The Strange Love Of Martha Ivers
Starring:Barbara Stanwyck, Van Heflin, Lizabeth Scott, Kirk Douglas, Judith Anderson, Roman Bohnen, Darryl Hickman, Janis Wilson, Ann Doran, Frank Orth, James Flavin, Mickey Kuhn, Charles D. Brown, Blake Edwards, William Duray, Walter Baldwin, Bert Roach, Bob Perry, Bill Burt, Betty Hill
Director: Lewis Milestone
Studio: Image Entertainment
Product Type: DVD
Editorial Review:
Amazon.com essential video
Barbara Stanwyck mesmerizes as a woman with a past, bound by a crime to a husband she despises. Kirk Douglas quickens our collective pulses in his film debut as her disappointing, dipsomaniac spouse, while Van Heflin and Lizabeth Scott bring texture to supporting roles. Everything about this 1946 film noir is intriguing, from Lewis Milestone's direction to Edith Head's costumes to the edgy and troubled characters. It takes a long, hard look at guilt and the consequences of poorly planned actions. Well worth checking out, despite a wretched title. --Rochelle O'Gorman
Description
One of the blackest of the post-war film noir classics, "The Strange Love of Martha Ivers" is notable for both its outstanding story and technique, and its truly impressive cast. Veterans Barbara Stanwyck and Van Heflin were joined by the youthful Kirk Douglas, making his screen debut in this lush Hal Wallis production. Small town mystery, murder, and intrigue is the subject as a common American phenomenon, the small town run by a powerful matriarchal family, is examined at less than arms length. The mysterious murder of a rich aunt by a young child haunts the lives of the killer and the witnesses across the years, building to a dramatic conclusion as a surprise visitor returns to town after an absence of decades.
Average customer rating:
- The return of the repressed
- Under the Radar
- KIRK DOUGLAS - OPUS ONE - KIRK DOUGLAS
- Kirk Douglas - Best EVER
- A childhood' s sin !
|
The Strange Love of Martha Ivers
Starring: Barbara Stanwyck , Van Heflin , Lizabeth Scott , Kirk Douglas , and Judith Anderson
Director: Lewis Milestone
Manufacturer: Paramount
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- Sorry Wrong Number (1948) (Sub)
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- Where the Sidewalk Ends (Fox Film Noir)
- Crime of Passion
ASIN: B000ANVPVU
Release Date: 2005-10-25 |
Amazon.com essential video
Barbara Stanwyck mesmerizes as a woman with a past, bound by a crime to a husband she despises. Kirk Douglas quickens our collective pulses in his film debut as her disappointing, dipsomaniac spouse, while Van Heflin and Lizabeth Scott bring texture to supporting roles. Everything about this 1946 film noir is intriguing, from Lewis Milestone's direction to Edith Head's costumes to the edgy and troubled characters. It takes a long, hard look at guilt and the consequences of poorly planned actions. Well worth checking out, despite a wretched title. --Rochelle O'Gorman
Product Description
Although this was director Lewis Milestone's only venture into the realm of noir, it remains a classic of the genre. The Strange Love of Martha Ivers stars Barbara Stanwyck as the title character, a tough, spoiled, willful heiress married to the local D.A., Walter O'Neil (Kirk Douglas), a weak-willed alcoholic. When old friend Sam Masterson (Van Heflin) suddenly returns to town after many years away, he approaches Walter to ask his help with the case of Toni Marashek (Lisabeth Scott), a friend who has been falsely accused of a crime. Sam is surprised, at first, to learn of Walter's marriage, knowing both of the parties, but quickly begins to put the pieces together. It turns out that Martha's tyrannical aunt (Judith Anderson), met an untimely end on the night that Sam left town, and Martha fears that Sam will reveal what he knows about that night, thereby destroying the lives of both she and her husband. Consequently, she begins to plot against Sam, who she also loves in her own twisted fashion. Every element seems perfectly in place in this typically guilt-saturated noir, with superb direction from Milestone, a memorable score by Miklos Rosza, and an outstanding performance by Kirk Douglas in his film debut.
Customer Reviews:
The return of the repressed.......2007-06-12
The sets and production values of this Paramount story of intrigue from 1946, the annus mirabilis of film noir, are superb, and there's no film starring Barbra Stanwyck that's not worth watching if just for her. Watchable though she inevitably is here, this is one of the few times in her long and magnificent career where she was truly miscast: Stanwyck was equally versatile playing comedy or drama, poverty or wealth, but the one thing she cannot play is neurosis--she was far too confident and driven a performer to be very believable as the highly ambivalent and conflicted Martha O'Neil. None of the three leads in this odd film seems ideally cast: as Martha's weakling alcoholic husband, Kirk Douglas, stunningly handsome in his first film role, is supposed to be wildly jealous of Van Heflin, of all people, who has come back to Iverstown (the Pennsylvania industrial town Stanwyck and Douglas jointly rule) with the memory of a childhood killing. Equally oddly cast is Janis Wilson, the memorably unhappy child Tina from NOW, VOYAGER here playing Martha as a young girl; it is inconceivable this anguished girl could ever grow up to be the tough and omnicompetent Stanwyck. Only Lizbeth Scott, as Heflin's weak new lady love, seems truly comfortable in her part. Even so, this DVD is still very much worth seeing if only for its early variations on common film noir themes.
