User reviews

This movie provides some interesting character studies by Aldous Huxley. Charles Boyer portrays Henry, a not very likeable husband to an invalid wife,Emily (Rachel Kempson). He has a very young mistress on the side, Doris, played by Ann Blythe. On the sidelines stands Janet, played by Jessica Tandy, whom Henry flirts with as a matter of course, but she takes it all very seriously and is in love with him. When Emily is murdered, Henry is arrested and sentenced to death by hanging. The second half of the movie deals with the secrets underlying Emily's death. Very well done with one flaw. Ann Blythe seems to start out in the movie as a selfish, manipulative young mistress and her transformation to a caring wife seems a bit of a stretch. Mildred Natwick is superb as a nosy nurse as is Cedric Hardwicke as a doctor who just about effortlessly steals every scene he is in. A true pro. 8 out of 10.

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.

Henry Maurier (Boyer) is an arrogant wealthy Englishman married to Emily who is both sickly and shrewish. Doris (Blyth) is his much younger mistress. The Maurier's also have a woman friend named Janet Spence (Tandy) who has always loved Maurier. When Emily is poisoned, suspicion falls on Henry and there is a great deal of circumstantial evidence against him. The script, by Aldous Huxley, is extremely literate and the movie is a pleasure to watch. Courtroom fans will also enjoy the capably executed inquest and trial scenes.

The very annoying Emily (Rachel Kempson) is not in good health. Thankfully, she dies. However, her death is treated suspiciously and number one suspect is husband Henry (Charles Boyer). He doesn't help matters by immediately marrying 18 year old Doris (Ann Blyth) who he has been having an affair with for a few months.

This film has a good cast, especially Jessica Tandy as Henry's friend "Janet", Cedric Hardwick as "Dr Libbard" and Mildred Natwick as "Nurse Braddock". Boyer is good but Blyth is very irritating in a Shirley Temple kind of way. The film drags whenever she is on screen.

The film has many good scenes, eg, when Janet and Henry are in the house sheltering from a violent storm - the use of German Expressionism in this scene (the use of darkness and lightning) will tell you all you need to know. Similarly, another good scene is when Janet visits Henry the day before his execution (the way the scene is framed will stick in your mind). And the scenes between Janet and Dr Libbard towards the end of the film are crammed with tension. I found that the film also had a particularly good moment of philosophical dialogue when Henry verbalized his acceptance of death to Doris.

You will, no doubt, guess who the guilty party is from the beginning but it's still a good film to watch again.

Aldous Huxley possessed one of the greatest intellects and was one of the most original thinkers of the Twentieth, or indeed, any century. He also made a great deal of money writing screenplays in Hollywood.

His short story of 1922 'The Giaconda Smile' is his most anthologised and so as not to baffle the average cinema-goer the title here has been changed to 'A Woman's Vengeance' which merely serves to give the game away from the outset!

We should be grateful at least that the adaptation has not been assigned to some Hollywood hack but has been done by the author himself although the infernal compromises of film have obliged him to deviate from his original.

The suspected wife poisoner has been transformed from the flawed Anglo-Saxon Hutton to the Gallic Maurier of inveterate charmer Charles Boyer and his naive bit of fluff Doris, played by Ann Blythe, is needless to say no longer a Cockney! The character of Janet Spence, described by Huxley as resembling Agrippina 'or perhaps George Robey', is played by Jessica Tandy. All do what they do very well but it is the performance of the superlative Miss Tandy that lingers longest. She depicts frustrated passion and sexual repression as strongly as would have been permitted at the time and is absolutely riveting if a little too attractive.

For filmic purposes the character of Doctor Libbard has been fleshed out considerably by Mr. Huxley and is beautifully played by Cedric Hardwicke. His character not only serves as Maurier's conscience but saves him from the gallows, thereby drastically altering the original ending but that's Hollywood for you.

It is capably directed by Zoltan Korda although one senses that he is more suited to the great outdoors. Noirish touches by cinematographer Russell Metty and a suitably dramatic score by the great Miklos Rozsa.

It was Sir Cedric who said: "God felt sorry for actors so he created Hollywood to give them a place in the sun and a swimming pool. The price they had to pay was to surrender their talent." The same would apply to writers it seems!

