Alma Negra

Widowed Ann Todd (Olivia) returns from Jamaica from her Missionary work and smoking loads of ganja to live out her life in her Kensington house where she rents a room to prudish busy-body Muriel Aked (Miss Shoebridge). On her trip back to the UK, she made friends with thief Ray Milland (Mike) who now shows up at her house looking for lodgings. She is unaware of his past and takes him in, but he has ulterior motives. He flatters and charms her until she falls in love with him and agrees to go along with his plans to blackmail the household of Todd's wealthy school friend Geraldine Fitzgerald (Susan) who is married to the bullying and socially-aspiring Raymond Huntley (Henry). However, things don't go to plan…..

The film develops at a leisurely pace and it seems a bit too long, but it is worth it for the final third when the tension starts to increase, and I certainly did not expect the final outcome when Todd and Milland meet up to make their getaway. I found it to be a satisfying conclusion which may leave you on a bit of a downer but it is effective melodrama.

The acting is good with a special mention to Ann Todd. She convinces as a vulnerable widow as well as a broken-hearted woman who is out for revenge. Milland's girlfriend Moira Lister (Kitty) also does well in one of the smaller roles and she is crucial to the way the story pans out in the end.

There is an atmospheric setting of Victorian London and the story is based on a true incident which all adds to the interest. It's a film that is worth seeing if only as a warning against being unfaithful in love. Don't expect forgiveness.

... since it could refer to both or either main characters Olivia Harwood (Ann Todd) and Mark Bellis (Ray Milland). The two outwardly seem as different as possible. They meet on a ship voyage from Jamaica to Britain when Olivia nurses Mark through a bout of malaria. She is penniless other than for a small property she owns in London and has been recently widowed. Her late husband, a missionary, died of malaria himself after the two had served in Jamaica for several years. Mark is a con man on the run, and out of funds he reluctantly has headed back to London - where he is also wanted by the law - to find those funds and get out of British controlled territory altogether.

At first Mark sees Olivia as just another mark for his cons and uses her attraction to him as a means of control. His actual girlfriend is a rather talkative floozy - Kitty - that he can only take in small doses. He does seem to prefer the quiet demeanor of Olivia, at least when he's got his thinking - or should I say plotting - cap on. However, Olivia begins to really enjoy the art of the con as taught to her by Mark and becomes an apt and inventive pupil. Their joint mark - an old school girl friend of Olivia's, the foolishly trusting Susan, played by Geraldine Fitzgerald, who is married to an adviser to the Queen. Olivia seems somewhat bitter that her life has turned out so impoverished when she was the brightest girl at school while the dim-witted Susan has the world at her feet through the accident of marriage. She uses this perceived inequitable outcome as justification for her actions.

Mark's feelings then become somewhat confused. He begins to have actual feelings for Olivia as he begins to realize that she is as cunning and lethal as he - she just needed a push to get her to have the courage of her lack of convictions.

This one has many interesting twists and turns, however do remember that this is a British production and is therefore probably going to seem somewhat understated for American fans of 40's noir. If you can understand that I think you'll like this one a great deal. I know I did.

One of those 40's/50's movies where everyone looks gorgeous and the acting is so subdued you'd think the cast was sleepwalking. Still, its a good psychological character study, and I kept watching just to find out what was going to happen.

I've casually caught this oldie on a regional network and remained very positively surprised: this movie is a little masterpiece, a misknown jewel of Hollywood false english style and probably the most underrated of the "flamboyant" melodramas of the period. A compelling psychological study for its time, with an absolutely outstanding Ann Todd(I've seen her in "The Paradine case" and sincerely I didn't expect such a performance from her). Both Milland and Fitzgerald, moreover, provide a strong support and the soundtrack is very compelling (if somewhere excessive).

Joseph Shearing (a pseudonym) was a woman novelist specializing in tales based on actual murder cases. Her novel AIRING IN A CLOSED CARRIAGE is based on the murder of James Maybrick, presumably by his wife Florence in 1889. SO EVIL MY LOVE is based on an earlier poisoning case, the death (in 1876) of Charles Delauney Turner Bravo, a wealthy barrister, at his home "The Priory" in Balham, England. It is a murder that was never really settled. Although doubts remain as to James Maybrick being a victim of murder or accident, Florence was convicted after a controversial trial, and then got her sentence reduced. In the Bravo case, suspicion fell on his wife, on the wife's close friend, and on an elderly doctor who had an earlier affair with the wife. Nothing was really determined. Ms Shearing has opted for the close friend (in real life her name was Jane Cox)to be the killer, although driven to it here by her devotion to a cad (not historically true). The conclusion of the film, where Ann Todd discovers how Ray Milland used her and turns on him in a closed Hansom Cab seems based on a 1904 New York City murder, the Nan Patterson-Ceasar Young case.