Under the Radar.......2007-03-29
Excellent cast of Barbara Stanwyck, Kirk Douglas, Van Heflin, and Lizabeth Scott cannot pull this film out of mediocrity. The elements of noir are present: murder, jealousy, innocence, and betrayal but the film lacks the desperation and moral conflict that surrounds the protagonist in so many films of the genre. Van Heflin's performance is flat and Lizabeth Scott's performance is as wooden as a pine plank. Stanwyck's role and performance is more credible, but not as absorbing in later films such as Sorry Wrong Number and Double Indemnity. Kirk Douglas is very good in his first major Hollywood role as an alcoholic district attorney who fears that the appearance of a childhood friend (Heflin) will destroy the upper class lifestyle he enjoys with his wife (Stanwyck). The reunion between the Heflin character and Stanwyck's character is awkardly filmed and dramatized. Meanwhile we are left to believe that the nomadic Lizabeth Scott character still can't find the nerve to leave town. For some reason, for me anyway, the town looked liked it was situated somewhere near Pittsburg, Pa. I thought the ending of the film was a bit histrionic, but still an interesting ending. Why we needed anything after this, I don't know. The film should have concluded with a slow fade to darkness. Instead we see a sugar coded resolve that would have been more suited to a Disney Studio production.
KIRK DOUGLAS - OPUS ONE - KIRK DOUGLAS.......2007-03-20
First and only film noir directed by Lewis Milestone (All Quiet on the Western Front), first movie of Kirk Douglas, a screenplay written by Robert Rossen (The Hustler), THE STRANGE LOVE OF MARTHA IVERS is the kind of film any movie buff should have the desire to see. The Paramount Home Entertainment release I bought here at Amazon presents a near perfect copy of this movie but, beware, no extras at all.
Two scenes of the movie, Judith Anderson's death and the tragic finale deserve to stay in a film noir anthology, as well as the performances of Kirk Douglas and Barbara Stanwyck. Note also than the numerous close-ups of Lizabeth Scott and the silly epilogue of THE STRANGE LOVE OF MARTHA IVERS must not be accredited to Lewis Milestones nor to Robert Rossen. They were shot, after the completion of the film, by Byron Haskin on the producer Hal B. Wallis demand.
A DVD zone your library.
Kirk Douglas - Best EVER.......2007-01-12
The title may steer you in the wrong direction - this is not a romance. This is one of the best early pscho-dramas. Barbara Stanwyck is cold as ice, softening up all girlie when her childhood love returns. Kirk Douglas was magnificent as the whiney, wimpy, drunken husband.
And this movie has the best ending of all movies EVER.
They just don't write them like this anymore.
A childhood' s sin !.......2006-12-26
Lewis Milestone sealed his rubric in this troubled Noir, where the shadows of a somber past lurks the private intimacy of Martha, when a childhood friend rekindles old passions and so er husband the District Attorney O' Neil will ignite the imminent tragedy of a secret strongly kept in silence and hovered by a perverse blackmail.
Once more the Noir genre, mirrors one of its most relevant elements, which is the impossibility to break the bounds with an infamous and lurking past that obligates to turn a whole life in search of a supposed redemption based on a mutual complicity.
A fabulous cast that includes Kirk Douglas in his debut, Barbara Stanwyck, Van Heflin and Lizabeth Scott. The screenplay of Robert Rosen is based on an unpublished story "lovelies bleeding" by Jack Patrick. Released in July, 24 1946 with a running time of 115 minutes.
One of my personal favorite Noir films of the middle forties.
Average customer rating:
- The return of the repressed
- Under the Radar
- KIRK DOUGLAS - OPUS ONE - KIRK DOUGLAS
- Kirk Douglas - Best EVER
- A childhood' s sin !
|
Strange Love of Martha Ivers (B&W)
Starring: Barbara Stanwyck , Van Heflin , Lizabeth Scott , Kirk Douglas , and Judith Anderson
Director: Lewis Milestone
Manufacturer: Alpha Video
ProductGroup: DVD
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Similar Items:
- Sorry Wrong Number (1948) (Sub)
- Whirlpool (Fox Film Noir)
- Double Indemnity (Universal Legacy Series)
- Where the Sidewalk Ends (Fox Film Noir)
- Crime of Passion
ASIN: B00007G1TM
Release Date: 2002-11-19 |
Amazon.com essential video
Barbara Stanwyck mesmerizes as a woman with a past, bound by a crime to a husband she despises. Kirk Douglas quickens our collective pulses in his film debut as her disappointing, dipsomaniac spouse, while Van Heflin and Lizabeth Scott bring texture to supporting roles. Everything about this 1946 film noir is intriguing, from Lewis Milestone's direction to Edith Head's costumes to the edgy and troubled characters. It takes a long, hard look at guilt and the consequences of poorly planned actions. Well worth checking out, despite a wretched title. --Rochelle O'Gorman
Customer Reviews:
The return of the repressed.......2007-06-12
The sets and production values of this Paramount story of intrigue from 1946, the annus mirabilis of film noir, are superb, and there's no film starring Barbra Stanwyck that's not worth watching if just for her. Watchable though she inevitably is here, this is one of the few times in her long and magnificent career where she was truly miscast: Stanwyck was equally versatile playing comedy or drama, poverty or wealth, but the one thing she cannot play is neurosis--she was far too confident and driven a performer to be very believable as the highly ambivalent and conflicted Martha O'Neil. None of the three leads in this odd film seems ideally cast: as Martha's weakling alcoholic husband, Kirk Douglas, stunningly handsome in his first film role, is supposed to be wildly jealous of Van Heflin, of all people, who has come back to Iverstown (the Pennsylvania industrial town Stanwyck and Douglas jointly rule) with the memory of a childhood killing. Equally oddly cast is Janis Wilson, the memorably unhappy child Tina from NOW, VOYAGER here playing Martha as a young girl; it is inconceivable this anguished girl could ever grow up to be the tough and omnicompetent Stanwyck. Only Lizbeth Scott, as Heflin's weak new lady love, seems truly comfortable in her part. Even so, this DVD is still very much worth seeing if only for its early variations on common film noir themes.