This film noir gem spins the tale of romance, unrequited love and revenge that conspire to frustrate a spinster in her pursuit of a man. The romance involves the man's dalliances with an attractive girl and the unrequited love is the bitter fruit of the spinster's quest to capture the man for herself. The revenge plays out its part in due course as the triangle emerges with malevolent undercurrents taking shape. The cast is excellent, especially Jessica Tandy and Sir Cedric Hardwicke, with Charles Boyer caught in the middle by the eager, determined females. Ann Blyth marries her suave suitor and sets in motion the cold fury of the spurned woman who can only watch as her dreams of happiness are dashed. The black and white camera work has a brooding quality and gives the film a classic film noir look.

The obvious movie title here rather negates the initial whodunit mystery of who really killed, if indeed she was killed, the troubled invalid wife, Rachel Kempson, of philandering country gentleman, Charles Boyer. It could have been suicide, maybe it was the wife's devoted but jealous, approaching middle-age friend Jessica Tandy or even the waspish nurse Mildred Gatwick but soon enough the fickle finger of blame points squarely at Boyer, who we learn, has motives for murder coming out of his ears. Firstly, he plainly doesn't love his wife, secondly, he's cutting about with his adoring teenage lover, soon-enough his wife, Ann Blyth and thirdly he's just taken out a large death policy on his wife's life.

And die she does, of poisoning, which naturally brings Boyer a world of trouble as he is charged with and goes on trial for his wife's murder. We learn that Tandy carries a bigger torch than Lady Liberty for Boyer and see him reject her advances which certainly lines her up as a woman of vengeance from where I'm sitting. The accused has only one real ally, although considering the help he offers Boyer, we should all have the family doctor, Cedric Hardwicke on our side.

Anyway, I'll leave the plot hanging there lest I give too much away. Unsurprisingly, given the film was adapted from a play of the celebrated novelist Aldous Huxley who also contributed to the screenplay, there are screeds of heavy dialogue with little in the way of backgound music to influence the viewer's perceptions one way or the other. Some of this dialogue is quite weighty and intense but it just as often flounders into unnatural bombast

Director Zoltan Korda steps politely over and around some of the stickier plot-points and unlikely and sometimes fast-changing characterisations. Boyer is good as the love-him-or-hate-him central character, Tandy is even better as the spurned sinister spinster while Hardwicke is solid as the doc who literally clocks what's going on.

Although it's all highly unlikely, I was nonetheless carried along by the sometimes improbable events depicted. Characters exchange a lot of often expository dialogue as the narrative grinds ever further forward and I liked the surprising and unconventional ending with the viewer left to the job of tying up the loose ends by themselves.

An unusual but far from uninteresting and uninvolving feature.

When Charles Boyer's wife, Rachel Kempson, dies prematurely, all suspicion falls on him, especially since they had a bad marriage and he was cheating on her with the beautiful, much younger Ann Blyth. He marries Ann shortly after Rachel's death, but their very adorable bliss is cut short when he gets suspected of murder. It's an easy conclusion to come to; after all, he was in Gaslight!

Aldous Huxley, adapting the script from his short story, has written a thoughtful, exciting, romantic drama, while many other films with a similar plot are just written to be a cheap thriller. If you're tired of the same old whodunnit, check out A Woman's Vengeance. There are many thoughtful speeches about life, death, love, and the preciousness of time, that you'll probably remember long after you watch this hidden gem. Cedric Hardwicke plays the family doctor and friend, and while he isn't particularly warm, he's very intelligent and important to the story. Mildred Natwick plays Rachel's nurse, and although she's very upset about her mistress's death, she was hoping to inherit a broach. Jessica Tandy is a neighbor harboring a long-standing crush on Charles, and her spastic, emotional craze is evident even in her earliest scenes. I might be a little picky, since I have a special relationship with A Streetcar Named Desire, but it felt like Jessica was trying to remind everyone of her success as Blanche duBois.

It's difficult to pick one star of this show, because it's a very good movie all-around, but if there is only one, it's Ann Blyth. Incredibly beautiful and adapting herself to a role different than she'd ever played, she's young without being naïve, uncultured without being un-classy, romantic without being stupid, and sensual without being loose. Every one of those characteristics is difficult to pull off, and they're all necessary for the plot of the movie to be meaningful. Charles Boyer is also very good, giving a sensitive performance rather than an over-the-top performance. Watch this movie. It's exciting from start to finish.

Zoltan Korda does a fine job of directing this film noir. He particularly succeeds in extracting superior performances from the suave Boyer, the self-pitying Kempson, the vengeful Tandy and, above all, Cedric Hardwicke as the highly professional psychologist who solves the whodunnit.

Great photography and some very good dialogue. Definitely worth watching!

