to see how wicked she becomes as well as what comes of all this.

This is an interesting film because in real life, Peters really was wheelchair-bound. A short time before making "The Sign of the Ram", she was accidentally shot and could no longer walk. This Columbia picture is the first and last film she made following her tragic accident. Even more tragic is what happened to Peters' life in the subsequent years.

As for the film itself, it's got a great setup and the first 85% of it captured my attention very well. It was a great idea and was a bit reminiscent of "Leave Her to Heaven"--another film about a VERY twisted wife who manipulates and kills to get what she wants. Unfortunately, the resolution to the film seemed to come much too prematurely and although good, the ending COULD have been much better. Good but a bit lacking.

SUSAN PETERS had been an Oscar nominee already(RANDOM HARVEST) and a star-on-the-rise when a hunting accident led to paralysis. But this gifted young performer did not stop acting. Despite difficulties, she starred in THE SIGN OF THE RAM and gave a remarkable performance. As a manipulative, youthful stepmother, she creates dangerous problems for all those around her. Ms. Peters' performance is all the more striking, because it is not the kind of sympathetic role one might expect from a true-life actress in pain. She blithely moves from decent, lovely, caring woman to a woman desperately seeking control of all those around her. Her growth in the characterization is powerful, and she deserved award consideration. Everything else in the film works well -- from the work of Alexander Knox, Peggy Ann Garner, Phyllis Thaxter, Allen Roberts, Dame May Whitty, etal. to the cinematography of the cliffside house, to the art direction, music, etal. John Sturges' direction manages to avoid the pitfalls of melodrama as much as possible. But it is Susan Peters' charisma that makes this an important, albeit forgotten, work of art. She would go on to touring the country in THE BARRETTS OF WIMPOLE STREET and onto TV in the MISS SUSAN series, but she deserved further critical acclaim. This film should be given more prominence; it is a strong work starring a fine actress.

The big screen career of Susan Peters came to a farewell with this film The Sign Of The Ram. It was her only big screen appearance after the tragic hunting accident that left her a paraplegic. The only other performance like it was that of Christopher Reeve when he did a TV remake of Rear Window after his accident that left him a quadriplegic.

Certainly both Peters and Reeve brought a dimension to their roles that wouldn't be possible any other way. Peters plays the paralyzed wife of Alexander Knox, his second wife to be sure. Some years back she saved the lives of her two stepchildren while they were swimming, but at the cost of her own mobility as her back was smashed against rocks.

The kids have grown up and are played by Ross Ford and Peggy Ann Garner. Both are contemplating matrimony and Peters with her manipulation tries to sabotage things.

In one of his earliest directing assignments, John Sturges kept Peters tightly in check and the result was a beautifully controlled and mannered performance. There's so much beneath the surface of a woman who has gotten kudos for the way she's handled her accident. But we only see what Sturges and Peters let us see.

The title role refers to Susan Peters astrological sign of Aries and people who are born under that sign are said to be in tight control of their emotions and possessed of an unconquerable will and stubborn fixation about any goal they want, good or evil. Peters is determined that no one will ever have real happiness as she feels she cannot, but especially those kids whom she gave her legs for.

All around the cast delivers well and Sturges did capture the gloomy mood on the Cornish sea shore where the story is set. But Peters is absolutely unforgettable in The Sign Of The Ram.

Since I was a teenager, I loved this movie! It had just the right amount of mystery, intrigue and drama. I loved the study of a controlling, manipulative woman, who was wheel-chair bound, who caused much heartache and death. I didn't know until recently that Susan Peters was actually wheel-chair bound from an automobile accident, I believe. I have been trying to find this movie to purchase it for my home for ages, but no luck! I also wanted to find out if the movie was based on a novel, and what the name is. I thought it was one of the best movies I ever saw, and loved the scenery, with the waves crashing on the shore. I have fond memories of it, and would like to relive them. My horoscope sign, incidentally is THE SIGN OF THE RAM! I don't believe the movie is still available, and would hope that Ted Turner or whoever owns the rights would reprint the movie, so that we could buy it!