Having caused international outcry for her "immoral" behavior with director Roberto Rossellini in 1950, Ingrid Bergman returned to Hollywood in 1956 with "Anastasia" and got her revenge with a Best Actress Oscar. One can't help recalling Bergman's true-life travails with this adaptation of Friedrich Dürrenmatt's play "Der Besuch der alten Dame" (The Visit of the Old Lady) in which a multi-millionairess returns to her dirt-poor hometown in the European city of Güllen and offers the citizens money and material goods in exchange for the execution of her former lover, who got her pregnant as a young girl before shunning her and smearing her name. Themes of greed and revenge are not intricately woven into the narrative--they are slammed home by director Bernhard Wicki, who uses extreme close-ups of the grinning, grotesque residents to make his points on capitalism and corruption. Bergman, glitzy and glinty-eyed in her quest for twisted justice, twitches with angry anticipation in a series of glorious gowns, wigs and jewels (and eyeglasses!). She's fun to watch, for awhile--as is Anthony Quinn as the man she wants killed--but the picture is so heavy-handed it begins to resemble its protagonist: decadent and poisonous. **1/2 from ****