Il sorriso della Gioconda

Rachel Kempson is the bedridden, whining wife of rich Charles Boyer. She complains about everything and everyone, and only Mildred Natwick, as her man-hating nurse, seems to sympathize with her. Boyer does what he can in a weary, dutiful manner, but takes pleasure in flirting with next-door neighbor Jessica Tandy on the subject of modern art. He's also got Ann Blyth as an 18-year-old mistress. Then Kempson dies, Boyer marries his pregnant mistress almost immediately, and Miss Natwick insists on an autopsy. It turns out the dead woman was poisoned, and Boyer is on trial for murder.

I thought the first half of this movie was fabulous, with a cast that played it to the hilt, particularly Mildred Natwick, so vilely self-righteous. The problem for me lay in the second half, because I picked out the murderer as soon as the death scene was described, and Hardwicke's pick-pick-picking at the scabs of the other character's souls, beautifully written by Aldous Huxley, and performed though it was, seemed to me long-winded.

That's the problem when you figure out a mystery well before the end, motive, method and opportunity; you spend the time wondering how everyone in the movie (or book) can be so blind. So I spent my time reworking it as a stage play, wondering about the bare minimum of sets. I made it four.