Under the Radar.......2007-03-29
Excellent cast of Barbara Stanwyck, Kirk Douglas, Van Heflin, and Lizabeth Scott cannot pull this film out of mediocrity. The elements of noir are present: murder, jealousy, innocence, and betrayal but the film lacks the desperation and moral conflict that surrounds the protagonist in so many films of the genre. Van Heflin's performance is flat and Lizabeth Scott's performance is as wooden as a pine plank. Stanwyck's role and performance is more credible, but not as absorbing in later films such as Sorry Wrong Number and Double Indemnity. Kirk Douglas is very good in his first major Hollywood role as an alcoholic district attorney who fears that the appearance of a childhood friend (Heflin) will destroy the upper class lifestyle he enjoys with his wife (Stanwyck). The reunion between the Heflin character and Stanwyck's character is awkardly filmed and dramatized. Meanwhile we are left to believe that the nomadic Lizabeth Scott character still can't find the nerve to leave town. For some reason, for me anyway, the town looked liked it was situated somewhere near Pittsburg, Pa. I thought the ending of the film was a bit histrionic, but still an interesting ending. Why we needed anything after this, I don't know. The film should have concluded with a slow fade to darkness. Instead we see a sugar coded resolve that would have been more suited to a Disney Studio production.
KIRK DOUGLAS - OPUS ONE - KIRK DOUGLAS.......2007-03-20
First and only film noir directed by Lewis Milestone (All Quiet on the Western Front), first movie of Kirk Douglas, a screenplay written by Robert Rossen (The Hustler), THE STRANGE LOVE OF MARTHA IVERS is the kind of film any movie buff should have the desire to see. The Paramount Home Entertainment release I bought here at Amazon presents a near perfect copy of this movie but, beware, no extras at all.
Two scenes of the movie, Judith Anderson's death and the tragic finale deserve to stay in a film noir anthology, as well as the performances of Kirk Douglas and Barbara Stanwyck. Note also than the numerous close-ups of Lizabeth Scott and the silly epilogue of THE STRANGE LOVE OF MARTHA IVERS must not be accredited to Lewis Milestones nor to Robert Rossen. They were shot, after the completion of the film, by Byron Haskin on the producer Hal B. Wallis demand.
A DVD zone your library.
Kirk Douglas - Best EVER.......2007-01-12
The title may steer you in the wrong direction - this is not a romance. This is one of the best early pscho-dramas. Barbara Stanwyck is cold as ice, softening up all girlie when her childhood love returns. Kirk Douglas was magnificent as the whiney, wimpy, drunken husband.
And this movie has the best ending of all movies EVER.
They just don't write them like this anymore.
A childhood' s sin !.......2006-12-26
Lewis Milestone sealed his rubric in this troubled Noir, where the shadows of a somber past lurks the private intimacy of Martha, when a childhood friend rekindles old passions and so er husband the District Attorney O' Neil will ignite the imminent tragedy of a secret strongly kept in silence and hovered by a perverse blackmail.
Once more the Noir genre, mirrors one of its most relevant elements, which is the impossibility to break the bounds with an infamous and lurking past that obligates to turn a whole life in search of a supposed redemption based on a mutual complicity.
A fabulous cast that includes Kirk Douglas in his debut, Barbara Stanwyck, Van Heflin and Lizabeth Scott. The screenplay of Robert Rosen is based on an unpublished story "lovelies bleeding" by Jack Patrick. Released in July, 24 1946 with a running time of 115 minutes.
One of my personal favorite Noir films of the middle forties.
Average customer rating:
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Kirk Douglas: The Strange Love of Martha Ivers/Kirk Douglas, On Film/My Dear Secretary/The Bi
Starring: Kirk Douglas
Manufacturer: LaserLight DVD
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ASIN: B00004YKS4
Release Date: 2003-02-06 |
Description
Includes:
The Stranger Love of Martha Ivers
On Film
My Dear Secretary
The Big Trees
B&W/Color
318 min.
Average customer rating:
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The Strange Love of Martha Ivers
Starring: Judith Anderson , Walter S. Baldwin , Roman Bohnen , Charles D. Brown , and Catherine Craig
Director: Lewis Milestone
Manufacturer: Good Times Video
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- Stella Dallas
- Laura (Fox Film Noir)
- Sorry Wrong Number (1948) (Sub)
- Whirlpool (Fox Film Noir)
- Double Indemnity (Universal Legacy Series)
ASIN: B0006FFR98
Release Date: 2005-01-25 |
Customer Reviews:
A Rain That Never Stops.......2005-09-12
It's pouring rain as this dark noir melodrama opens, and after the night is over, it will always be raining for Martha Ivers. Lewis Milestone directed this tale of a life-long guilt that has festered until misplaced suspicion destroys one person and puts another out of her misery. There are good performances from a great cast, none better than Lizabeth Scott's as a girl down on her luck and hoping against the odds for something good to happen. She is the outside element to three lives bound together since childhood by a crime that has haunted two of them into adulthood.