All movies based on a book are not always good. There was nobody to root for or feel sympathy for. If you want to waste your time watching a movie with nasty bad self-centered ego-maniac people, then this movie is for you. I don't know anybody like this and I wouldn't want to. Total BS. Thumbs way down.

I was angry at the waste of my time. I've got better things to do.

Sounds weird to us see the young Jessica Tandy after the smashing success of Fried Green Tomatoes or especially Driving Miss Daisy, the older the better, in this adaptation of British writer Aldous Huxley portraits Janet Spencer a perennial spinster already near of forty, she envisages in high-class Henry Maurier (Charles Boyer) a possible mutual interesting for a future marriage, it's a matter of time due his illness wife Emily (Rachel Kempson) is getting worse, they treating each other kindly and warm friendship, in other hand Henry finds in Janet a shelter of on its intellect concerning arts and poetry and so for, not love at all, it he already has on a teenager girl Doris Meat (Ann Blyth) to quench his sexual behavior, whereof he didn't see on Janet whatsoever, thus a misunderstood takes place, taking Janet poison his best friend to get Henry's heart for good, wrong move.

As mainly suspect Henry goes on trial, meanwhile the faltering Janet stays on shadows expecting the right moment to thrown on Henry's face all damages which she suffers when he announced his secret affair and post marriage with a silly gorgeous girl, of whom Janet really does on jail one night before, in the meantime the wiser Dr. Libbard (Cedric Hardwicke) already figure out Henry not able to do such murder, then he turns its sharp eyes on Janet as a possible poisoner and starts a squeeze her steadily trying find a weak point regarding her insomnia, slowly the polite Dr. Libbard will groping in the dark, a deranged woman, trying to mine her for a confession.

The scholar Sir Cedric Hardwicke quite sure is the high point of the movie together Jessica Tandy in a remarkable performance, instead the French Charles Boyer is miscasting due his higher age near fifties to play such role, actually he would be Ann Blyth father, too contrived to convince the audience such foolish thing, if at least he was a handsome guy, he didn't, just a drooling dad playing the swain, aside Hardwick & Tandy no impact at all.

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First watch: 2023 / How many: 1 / Source: DVD / Rating: 7.5.

There is always an element of disturbing discomfort in whatever Aldous Huxley wrote, partly because it is always too intelligent to be completely human. He is too advanced for normal human measures and standards. Here that disturbing element is imminent from the beginning, as the leading characters are thoroughly nasty with each other. Charles Boyer, a rich artist who has had everything gratis in life from the beginning, is married to a dying complaining nightmare of a whining wife, who only stays alive because she knows "how happy her husband would be if she died". She is to be pitied most of all, but everyone here is to be pitied, except the doctor, the only quite human character in this sordid business. The nurse is another monster, being all compassionate with the dying wife, expecting an inheritance from her which she never gets, and reporting a murder when her ladyship is dead, accusing the husband, whom she has hated all along. Then there is Jessica Tandy, and it is her film, all lovable sweetness all the way and the bearer of the Giocondan smile, that is the headline of the story. She has loved Charles Boyer for fifteen years without ever being answered, while she is happily unaware that he has another mistress, Ann Blyth as very young and innocent, playing Doris of eighteen years, whom he marries as soon as the wife is dead. Of course, the circumstantial evidence is overwhelming.

This is a very dark tale of frustrated passions, of high society accomplished people who can't face themselves in the mirror and are blind to their own shortcomings. Charles Boyer commits the mistake of marrying the wrong woman twice, and he has to pay for it, and so must the poor right woman, who is the real tragedy here.

The drama couldn't be more eloquent and more tragic in its unnecessary development, where everything goes wrong without having to. Jessica Tandy is the only one who really laughs, but even her laugh is just a mask for something of the most bottomless despair...

"A Woman's Vengeance" is unusual in that it was written by Aldous Huxley, they author of the brilliant "Brave New World" and the son of the famous evolutionist, Thomas Henry Huxley. I had no idea he wrote this sort of story...a murder mystery.

When the story begins, Henry (Charles Boyer) and his wife, Emily, are having a fight. It seems that Emily is a very histrionic and demanding woman...the sort that would be nearly impossible to love. On the other hand, Henry isn't exactly an angel...he's got a VERY young girlfriend (Ann Blythe) on the side. He also has a family friend, Janet (Jessica Tandy), who loves him.

