El extraño amor de Martha Ivers

An engrossing and creative film-noir, "The Strange Love of Martha Ivers" offers an interesting and unpredictable story with quite a bit of commentary about its characters. Van Heflin gives a particularly memorable performance, with plenty of help from Barbara Stanwyck and a very young-looking Kirk Douglas.

The story is very well-conceived, showing first a tumultuous series of events in the youth of its main characters, and then showing how their adult lives are still shaped by things that happened long ago. The three child actors are all able to make their characters ring true with the adult versions played later by the stars, and the script makes good use of the opportunities that the setup offers.

The tension is built up skillfully, and it never lets up. Although the danger and the drama involving the characters is more than enough to carry a good movie, it also brings out plenty of observations about the characters' personalities and their decisions in life, and this adds additional depth to an already very interesting story.

"Don't look back, baby," says a man who knows his Gideon Bible, "You know what happened to Lot's wife." But her fate is mild compared to the torments of two people—and a third they draw into their web—who can never stop looking back to something that happened when they were children. What connects this melodrama with noir films like the perfectly named OUT OF THE PAST, THE KILLERS (in which the hero explains that he is doomed because, "I did something wrong, once"), and many others is the theme that one mistake, one "reckless moment," can seal your fate forever.

The three children are Sam Masterson, a streetwise kid from the wrong side of the tracks; Walter O'Neil, a timid, obedient boy whose father is ambitious for him; and Martha Ivers, the orphaned heiress to a steel mill, who lives miserably with her aunt (Judith Anderson, in Mrs. Danvers mode). On the fateful night, all three are in the house when Martha, driven over the edge (her aunt both insults her dead father, a mill hand, and beats her kitten!) whacks her aunt with her own cane and sends her tumbling to her death at the foot of a grand staircase. Walter's father sees his chance, and holding the threat of exposure over Martha's head, takes control of her fortune and later forces her to marry Walter. When, eighteen years later, Sam (who ran away night of the killing on a circus train) blows back into town, Martha and Walter fear he has returned to blackmail them with his knowledge; Walter also fears, rightly, that Martha and Sam still carry a torch for each other. The highly-charged triangle becomes a quadrangle with the addition of Toni Marachek, a young woman just out of jail whom Sam picks up and befriends.

THE STRANGE LOVE OF MARTHA IVERS is a conventional studio product, lacking the expressive camera-work or atmospheric settings that noir usually offers. Bombastic music deafens each emotional climax; women go to sleep with their glossy masks of makeup intact; obvious back-projection and poorly staged action sequences make the film look like a staged play. None of this really diminishes the movie, however, since its power comes from a smart script, especially from the complexity of characters and relationships. There is a strong affinity between Sam and Martha, both tough and poised and hard to read, while Toni and Walter are more vulnerable and obvious, driven by the simple motivation of love. But by the end it's clear that Martha and Walter have become twins, warped by their shared guilt (they both took part in prosecuting an innocent man who was hanged for the murder), while Sam and Toni share a fundamental decency and the capacity to look ahead to a fresh start.

Nice girl Toni is there to provide eye candy and a potential happy ending for Sam, but she gets a lot of screen time, too much in fact for her one-note character. Fans of Lizabeth Scott won't agree, but unless you find her particularly alluring, her scenes get a little tedious. Van Heflin is easy-going as Sam, the self-confident gambler who thinks he's seen it all, until he encounters Martha and Walter's toxic marriage. Heflin, though rather homely, brings a likable raffishness to the part, and his casual opportunism keeps you guessing about what he'll do next.

Kirk Douglas was never cast as such a weakling again (this was his debut film) but the mismatch works brilliantly. His intensity and powerful presence make his abject character fiercely compelling, instead of merely pathetic. A less imposing actor would come off as just a milquetoast; Douglas's manliness adds an interesting touch of perversity to his plight. His weakness is inside. Douglas captures perfectly Walter's insecurity and helpless jealousy, his cowardly use of his power (through Martha's influence, he has become District Attorney), his lame attempts to project confidence, his dependence on alcohol to salve his humiliation. He's not dumb; he knows that Martha would never have married him without the threat of exposure, but he clings to his feeble hold on her because he loves her desperately. You can't help feeling sorry for him, especially when Martha accuses him and his father of coming after her money like leeches, and he cries out, "All I wanted was you!"

Then there's Martha, the mysterious center of the film. Barbara Stanwyck has an amazing ability to draw the audience to her side and at the same time make one's blood run cold. She's in her prime here as a glamorous businesswoman (with steely satisfaction she shows off the improvements she made to the factory, "all by myself") who conveys total control, yet feels trapped in a life she loathes. Her hardness is at once glorious and chilling; she controls her husband like a cruel hypnotist. When she breaks down in tears and tells Sam that she has been the victim all along, powerless and frightened, like Sam you're moved but not quite sure you believe her. Even at the end, the ambiguity is unresolved: how much is Martha the victim, how much the villain? Walter says it's no one's fault; it's just the way things are; it's what people will do to get the things they want. The scenes between Martha and Walter are the highlight of the film, saturated with a poisonous mixture of love and hate, tinged with sado-masochism ("Even pain at your hands…" Walter sighs when she puts iodine on his cut hand). This pact with desire, fear, greed and guilt is the spectacle of ruin--the Sodom and Gomorrah--that prompts Sam to warn Toni, "Don't look back, baby; don't ever look back."