This is a strange noir in many respects, mostly due to Milestone allowing the moviegoer to see the story in chronological order, rather than using flashbacks. It creates sympathy for the twisted Martha Ivers, because we know how one selfish moment of hatred in her youth set her on a coarse she can not change. It has been raining inside her ever since, until the water is sick and stagnant, but it always keeps coming. At the same time, however, we are rooting for the vulnerable Scott, hoping she'll be the victor in a battle she's not sure she can win.
Judith Anderson is Mrs. Ivers, little Martha's (Janis Wilson) aunt. She's none too nice and on a rainy night Martha causes her death in the heat of the moment, only her pal Walter (Mickey Kuhn) a witness. But they both think their friend Sam (Darryl Hickman) saw the crime also, and ran away. He did run away, but before the event that would change their lives forever.
It is nearly two decades later, and the adult Sam Masterson (Van Heflin) has an accident just outside of Iverstown. It brings back memories of when he was a brash kid, and the girl who now controls both Walter (Kirk Douglass) and the town. He meets the lovely Toni Marachek (Lizabeth Scott) on his first night there and helps her out a bit. She is fresh from jail and though Sam is a WWII veteran, his past is nothing to sneeze at either. There is something beginning between them but fate may decide Toni's future as a past Sam was no part of intrudes on the present.
Barbara Stanwyck is the adult Martha, married to the weaker of the boys from her youth, Walter. But you can tell she always wished it had been Sam who'd stayed that night so long ago. Even though they think he's there to blackmail them, she can't help but throw herself at him, even though she is too far gone on the inside for anything like real love. She does this right in front of her weak husband Walter, who may be more courageous in the end than Martha. Martha has it over on Walter because he loves her, but he is a constant reminder of the past for her. What they have together is a sick and twisted version of the real thing.
The relationship of Sam and Walter sort of mirrors their childhood but Heflin starts to feel sick about it and begins to like Walter, especially when he finally understands why they are so scared he'll tell something he didn't even know about. It's one thing to kill someone, but quite another to let someone else hang for it. All the while Toni has little moments with Sam, hoping it's enough to make him care, and blow Iverstown forever.
Even at the bitter end, there is that moment when you see in Matha's eyes, ever so briefly, that little girl again, and feel sympathy. Douglass is very good in his first screen role and Stanwyck's portrayel of the sad and sick Martha Ivers can stand proudly with any she played in the 1940's. Though her screen time is less by comparison, it is Scott who steals this film, however, as Toni is easily the most memorable character. Even when she isn't around, we are thinking about her plight, wondering where she's at and what will happen to her.
Heflin is solid as always and this is one of the great neglected noirs of the 1940's. There is a great ending where both couples get what they really want, and neither will look back on Iverstown anymore.
Average customer rating:
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The Strange Love of Martha Ivers - Lady of Burlesque
Starring: Judith Anderson , Walter S. Baldwin , Roman Bohnen , Charles D. Brown , and Catherine Craig
Director: Lewis Milestone
Manufacturer: Marengo Films
ProductGroup: DVD
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ASIN: B000IJ7AG0
Release Date: 2006-11-21 |
Description
The strange love of martha Ivers: Barbara Stanwyck plays the part of a young cold-hearted heiress who murders her strangely sadistic grandmother. In doing so she sweeps a young companion in as a co-conspirator to help her cover up her crime. Flash forward a number of years and we find she has become the icy matriarch of the city aptly named after her family, Iverstown. She literally runs the community with an iron fist. Lady of Burlesque: Based on Gypsy Rose Lees G String Murders Lady of Burlesque takes us back stage into the seedy world of burlesque. Rising star Dixie Daisy is the headliner in the troupe and actually steals the show with her terrific song and dance routines.
Customer Reviews:
NEWLY REMASTERED.......2006-12-13
Marengo Films is proud to announce the release of these two fine movies. We did a complete sound design and color correction for The Strange Love of Martha Ivers and believe it is now the finest print of this movie on the market. The Lady of Burlesque - an older film - was a little worn but the print was put through an extensive remastering process including color correction and sound design. We feel that this too is now the finest print of this movie on the market.
Average customer rating:
|
Lady Of Burlesque / The Strange Love Of Martha Ivers
Starring: Lady of Burlesque , and Strange Love of Martha Ivers
Manufacturer: Miracle Pictures
ProductGroup: DVD
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- Laura (Fox Film Noir)
- The Letter
ASIN: B000AMPKBM
Release Date: 2005-10-25 |
Average customer rating:
- The return of the repressed
- Under the Radar
- KIRK DOUGLAS - OPUS ONE - KIRK DOUGLAS
- Kirk Douglas - Best EVER
- A childhood' s sin !