One day after yet another fight brought on by Emily, Henry goes out to spend the day with his mistress. During this time period, Emily dies of a heart attack...thus freeing Henry to marry his girlfriend. But once he does, Janet and, especially, the family's maid (Mildred Natwick) begin to wonder if Emily died a natural death. Soon, there is an exhumation and it's determined that Emily was poisoned!! Did Henry do it? After all, he clearly had the most to gain and any man married to Emily would be likely to at least consider poisoning her! Or is there some other answer?

The story is greatly helped by its cast. It's easy to make a good film with the likes of Charles Boyer, Jessica Tandy, Mildred Natwick, John Williams and Cederic Hardwicke in a movie...and it's obvious Universal Pictures put a lot of money into the production.

It's also helped that the story is so clever and offers some interesting twists. I also appreciate that the characters are quite flawed...much like many real people. Overall, well worth seeing and wonderfully well acted.

A wonderful film with a marvelous cast and brilliantly written screenplay. This film superbly captures the anguish of unrequited love and how it transforms its victims into wrong-doers.

An excellent psychological thriller , based on Aldous Huxley's novella (adapted by himself,but the Mona Lisa title was better than that of the film) , with a stellar cast .

Although "Rebecca " was written after Huxley's work , there are shades of Du Maurier's tale : "I feel she's still here" ;in the movie, (like in real life),Boyer is French : il s'appelle Maurier ici ! The scene of the thunder over the house is a great moment to rival the best of Gothic horror movies ;and it' not gratuitous for it comes back in the extraordinary final Boyer/Tandy confrontation which makes your hair stand on end ;the way both are filmed (she seems to be an exterminating angel watching him in Hell) is stunning. In my book ,Tandy steals the show from Blyth .

This "beyond the grave" vengeance will remind you of Stahl's "leave her to heaven " (1946); it's a must for Gothic melodramas buffs.

Strangely enough, this is the first time I have watched this film.

I was intrigued to see that it was written by Aldous Huxley, a favourite author of mine.

Expecting a fairly run of the mill 30's melodrama I was surprised just how good this was. The characters are nuanced and flawed and not particularly likeable, as is nearly always the case with Huxley's characters,

The views are of their time. Women are past it at 30 and their non-acceptance of that reality is to be derided; take a listen to Cedric Hardwicke's character.

Overall, it was quite a grown-up movie, with themes which could not be broadcast, given the time, but were nevertheless there.

What really blew me away was Jessica Tandy's brilliant performance, her back and forth with Cedric Hardwicke towards the end of the film, was spell binding.

A Solid, Seamless Classic!

I loved this film! Forgive me for waxing lyrical about it. There are so many accolades to bestow that I fear I am unable to do justice to all its fine virtues as I shall run out of time and space.

It is an engrossing picture that functions on two distinct levels. The first level is structured upon the central plot and an absorbing storyline that evolves out of it like the roots of a tree. It is a beautifully crafted tale that grips one until the closing credits fade into the darkness. This is the fare that film lovers feed on. The second level takes the viewer into areas seldom explored in film noir: it delves into profound philosophical questions relating to life, death, existence, and destiny (hardly surprising since Aldous Huxley wrote the screenplay). There are echoes, too, in the background of Shakespeare's "Macbeth" and "Hamlet" adding intriguing psychological undertones ("somebody else being within us").

The picture is graced by a star-studded cast with the peerless quartet of Charles Boyer, Jessica Tandy, Ann Blyth and Sir Cedric Hardwicke headlining the credits. They are simply superb. You are unlikely to ever forget Jessica Tandy after watching her, here, or Sir Hardwicke who towers like a colossus. He is the all-knowing voice of wisdom, the prudent and cutting edge of piercing conscience. There are other familiar faces like the brilliant John Williams ("Dial M for Murder") as the Prosecuting Counsel and Harry Cording McNabb (a regular on Basil Rathbone's "Sherlock Holmes" episodes) as Chauffeur McNabb.

The standout scene for me is the storm scene (signifying the storm in the mind!). Look out as well for the clever way in which director Zoltan Korda tucks in little symbols and motifs, particularly the image of the tree at the commencement and conclusion of the film.

Classic Lines

Dr Libbard: Do you remember in the Gospel, men and woman who were possessed by the devils? I sometimes wonder if that's the only plausible explanation of things we do? Things we know are against our own interests. Things that are obviously wrong and idiotic and suicidal. And yet we do them. Or is it somebody else inside us that makes us do them?

Janet: If it's somebody else, then we wouldn't be responsible, would we?

Don't miss this.