The Late Edwina Black

"The Late Edwina Black" from 1951 stars Geraldine Fitzgerald, a favorite of mine, and David Farrar.

The story takes place in Victorian England. Gregory, Edwina Black's husband, is a schoolteacher. Edwina herself seems to be an invalid and independently wealthy. Her companion from childhood is Ellen (Jean Cadell).

The other person helping with Mrs. Black is Elizabeth. Elizabeth happens to be in love with Gregory, and he with her, and Ellen knows it.

One day Mrs. Black is found dead, and while at first it seems like a heart attack, it appears she was poisoned. A police inspector (Roland Culver) comes around as soon as it is learned how Mrs. Black died. His questions annoy Gregory and upset Edwina.

Before you know it, the two of them are suspecting one another. Elizabeth believes Edwina's spirit is still present and trying to destroy both of them.

Good movie, good mystery, with fine acting. It really does keep you wondering. The atmosphere is terrific, mostly inside a big, dark, gloomy house, which is perfect for the plot.

David Farrar was quite handsome but, like Dirk Bogarde before him, just wasn't cut out for Hollywood. While Bogarde's career in Europe continued and expanded after Hollywood, Farrar could not regain his momentum. He finally retired. Recommended.

Geraldine Fitzgerald gives another of her usual fine, understated performances as Elizabeth Grahame, a maid, who may or may not be a murderess. This is, however, a very unusual thriller which starts with the death of Edwina Black. Everyone is suitably shocked but when an autopsy is requested it proves that she was poisoned. It seems that Mrs. Black was a hard and bullying mistress and the villagers think life will be much easier at the house now she is dead. Mr. Black (David Farrar) and Elizabeth have fallen in love but there are some red herrings that pop up - a travel book to Italy that Elizabeth had ordered a month before Edwina's death is innocently explained. She is convinced a black cloud hangs over the house and as time goes on begins to be eaten up with suspicion and jealousy and is slowly consumed by Edwina's personality.

Jean Cadell is excellent as the aloof housekeeper. You never realise, until the end of the film, "who done it" - as everyone seems to be acting so innocent!! Geraldine Fitzgerald was quite a rebel - she was often suspended because of films she refused to do. She returned to England for a time in the late 40s. She starred as an alcoholic murderess in "So Evil, So Young" and "The Late Edwina Black" before she returned to the States.

The woman is dead but more alive than anyone else in the film, while they are all kept busy by her paranormal terror, using her life-long housemaid for an instrument. Jean Cadell is the housemaid and splendid as a formidable dinosaur. David Farrar is the husband and widower of the deceased and a victim of her terror for being just a poor school-teacher, while she was rich enough to own him. Geraldine Fitzgerald is the other victim as the secretary at the mercy of her whims of cruelty against her for being in love with her husband. So all have motives for disposing of the bed-ridden hag except Jean Cadell, who keeps her haunting and alive in the house after her death. Roland Culver is a very prudent police inspector who has to investigate a possible crime and who enjoys a cup of tea any time all around the clock. It's a great chamber play of tremendous passions with many outbursts of exploding tempers. Besides the tight and intensive dialog and the acute drama, it's a very beautiful film in a perfectly romantic environment in a great villa with a park and garden and a greenhouse and ideal music by Allan Gray. Everything combines to form a perfect domestic thriller of critical relationships driven to the brink of self-destruction, and nothing is missing to make it perfect. The only objection would be that it is too short - "the shortest full-length film I ever watched" as one reviewer aptly summed up his experience.

This rather claustrophobic British mystery opens on the death of a chronically ill woman, Edwina Black during Victorian/Edwardian times. She is a wealthy woman, and leaves behind a large estate. We quickly learn that Edwina's widower, Gregory, and Edwina's companion, Elizabeth (Geraldine Fitzgerald) are lovers and plan to sell the house and move to London as soon as possible, marry, and honeymoon in Venice. Both Gregory and Elizabeth have no money of their own. There is also a housekeeper/nurse who has been with Edwina for years who sees what Gregory and Elizabeth have been up to, and is suspicious of their involvement in Edwina's death. Soon her suspicions have her wagging her tongue to the village folks, and Scotland Yard is brought in to investigate Edwina's death. Post mortem shows she died of arsenic poisoning, not the heart attack originally thought to be the cause of death. And so the. Inspector (Roland Culver) begins digging, and Gregory and Elizabeth are stuck there in this dark house full of bad memories until the investigation is over.

This film is rather claustrophobic, with almost all of the action taking place in the large Black estate. You never actually SEE Edwina. The short time she was alive she was behind the door of her bedroom. So all we know about her we get from listening to the three people who lived with her. From the beginning Elizabeth has felt Edwina is haunting the house, looking for a way to get back at them. And on top of it all, now both Gregory and Elizabeth are wondering if the other actually did poison Edwina, and would they be next if the actual murderer wanted to hang the killing on them.

Roland Culver is very good as the inspector. Where do all of these British films come up with such thorough cops with nerves of steel and great observation powers? For once, this is a film that works for Geraldine Fitzgerald. I never felt that Warner Brothers quite knew what to do with her. I'd recommend it.

The Obsessed is a nice example of English noir and of the murder mysteries they do so well and with such style. It's a wonderful case study on how suspicious minds can mess with your head.

Schoolmaster David Farrar's wife who's a rich sickly soul is given arsenic poisoning and that brings Scotland Yard in with Inspector Roland Culver. Farrar has been carrying on for some time with Geraldine Fitzgerald who is the wife's companion.

The bulk of the film is spent with Farrar and Fitzgerald each thinking the other did it and trying to keep their relationship intact. Housekeeper Jean Cadell, a nasty old soul is sure it was one of both.

A whole lot of emotions come into play with the scenes of the two leads often at the same time, hope, fear, anger, suspicion all fueled by the wife's poisoning.

As is usual the wise Scotland Yard inspector with some forensic help sorts it all out.

Great acting especially from the two leads.