|
The Strange Love of Martha Ivers / Kirk Douglas on Film - A Biography
Starring: Barbara Stanwyck , Van Heflin , Lizabeth Scott , Kirk Douglas , and Judith Anderson
Director: Lewis Milestone
Manufacturer: Delta
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- Sorry Wrong Number (1948) (Sub)
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- Double Indemnity (Universal Legacy Series)
- Where the Sidewalk Ends (Fox Film Noir)
- Crime of Passion
ASIN: 6305914710
Release Date: 2000-06-26 |
Amazon.com essential video
Barbara Stanwyck mesmerizes as a woman with a past, bound by a crime to a husband she despises. Kirk Douglas quickens our collective pulses in his film debut as her disappointing, dipsomaniac spouse, while Van Heflin and Lizabeth Scott bring texture to supporting roles. Everything about this 1946 film noir is intriguing, from Lewis Milestone's direction to Edith Head's costumes to the edgy and troubled characters. It takes a long, hard look at guilt and the consequences of poorly planned actions. Well worth checking out, despite a wretched title. --Rochelle O'Gorman
Description
Barbara Stanwyck is the wonderfully wicked Martha Ivers, a wealthy and dominating woman who controls a small town after inheriting a large family fortune. She lives with her weakling husband, a district attorney running for mayor, played by Kirk Douglas in his feature film debut. Also features Kirk Douglas: On Film documentary.
Customer Reviews:
The return of the repressed.......2007-06-12
The sets and production values of this Paramount story of intrigue from 1946, the annus mirabilis of film noir, are superb, and there's no film starring Barbra Stanwyck that's not worth watching if just for her. Watchable though she inevitably is here, this is one of the few times in her long and magnificent career where she was truly miscast: Stanwyck was equally versatile playing comedy or drama, poverty or wealth, but the one thing she cannot play is neurosis--she was far too confident and driven a performer to be very believable as the highly ambivalent and conflicted Martha O'Neil. None of the three leads in this odd film seems ideally cast: as Martha's weakling alcoholic husband, Kirk Douglas, stunningly handsome in his first film role, is supposed to be wildly jealous of Van Heflin, of all people, who has come back to Iverstown (the Pennsylvania industrial town Stanwyck and Douglas jointly rule) with the memory of a childhood killing. Equally oddly cast is Janis Wilson, the memorably unhappy child Tina from NOW, VOYAGER here playing Martha as a young girl; it is inconceivable this anguished girl could ever grow up to be the tough and omnicompetent Stanwyck. Only Lizbeth Scott, as Heflin's weak new lady love, seems truly comfortable in her part. Even so, this DVD is still very much worth seeing if only for its early variations on common film noir themes.
Under the Radar.......2007-03-29
Excellent cast of Barbara Stanwyck, Kirk Douglas, Van Heflin, and Lizabeth Scott cannot pull this film out of mediocrity. The elements of noir are present: murder, jealousy, innocence, and betrayal but the film lacks the desperation and moral conflict that surrounds the protagonist in so many films of the genre. Van Heflin's performance is flat and Lizabeth Scott's performance is as wooden as a pine plank. Stanwyck's role and performance is more credible, but not as absorbing in later films such as Sorry Wrong Number and Double Indemnity. Kirk Douglas is very good in his first major Hollywood role as an alcoholic district attorney who fears that the appearance of a childhood friend (Heflin) will destroy the upper class lifestyle he enjoys with his wife (Stanwyck). The reunion between the Heflin character and Stanwyck's character is awkardly filmed and dramatized. Meanwhile we are left to believe that the nomadic Lizabeth Scott character still can't find the nerve to leave town. For some reason, for me anyway, the town looked liked it was situated somewhere near Pittsburg, Pa. I thought the ending of the film was a bit histrionic, but still an interesting ending. Why we needed anything after this, I don't know. The film should have concluded with a slow fade to darkness. Instead we see a sugar coded resolve that would have been more suited to a Disney Studio production.
KIRK DOUGLAS - OPUS ONE - KIRK DOUGLAS.......2007-03-20
First and only film noir directed by Lewis Milestone (All Quiet on the Western Front), first movie of Kirk Douglas, a screenplay written by Robert Rossen (The Hustler), THE STRANGE LOVE OF MARTHA IVERS is the kind of film any movie buff should have the desire to see. The Paramount Home Entertainment release I bought here at Amazon presents a near perfect copy of this movie but, beware, no extras at all.
Two scenes of the movie, Judith Anderson's death and the tragic finale deserve to stay in a film noir anthology, as well as the performances of Kirk Douglas and Barbara Stanwyck. Note also than the numerous close-ups of Lizabeth Scott and the silly epilogue of THE STRANGE LOVE OF MARTHA IVERS must not be accredited to Lewis Milestones nor to Robert Rossen. They were shot, after the completion of the film, by Byron Haskin on the producer Hal B. Wallis demand.
A DVD zone your library.
Kirk Douglas - Best EVER.......2007-01-12
The title may steer you in the wrong direction - this is not a romance. This is one of the best early pscho-dramas. Barbara Stanwyck is cold as ice, softening up all girlie when her childhood love returns. Kirk Douglas was magnificent as the whiney, wimpy, drunken husband.
And this movie has the best ending of all movies EVER.
They just don't write them like this anymore.
A childhood' s sin !.......2006-12-26
Lewis Milestone sealed his rubric in this troubled Noir, where the shadows of a somber past lurks the private intimacy of Martha, when a childhood friend rekindles old passions and so er husband the District Attorney O' Neil will ignite the imminent tragedy of a secret strongly kept in silence and hovered by a perverse blackmail.
Once more the Noir genre, mirrors one of its most relevant elements, which is the impossibility to break the bounds with an infamous and lurking past that obligates to turn a whole life in search of a supposed redemption based on a mutual complicity.
A fabulous cast that includes Kirk Douglas in his debut, Barbara Stanwyck, Van Heflin and Lizabeth Scott. The screenplay of Robert Rosen is based on an unpublished story "lovelies bleeding" by Jack Patrick. Released in July, 24 1946 with a running time of 115 minutes.
