Search - The Strange Woman on DVD

Hedy well-showcased in period potboiler

Byron Kolln | the corner where Broadway meets Hollywood | 01/02/2006

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Following a series of badly-received films, M-G-M allowed Hedy Lamarr to set up her own production unit inside the studio where properties could be developed that suited her style and abilities. THE STRANGE WOMAN was one of the films made during this time. This sudsy period melodrama stars Lamarr as Jenny Hager, a young woman whose wanton lusts and desires end up destroying three men - and eventually herself.



In 1800s Maine, Jenny emerges from her white-trash origins to become the wife of wealthy Isaiah Poster (Gene Lockhart), though the marriage is completely devoid of love and affection from Jenny's corner. She soon turns her attentions to her stepson Ephraim (Louis Hayward) and convinces him to kill his father, so that they may be together. But once the dirty deed has been done, Jenny turns her back on Ephraim and begins to zero-in on John Evered (George Sanders), the handsome new foreman. The fact that he is engaged to her supposed best friend (Hillary Brooke) doesn't faze Jenny in the least. It seems nothing will stop ruthless Jenny in her horrifying quest for love.



Hedy Lamarr is ideally-suited in bringing to life the monstrous yet captivating Jenny Hager. The cast surrounding Lamarr is well-appointed and the production design brings the rowdy 1800-era city of Bangor to thrilling life. The print from Alpha DVD is serviceable, with good contrast and clear sound for the most part."

Hollywood moral hypocrisy made for the delectation of all th

C. O. DeRiemer | San Antonio, Texas, USA | 04/07/2008

(4 out of 5 stars)

"It's the old story...woman with her lascivious, tempting ways turns man into a beast or a weakling, and all because of the lust she's held responsible for arousing in his...ah...heart.



"I always lose happiness...I can't seem to hold it," says Jenny Hager (Hedy Lamar), daughter of the town drunk. Jenny is poor and beautiful beyond most schoolboys' dreams. She is determined to use that beauty to marry a rich man. It's the 1840's in Bangor, Maine, and the older man she sets her sights on is the leading merchant in town. Isaiah Poster's eyes on her tell us what he wants, and one day she allows herself to be whipped by her drunken father so that she can run to Isaiah and plead protection. It's not long before she has married this middle-aged, fat tycoon, the richest man in Bangor. And before long, when she meets Ephraim Poster (Louis Hayward), Isaiah's son who is her age, you can see Jenny knows that money with youth will be more fun than money with age. Then she meets John Evered (George Sanders), who works for her husband as a woods boss, in charge of the lumbermen who log the timber old Ephraim owns. That John is engaged to her best friend doesn't stop Jenny's evaluation of things: Riches plus youth plus vigor is better than riches plus youth. As Jenny says, "Men like me...and it's men that have the money in this world!"



Well, folks, be prepared to see one man die in a river torrent, another man die at the end of a rope and a look of disgust cross a third man's face. If you think this movie has a happy ending, you haven't been reading your Bible lately. The Strange Woman is a strange hybrid of Eugene O'Neill and parts of Forever Amber. The hypocrisy that oozes like spoiled milk from this movie makes only one point: A woman who uses her sexuality and her smarts must be up to no good, even if the men in her life are drunks, boors, weaklings and prigs. She must pay the price for being hot stuff. Jenny is a complicated woman, made up of equal parts compassion, resentment, ambition and sex...and she's a woman who loves a challenge. She finds ways to help the poor. She steps forward to enlarge the church to keep the grog shops small, to pay the doctor's bills of the sick, to send teachers up to the families where the loggers work. Her crime seems to be that of having a calculating willingness to use her sexual allure to better herself and get her way. "It wasn't by knowing how to set a table that Cleopatra got along" she says at one point.



Edgar Ulmer, a B-movie director who for once in his life was given a proper budget with name actors, turns in a product which moves right along. There are some nice scenes, including a sexual setup in a lightning storm that is dramatic as all get out. Some think that the look of the movie and the inevitable retribution qualifies it as a noir. Maybe. But the movie itself is all melodrama, with an obvious script and a corny music score that undercuts whatever dramatic interest there might have once been. Hedy Lamar does an impressive job portraying Jenny. Lamar was a beautiful and smart woman, a better actress than most gave her credit for, and now, unfortunately, is remembered mainly as a Mel Brooks joke in Blazing Saddles. George Sanders doesn't bring much to the party as John Evered. He's not very believable in rough clothes as the woods boss, and later he comes off as an uncomfortable person to have as a soul mate. Louis Hayward is the real mystery. Hayward was a competent, versatile actor, believable in drama, light comedy and period adventures. He chose, or his contract chose for him, to play a weakling for whom we mainly feel pity tinged with contempt. However, he and Lamar, and Gene Lockhart as Isaiah, carry the acting load. Perhaps that's what Hayward saw in the part.



The Strange Woman, in my view, is not a movie to make fun of even if it's overwrought. The lesson lies in what Hollywood sees as proper justice for a woman who is just as willing to use and enjoy her sexuality as a man does. Well, okay, that's a little film-historian sounding. But the movie still smells of self-satisfied hypocrisy.



The movie is in the public domain so don't expect much. The version I have is a little better than just watchable."