Based on: The Unsuspected by Charlotte Armstrong (serialized in The Saturday Evening Post, 1945; novel 1946) Studio: Warner Bros. / Michael Curtiz Productions

Bess Meredyth, her husband Michael Curtiz, and his production unit at Warners transformed Charlotte Armstrong's Saturday Evening Post serial into a Gothic noir showcase for Claude Rains' cultured villainy. They significantly reworked Armstrong's plot (in the novel, Grandison is a theater producer and the mystery unfolds through his new secretary investigating her friend's death—though the film nods to this halfway through when we discover radio producer Jane was actually Roslyn's friend all along.)

Bosley Crowther suspected they were "fashioning another Laura" - and that opening with the angelic portrait presiding over a spooky mansion is pure Vera Caspary homage. But where Laura haunted men with her absence, Armstrong and Curtiz are interested in how one charming man controls the women around him. Grandison surrounds himself with dependent women - a ward, a niece, a secretary, a producer - carefully keeping them isolated from each other, never allowing them to compare notes or join forces against him.

Rains delivers magnificently, using that mellifluous voice to narrate crimes both fictional and real. Audrey Totter vamps wonderfully as the bitter, horny niece saddled with a sad-sack alcoholic husband, while Joan Caulfield plays the gaslit heiress with wide-eyed aplomb.

This sumptuous Gothic noir proves women's psychological suspense was fueling Hollywood's darkest dreams - even if the studios preferred style over psychology.

IN THE DATABASE: Armstrong would go on to win an Edgar Award for A Dram of Poison (1956). Her psychological thrillers were adapted twice more - Mischief became Marilyn Monroe's Don't Bother to Knock, and The Enemy became Talk About a Stranger, both in 1952.

Part of Her Hollywood Story, a database documenting more than 1,125+ films adapted from American women writers, 1910-1963. Explore the full database at herhollywoodstory.com.

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