One of my personal favorite Noir films of the middle forties.
Average customer rating:
- The return of the repressed
- Under the Radar
- KIRK DOUGLAS - OPUS ONE - KIRK DOUGLAS
- Kirk Douglas - Best EVER
- A childhood' s sin !
|
The Strange Love of Martha Ivers
Starring: Barbara Stanwyck , Van Heflin , Lizabeth Scott , Kirk Douglas , and Judith Anderson
Director: Lewis Milestone
Manufacturer: Diamond Ent. Corp.
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD
General
| Drama
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Melodrama
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Anderson, Judith
| ( A )
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Bohnen, Roman
| ( B )
| Actors & Actresses
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Brown, Charles D
| ( B )
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Doran, Ann
| ( D )
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Douglas, Kirk
| ( D )
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| ( F )
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| ( H )
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| ( H )
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| ( O )
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Roach, Bert
| ( R )
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| ( S )
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| ( S )
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Similar Items:
- Sorry Wrong Number (1948) (Sub)
- Whirlpool (Fox Film Noir)
- Double Indemnity (Universal Legacy Series)
- Where the Sidewalk Ends (Fox Film Noir)
- Crime of Passion
ASIN: B0000AZKO7
Release Date: 2003-01-01 |
Amazon.com essential video
Barbara Stanwyck mesmerizes as a woman with a past, bound by a crime to a husband she despises. Kirk Douglas quickens our collective pulses in his film debut as her disappointing, dipsomaniac spouse, while Van Heflin and Lizabeth Scott bring texture to supporting roles. Everything about this 1946 film noir is intriguing, from Lewis Milestone's direction to Edith Head's costumes to the edgy and troubled characters. It takes a long, hard look at guilt and the consequences of poorly planned actions. Well worth checking out, despite a wretched title. --Rochelle O'Gorman
Customer Reviews:
The return of the repressed.......2007-06-12
The sets and production values of this Paramount story of intrigue from 1946, the annus mirabilis of film noir, are superb, and there's no film starring Barbra Stanwyck that's not worth watching if just for her. Watchable though she inevitably is here, this is one of the few times in her long and magnificent career where she was truly miscast: Stanwyck was equally versatile playing comedy or drama, poverty or wealth, but the one thing she cannot play is neurosis--she was far too confident and driven a performer to be very believable as the highly ambivalent and conflicted Martha O'Neil. None of the three leads in this odd film seems ideally cast: as Martha's weakling alcoholic husband, Kirk Douglas, stunningly handsome in his first film role, is supposed to be wildly jealous of Van Heflin, of all people, who has come back to Iverstown (the Pennsylvania industrial town Stanwyck and Douglas jointly rule) with the memory of a childhood killing. Equally oddly cast is Janis Wilson, the memorably unhappy child Tina from NOW, VOYAGER here playing Martha as a young girl; it is inconceivable this anguished girl could ever grow up to be the tough and omnicompetent Stanwyck. Only Lizbeth Scott, as Heflin's weak new lady love, seems truly comfortable in her part. Even so, this DVD is still very much worth seeing if only for its early variations on common film noir themes.
Under the Radar.......2007-03-29
Excellent cast of Barbara Stanwyck, Kirk Douglas, Van Heflin, and Lizabeth Scott cannot pull this film out of mediocrity. The elements of noir are present: murder, jealousy, innocence, and betrayal but the film lacks the desperation and moral conflict that surrounds the protagonist in so many films of the genre. Van Heflin's performance is flat and Lizabeth Scott's performance is as wooden as a pine plank. Stanwyck's role and performance is more credible, but not as absorbing in later films such as Sorry Wrong Number and Double Indemnity. Kirk Douglas is very good in his first major Hollywood role as an alcoholic district attorney who fears that the appearance of a childhood friend (Heflin) will destroy the upper class lifestyle he enjoys with his wife (Stanwyck). The reunion between the Heflin character and Stanwyck's character is awkardly filmed and dramatized. Meanwhile we are left to believe that the nomadic Lizabeth Scott character still can't find the nerve to leave town. For some reason, for me anyway, the town looked liked it was situated somewhere near Pittsburg, Pa. I thought the ending of the film was a bit histrionic, but still an interesting ending. Why we needed anything after this, I don't know. The film should have concluded with a slow fade to darkness. Instead we see a sugar coded resolve that would have been more suited to a Disney Studio production.
KIRK DOUGLAS - OPUS ONE - KIRK DOUGLAS.......2007-03-20
First and only film noir directed by Lewis Milestone (All Quiet on the Western Front), first movie of Kirk Douglas, a screenplay written by Robert Rossen (The Hustler), THE STRANGE LOVE OF MARTHA IVERS is the kind of film any movie buff should have the desire to see. The Paramount Home Entertainment release I bought here at Amazon presents a near perfect copy of this movie but, beware, no extras at all.
Two scenes of the movie, Judith Anderson's death and the tragic finale deserve to stay in a film noir anthology, as well as the performances of Kirk Douglas and Barbara Stanwyck. Note also than the numerous close-ups of Lizabeth Scott and the silly epilogue of THE STRANGE LOVE OF MARTHA IVERS must not be accredited to Lewis Milestones nor to Robert Rossen. They were shot, after the completion of the film, by Byron Haskin on the producer Hal B. Wallis demand.
