Successful mystery novelist Janet Frobisher (Davis) lives in a secluded mansion in the English countryside, where she is embroiled in an affair with her secretary’s fiancé, a man many years her junior. Her efforts to lure him away are derailed by the unexpected reappearance of her ex-convict husband, long estranged, who is attempting to blackmail her. Janet is forced to scheme her way out of the clutches of her husband’s ruthless partner, George Bates (Gary Merrill).

Irving Rapper’s lurid potboiler may not be one of Davis’s most celebrated films, but nevertheless remains a compellingly amoral thriller with another terrific central performance.

Screening as part of Fasten Your Seatbelts: The Films of Bette Davis.

Notes by David O’Mahony