This is a well-written, well-acted, thoroughly absorbing film noir. The always-great Barbara Stanwyck is at her sultriest as Martha, and Van Heflin is incredibly sexy and masculine as Sam. Watching this movie, you wouldn't think Kirk Douglas, who plays the weak-willed, alcoholic Walter, would soon become a bigger star than Heflin and play the tough, romantic hero parts like Sam Masterson. Douglas excelled at those parts, as he did with a very different type of part in this movie, but I can't help thinking that if Heflin had gotten more of those roles, he would have been just as big a star. Husky-voiced Lizabeth Scott rounds out the star foursome nicely as Toni, a wrong-side-of-the-tracks girl who's been burned by trusting the wrong men. This movie, more than most of its era, trades in shades of gray; the "bad" characters, Martha and Walter, have reasons for the evil they do, while the "good" characters, Sam and Toni, are no angels--he's a decorated war hero, but he makes his living by gambling and once killed a man in self-defense, while she just got out of jail. This complexity adds to the film's interest. The film also provides a believable depiction of small-town life; it's realistic, no Bedford Falls. The flashback portraying several of the characters as teenagers has the spark of reality as well. Highly recommended.

Odd title to this movie. There's never any love in the Martha Ivers' circle. She never got enough chance in early life to become acquainted with the real article. Her dye is already cast by the time the old boyhood friend shows up again. You only get to actual love with Sam and Toni, or especially Sam for Toni. He's a sensitive and caring fellow. Martha needed his influence for that reason. Maybe he could have helped her be human had he been able to stay around early on.

I had trouble focusing on the unfoldings at the beginning due to recognition of the aunt, Judith Anderson. Why, that's Mrs. Danvers from "Rebecca." Same creepy type of woman.

**Possible spoiler paragraph** It is interesting to watch this again with what you learn from the first viewing. About Sam, that is, and what he doesn't know. You watch it the first time with everyone thinking that Sam is back to cash in on what he knows about the aunt's demise. You know better than that, that the return is accidental and the revisit spontaneous. But you have no reason not to think he saw what happened on the stairs. Then, he seems pretty indifferent to the event as he reacquaints. You think, well, he doesn't care. But then we learn that he left the house before it happened. Now, watch it again with that in mind.

Everyone notices Kirk Douglas. He's so attractive you wish for him to be a more virile character. Didn't have to wait very long for that to come about. There were a couple more weak guy roles, and then he took off with mastery. And, a case could be made for it requiring ability to play a weak person as well as a stronger one.

Van Heflin - Something very attractive about him. He was almost always a guy with inner stability, aiding the balance of those around him, usually women. To me, that inner quality WAS his attractiveness. He's the one that could always walk into a mess and immediately start sorting it out.

Lizabeth Scott had a certain strong allure that seemed could have gone best with a stronger character. I don't have much patience with the pathetic drama she dishes out here. Those weepy, tragic type dames showed up a lot in the streetwise pictures of the era, and I always found them irritating. Usually, they have some guy like Heflin trying to bolster them up because some bully type is grinding them down. If you ask me, that type is asking to be ground. "Good grief; give it a rest, sister," I say to the screen. Oh well, nowadays we can fast forward.

Barbara Stanwyck is at the height of her beauty here or maybe one of her more glamorous roles. She seemed slated to be an evil woman or remembered most for those roles. In contrast, I recall her in an early picture called "The Mad Miss Manton," in which she is an airhead bounding around all over the place. That was really enjoyable, but it was a type that she would naturally move away from to go on to other things. But she was really fun to watch in that.

If you don't mind walking on the dark side a bit, this is an interesting one to watch.

Martha Ivers, a young girl under the guardianship of her grandmother played by Judith Anderson, tries often to run away, but is brought back every time. Grandma is one powerful autocratic and twisted old woman. One night after Grandma kills the girl's cat, she kills her. Her tutor's son sees the deed and now has blackmail power. Young Martha also thinks someone else has seen the deed, young Sam Masterson who she has a yen for. He actually skedaddled before witnessing anything.

Flash forward several years. Now everyone is grown up. Barbara Stanwyck is Martha and she's married the tutor's son played by Kirk Douglas in his film debut. He's also the District Attorney. And the main action of the film begins as grown up Sam Masterson who is played by Van Heflin comes back to his home town. He's treated rather strangely and it takes him a while to figure out why.

Life has a funny way of working out and Stanwyck has essentially turned into Anderson. Heflin is no real hero here either, he's quite willing to engage in some blackmail. But he's redeemed somewhat by the love of another girl from the wrong side of the tracks, Lizabeth Scott.

The film is memorable for two reasons, the power packed performance of Barbara Stanwyck and the debut of Kirk Douglas. This is a choice Barbara Stanwyck role, a powerful ruthless woman who'll do anything to keep and protect what's hers.

It's odd that Kirk Douglas makes his debut as a weakling, but even stranger that the dynamism that is his screen trademark is so well hidden in this portrayal. This part isn't exactly Spartacus. But Kirk is one capable player.

Heflin and Scott do well in their respective parts, but even though she's only on the screen for the first 15 minutes the one you won't forget is Judith Anderson. Seeing Stanwyck with her machinations later on, you wonder what must have made Anderson such a twisted human being.

The Strange Loves of Martha Ivers is a well plotted melodrama that does credit to all involved.