A DVD zone your library.
Kirk Douglas - Best EVER.......2007-01-12
The title may steer you in the wrong direction - this is not a romance. This is one of the best early pscho-dramas. Barbara Stanwyck is cold as ice, softening up all girlie when her childhood love returns. Kirk Douglas was magnificent as the whiney, wimpy, drunken husband.
And this movie has the best ending of all movies EVER.
They just don't write them like this anymore.
A childhood' s sin !.......2006-12-26
Lewis Milestone sealed his rubric in this troubled Noir, where the shadows of a somber past lurks the private intimacy of Martha, when a childhood friend rekindles old passions and so er husband the District Attorney O' Neil will ignite the imminent tragedy of a secret strongly kept in silence and hovered by a perverse blackmail.
Once more the Noir genre, mirrors one of its most relevant elements, which is the impossibility to break the bounds with an infamous and lurking past that obligates to turn a whole life in search of a supposed redemption based on a mutual complicity.
A fabulous cast that includes Kirk Douglas in his debut, Barbara Stanwyck, Van Heflin and Lizabeth Scott. The screenplay of Robert Rosen is based on an unpublished story "lovelies bleeding" by Jack Patrick. Released in July, 24 1946 with a running time of 115 minutes.
One of my personal favorite Noir films of the middle forties.
Average customer rating:
- The return of the repressed
- Under the Radar
- KIRK DOUGLAS - OPUS ONE - KIRK DOUGLAS
- Kirk Douglas - Best EVER
- A childhood' s sin !
|
The Strange Love Of Martha Ivers
Starring: Barbara Stanwyck , Van Heflin , Lizabeth Scott , Kirk Douglas , and Judith Anderson
Director: Lewis Milestone
Manufacturer: Image Entertainment
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD
General
| Drama
| Genres
| DVD
| Video
Melodrama
| By Theme
| Drama
| Genres
| DVD
| Video
Psychological Drama
| By Theme
| Drama
| Genres
| DVD
| Video
Haunted by the Past
| By Theme
| Drama
| Genres
| DVD
| Video
Crime & Criminals
| Drama
| Genres
| DVD
| Video
Mystery & Thriller
| By Genre
| Drama
| Genres
| DVD
| Video
Classics
| Drama
| Genres
| DVD
| Video
Love Triangle
| Love & Romance
| Drama
| Genres
| DVD
| Video
Murder
| Blackmail, Murder & Mayhem
| Mystery & Suspense
| Genres
| DVD
| Video
General
| Crime
| Mystery & Suspense
| Genres
| DVD
| Video
Anderson, Judith
| ( A )
| Actors & Actresses
| Stores
| DVD
| Video
Bohnen, Roman
| ( B )
| Actors & Actresses
| Stores
| DVD
| Video
Brown, Charles D
| ( B )
| Actors & Actresses
| Stores
| DVD
| Video
Doran, Ann
| ( D )
| Actors & Actresses
| Stores
| DVD
| Video
Douglas, Kirk
| ( D )
| Actors & Actresses
| Stores
| DVD
| Video
Flavin, James
| ( F )
| Actors & Actresses
| Stores
| DVD
| Video
Heflin, Van
| ( H )
| Actors & Actresses
| Stores
| DVD
| Video
Hickman, Darryl
| ( H )
| Actors & Actresses
| Stores
| DVD
| Video
Orth, Frank
| ( O )
| Actors & Actresses
| Stores
| DVD
| Video
Roach, Bert
| ( R )
| Actors & Actresses
| Stores
| DVD
| Video
Scott, Lizabeth
| ( S )
| Actors & Actresses
| Stores
| DVD
| Video
Stanwyck, Barbara
| ( S )
| Actors & Actresses
| Stores
| DVD
| Video
Wilson, Janis
| ( W )
| Actors & Actresses
| Stores
| DVD
| Video
Milestone, Lewis
| ( M )
| Directors
| Stores
| DVD
| Video
Used DVDs
| Stores
| DVD
| Video
| Action & Adventure
| African American Cinema
| Animation
| Anime & Manga
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| Cult Movies
| Documentary
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| Educational
| Fitness & Yoga
| Gay & Lesbian
| Horror
| Kids & Family
| Military & War
| Music Video & Concerts
| Musicals & Performing Arts
| Mystery & Suspense
| Science Fiction & Fantasy
| Special Interests
| Sports
| Television
| Westerns
( S )
| Titles
| Features
| DVD
| Video
Similar Items:
- Sorry Wrong Number (1948) (Sub)
- Whirlpool (Fox Film Noir)
- Double Indemnity (Universal Legacy Series)
- Where the Sidewalk Ends (Fox Film Noir)
- Crime of Passion
ASIN: 6305944369
Release Date: 2000-08-22 |
Amazon.com essential video
Barbara Stanwyck mesmerizes as a woman with a past, bound by a crime to a husband she despises. Kirk Douglas quickens our collective pulses in his film debut as her disappointing, dipsomaniac spouse, while Van Heflin and Lizabeth Scott bring texture to supporting roles. Everything about this 1946 film noir is intriguing, from Lewis Milestone's direction to Edith Head's costumes to the edgy and troubled characters. It takes a long, hard look at guilt and the consequences of poorly planned actions. Well worth checking out, despite a wretched title. --Rochelle O'Gorman
Description
One of the blackest of the post-war film noir classics, "The Strange Love of Martha Ivers" is notable for both its outstanding story and technique, and its truly impressive cast. Veterans Barbara Stanwyck and Van Heflin were joined by the youthful Kirk Douglas, making his screen debut in this lush Hal Wallis production. Small town mystery, murder, and intrigue is the subject as a common American phenomenon, the small town run by a powerful matriarchal family, is examined at less than arms length. The mysterious murder of a rich aunt by a young child haunts the lives of the killer and the witnesses across the years, building to a dramatic conclusion as a surprise visitor returns to town after an absence of decades.
