Woman Obsessed

This neighbors to the North melodrama was released by 20th Century Fox after Hayward's Oscar win for "I Want To Live!" It isn't a terrible film, but it isn't terribly good either. Hayward's Mary Sharron is widowed early in the story when her husband is killed by a falling flaming tree during a forest fire. Hayward grieves. Tries to run the farm herself. Is forced to hire moody Fred Carter (Steven Boyd). Hayward watches him chop wood in a tight white tee shirt and eventually marries him. Her son Robbie (Dennis Holmes) - a dreamy kid who hangs out by a quicksand pit and enjoys watching stock footage fauna frolic in the woods, has some difficulties with Carter - especially when Carter kills a deer and forces Robbie to watch the gutting. Carter gets tougher and touchier and more and more moody - he's a ball of psychological sturm und drang roiling with anger centered on his mamby pamby brother.... Carter's Canadian accent grows thicker as the plot careens toward rain and resolution. Carter rapes Mary - she becomes pregnant - Carter moves out to the barn - and threatens to leave altogether. Rain arrives, signaling: (as it always does) change. Carter carries Mary miles in the torrential downpour to town so that she can deliver her baby safely. She eventually learns of this selfless endeavor and her heart softens again. But, Carter is redeemed only after Robbie pulls him from the foreshadowed quicksand sinkhole. Unfortunately Hayward doesn't get much of a chance to crackle but fun performances and a decent amount of melodrama make this a fair one to catch.

Susan Hayward, Stephen Boyd, and Theodore Bikel star in "Woman Obsessed," a 1959 film set in Canada.

Mary Shannon (Hayward) is a grieving widow with a young son (Dennis Holmes) who hires a man named Carter (Boyd) to help her with her farm. They eventually marry, in part to stop the town gossip. Carter turns out to be more troubled than he let on, and becomes angry with the boy, whom he considers a coward, and then violent toward Mary. When a crisis occurs, Mary learns what's behind Carter's outburst toward her son and the resulting violence toward her.

The acting in this film helps the movie, which is slowed down and cut up by too many establishing shots of beautiful scenery. Hayward does a good job as a strong woman who attempts to put her grief aside and move on, but finds it difficult. And Boyd is excellent as a man in great pain who faces rejection from the people he loves; the more he's rejected, the more angry he becomes.

Slow moving. It's a shame we lost Boyd so early on - he was a strong actor and very handsome.

Susan Hayward, to me, played a woman obsessed with not letting go -- of her dead husband and her past life with him.By refusing to grieve and face her present life and future, she takes herself, her son and new husband to the edge of destruction. The major actors did an excellent job of characterizing individuals who are caught in a cycle of rigidity -- rigidity of emotions, personal boundaries and lifestyle. An excellent study.

I found the title of this film slightly misleading as Susan Hayward shuns her glamorous looks to play "Mary". She lives happily with her husband and young son "Robbie" (Dennis Holmes) until a forest fire renders her a widow and she really begins to struggle to maintain their small farm. Things might improve though when "Fred" (Stephen Boyd) arrives on the scene. He had been working at a local lumber mill but the conflagration put paid to that. For C$80 per month, he agree to stick around the place and help out. He sleeps in an annexe to the barn and as time passes it becomes clear what's going to happen next... "Fred" has something of the "Jekyll" to him though, and as he struggles to relate to the youngster and increasingly to his new wife, we discover that he has some baggage of his own and that is seriously compromising his new family. Tempers - and the weather - flare up and soon lives are in danger. Boyd does an ok job here, but is hampered by the scope of his character. The man we see at the start of the film isn't really the violent, bad-tempered, man we see in the middle - and we only have sparse crumbs to explain this change from the rather undercooked screenplay. The production benefits from some fine cinematography, it also suffers from some clearly studio based external scenes and a snow storm that must have all but exhausted the Californian confetti supply. Hayward offers a convincing performance here as the doting mother and the film tells a story of the pioneering spirit from a slightly different perspective.

"Woman Obsessed" is a film about a blended family which really works out poorly for most of the movie. Fortunately, by the end, these three misfits manage to work things out...but it's very rough going until then!

The story is set in the Canadian wilderness. Shortly after it starts, Mr. Sharron is killed while working to put out a forest fire. Now, his wife and son are alone and the going is tough. Fortunately, Fred Carter (Stephen Boyd) comes to work for Mary Sharron (Susan Hayward) and helps her keep the farm going. Things seem to be going well and Mrs. Sharron's young son seems to really like Fred. Now surprisingly, soon Fred and Mary get hitched...and then it turns out to be a marriage made in hell!

What's wrong with the marriage? Well, all three have no idea HOW to be part of a healthy and functional family. Fred is a bit of a screwball...and his past really makes him an angry and poor father. Mary is a mess and it's obvious when she tells her son that "she'll never love anyone as much as she loves him (her son)"! Talk about setting up the marriage to fail! Talk about creating an Oedipal Complex! And as for the boy, he's REALLY a classic Oedipal son...and he doesn't want Fred touching or kissing HIS mom! It's all pretty wacky and all three could use a lot of therapy...but in this film, it's not like a psychologist has put up a shingle in the Canadian wilderness! So how is this all going to work out? Well, rocky...but what else?

The story is interesting and worth seeing. My only big complaint is that although the new family is a completely dysfunctional mess, everything is worked out too quickly and nicely by the end.