Review of The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946)
Seen in 2021.
This feels more like Great Expectations (1946) and a romantic rectangle drama than proper film noir, probably because the Hays Code was lodged all the way up the makers’ butts. There’s a lot of coded sexual material, but the most that can be shown on screen is Lizabeth Scott having fallen asleep on a hotel bed, reading The Bible (ca. 110 CE) and looking, in every instant, as though she just walked out of Hair & Makeup into Noirville, USA. The ending is intensely moral, giving the villains their comeuppance while our hero—the professional gambler—keeps his hands clean.