The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946)

Directed by Lewis Milestone; produced by Hal B Wallis

In 1928, a young girl, Martha Ivers (Janis Wilson) attempts to run away from her unfeeling, dictatorial aunt (Judith Anderson), with the assistance of Sam (Darryl Hickman), a kid from the poor part of town. Brought back, she strikes her aunt in a fit of anger, killing her. Aided by Walter (Mickey Kuhn), whose father hopes to control the Ivers’ wealth, Martha persuades everyone that a burglar committed the murder. Eighteen years later, Martha (Barbara Stanwyck) is as manipulative as her aunt had been and married to Walter (Kirk Douglas), the two chained together by the secret of the old killing, and the execution of an innocent man for the crime. And when Sam (Van Heflin) returns to Iverstown, guilt, passion and opportunity create an explosive situation.

From the beginning, the viewer can guess that The Strange Love of Martha Ivers is not going to end well for a number of the characters. It is a tragedy in the true sense: disasters wrought by the flaws of the characters. The interest, indeed the involvement - for it is an involving film, thanks to the acting and the script - comes in seeing how the characters comport themselves in the downward descent, and whether any is worth saving.

Of course, some are. Heflin’s Sam is a likeable rogue, someone who, the police discover, lives by gambling. He is not always successful, but always bounces back from adversity. His relationship with Toni (Lizabeth Scott), another abused soul with a bad past, begins with flirtation and moves to real affection, though part of it comes from Sam’s innate dislike of seeing anyone hurt. The romance between these two is natural and, if it hadn’t happened in Iverstown, probably would have proceeded smoothly, and without trouble.

Kirk Douglas has a stand-out part for his first motion picture role. Quite different than the often heroic characters he would play in later films, his Walter is spineless, the plaything of stronger, or at least more ruthless, people. He is also a rather decent man, deep down, caught in a web of lies and crimes too great to escape without irrevocable loss; he knows he is weak, he knows he is ordinary, and some of his scenes are almost heart-breaking in their sense of longing for redemption.

I don’t believe the writers ever intended for Martha to be sympathetic; she is too heartless, too selfish, too arrogant for that. Whatever she may have been as the little girl, she grew to be quite like her aunt. It is never stated that Martha has become her aunt, but that is the ultimate outcome of her tragedy. Stanwyck gives her usual excellent performance in a role that other strong actresses, such as Bette Davis, would have envied.

The script is melodramatic at times, but nevertheless creates a credible situation, though it is in the actions of the characters that it shows its realism. The story is not so much one of power corrupting as it is of knowing when one should be satisfied with what one has, rather than striving for ever more.

The Strange Love of Martha Ivers is a well-made, well-acted drama that verges on becoming a soap opera more than once, while its writing and acting pull it back into reality time and again.