Customer Reviews:
The return of the repressed.......2007-06-12
The sets and production values of this Paramount story of intrigue from 1946, the annus mirabilis of film noir, are superb, and there's no film starring Barbra Stanwyck that's not worth watching if just for her. Watchable though she inevitably is here, this is one of the few times in her long and magnificent career where she was truly miscast: Stanwyck was equally versatile playing comedy or drama, poverty or wealth, but the one thing she cannot play is neurosis--she was far too confident and driven a performer to be very believable as the highly ambivalent and conflicted Martha O'Neil. None of the three leads in this odd film seems ideally cast: as Martha's weakling alcoholic husband, Kirk Douglas, stunningly handsome in his first film role, is supposed to be wildly jealous of Van Heflin, of all people, who has come back to Iverstown (the Pennsylvania industrial town Stanwyck and Douglas jointly rule) with the memory of a childhood killing. Equally oddly cast is Janis Wilson, the memorably unhappy child Tina from NOW, VOYAGER here playing Martha as a young girl; it is inconceivable this anguished girl could ever grow up to be the tough and omnicompetent Stanwyck. Only Lizbeth Scott, as Heflin's weak new lady love, seems truly comfortable in her part. Even so, this DVD is still very much worth seeing if only for its early variations on common film noir themes.
Under the Radar.......2007-03-29
Excellent cast of Barbara Stanwyck, Kirk Douglas, Van Heflin, and Lizabeth Scott cannot pull this film out of mediocrity. The elements of noir are present: murder, jealousy, innocence, and betrayal but the film lacks the desperation and moral conflict that surrounds the protagonist in so many films of the genre. Van Heflin's performance is flat and Lizabeth Scott's performance is as wooden as a pine plank. Stanwyck's role and performance is more credible, but not as absorbing in later films such as Sorry Wrong Number and Double Indemnity. Kirk Douglas is very good in his first major Hollywood role as an alcoholic district attorney who fears that the appearance of a childhood friend (Heflin) will destroy the upper class lifestyle he enjoys with his wife (Stanwyck). The reunion between the Heflin character and Stanwyck's character is awkardly filmed and dramatized. Meanwhile we are left to believe that the nomadic Lizabeth Scott character still can't find the nerve to leave town. For some reason, for me anyway, the town looked liked it was situated somewhere near Pittsburg, Pa. I thought the ending of the film was a bit histrionic, but still an interesting ending. Why we needed anything after this, I don't know. The film should have concluded with a slow fade to darkness. Instead we see a sugar coded resolve that would have been more suited to a Disney Studio production.
KIRK DOUGLAS - OPUS ONE - KIRK DOUGLAS.......2007-03-20
First and only film noir directed by Lewis Milestone (All Quiet on the Western Front), first movie of Kirk Douglas, a screenplay written by Robert Rossen (The Hustler), THE STRANGE LOVE OF MARTHA IVERS is the kind of film any movie buff should have the desire to see. The Paramount Home Entertainment release I bought here at Amazon presents a near perfect copy of this movie but, beware, no extras at all.
Two scenes of the movie, Judith Anderson's death and the tragic finale deserve to stay in a film noir anthology, as well as the performances of Kirk Douglas and Barbara Stanwyck. Note also than the numerous close-ups of Lizabeth Scott and the silly epilogue of THE STRANGE LOVE OF MARTHA IVERS must not be accredited to Lewis Milestones nor to Robert Rossen. They were shot, after the completion of the film, by Byron Haskin on the producer Hal B. Wallis demand.
A DVD zone your library.
Kirk Douglas - Best EVER.......2007-01-12
The title may steer you in the wrong direction - this is not a romance. This is one of the best early pscho-dramas. Barbara Stanwyck is cold as ice, softening up all girlie when her childhood love returns. Kirk Douglas was magnificent as the whiney, wimpy, drunken husband.
And this movie has the best ending of all movies EVER.
They just don't write them like this anymore.
A childhood' s sin !.......2006-12-26
Lewis Milestone sealed his rubric in this troubled Noir, where the shadows of a somber past lurks the private intimacy of Martha, when a childhood friend rekindles old passions and so er husband the District Attorney O' Neil will ignite the imminent tragedy of a secret strongly kept in silence and hovered by a perverse blackmail.
Once more the Noir genre, mirrors one of its most relevant elements, which is the impossibility to break the bounds with an infamous and lurking past that obligates to turn a whole life in search of a supposed redemption based on a mutual complicity.
A fabulous cast that includes Kirk Douglas in his debut, Barbara Stanwyck, Van Heflin and Lizabeth Scott. The screenplay of Robert Rosen is based on an unpublished story "lovelies bleeding" by Jack Patrick. Released in July, 24 1946 with a running time of 115 minutes.
One of my personal favorite Noir films of the middle forties.
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Kirk Douglas Set [DVD] Big Trees/My Dear Secretary/Strange Love of Martha Ivers/Kirk Douglas: On Film
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