This romantic melodrama, directed by Edgar G. Ulmer -- the giant of Poverty Row best known for his ability to write, produce, and direct a full-fledged movie on a budget of two cents -- has Hedy Lamarr as a scheming, poor, young wanton in 19th-century Bangor, Maine. Of course all the men are after her because she's beautiful. She really is. It doesn't matter that her name isn't actually Hedy Lamarr. Nobody is named Hedy Lamarr. She was born Cosima Ausgang von Bahnhof in Furzheim, Germany. But, honestly, it doesn't detract from her appeal, nor does the fact that she got into Hollywood movies by seducing a move mogul on a trans-Atlantic passage.
She insinuates herself into the arms of the lustful and rotund Gene Lockhart. He believes he's tricked her into marriage but it's the other way around. He's the richest merchant in the port of Bangor and besides he has a handsome young son, Louis Hayward, away at Harvard. Once properly ensconced in Lockhart's home, she writes Hayward, who is her age, to hurry back to Bangor so "I can show you how warm a mother can be," the slut. The thoughtful decent architect returns to his home. Lamarr at once puts tantalizing moves on him.
Ulmer has a reasonable budget here and makes good use of it, and there are some adequate performances. Gene Lockhart in particular knows his way around a rather complicated role. Hayward is less jaunty than usual. In fact, he's something of a milquetoast. When a mob abuses a young working woman, it's Lamarr who intervenes, not Hayward. Lamarr herself, hobbled by a slight accent, projects the workings of her mind the way a traffic light signals "go" or "caution" or "halt." There's not the slightest hint of subtlety. But, honestly, it doesn't detract from her appeal.
Halfway through, George Sanders shows up. He's Lockhart's foreman at the lumber camp. A foreman, yes, but a dapper one. I've never really thought of George Sanders as a rough-and-tumble man of the woods, a Sebastian Junger, but rather the cad he usually is. However, his smooth posh baritone saves his bacon. He's the beau of Hillary Brooke, a childhood friend of Lamarr's. But the moment he appears, Lamarr's features become incandescent and glandular. She begins to avoid her son. Has Hayward shown himself to be not enough of a man? Is there any end to Lamarr's depravity? It has to be said that the plot is a little unraveled somewhere around the mid-point. Things kind of nudge themselves into the plot without adumbration. A riot erupts out of nowhere. The selfish Lamarr begins distributing money, leading the Temperance League, and doing community service without explanation. Maybe we're meant to exercise our inferential faculties with more vigor. I think it's bad screen writing.
Then, when Hayward is packing for a trip up river and they're alone in the house, she lets her hair down, descends the grand staircase, snuffs out the lights and silently approaches him while he gawks at her in fright. For a moment, it looks like a vampire movie. But instead of sucking his blood, she extorts the poor guy, blackmailing him into thinking that he must snuff his own father. Patricide is a serious business. If you were a patricide in traditional China, you would be subject to a long and lingering death, your relatives would have curses tattooed on their faces, and the bones of your ancestors would be exhumed and scattered to the winds, no kidding. The moral is: don't do it unless you feel really strongly about it.
As it turns out, Hayward is accidentally instrumental in causing his father's death when in a panic he overturns the canoe running the rapids. I don't want to bother looking it up, but it seems to me the shots of the canoes and the rapids are from an old John Ford movie. It's exactly what Lamarr wants. Lockhart is out of the way and the wretched Hayward is somehow responsible, so she kicks him out and turns her attention to George Sanders. Hayward, ridden with guilt, turns into a drunk.
Situation report: Lamarr has become the doyen of Bangor, Maine. She has done so by seducing Gene Lockhart, Louis Hayward, and George Sanders, by seeing to it that Lockhart has met his death, by prompting the despairing Hawyard to hang himself, and by stealing away the beau of her best friend, Hillary Brooke. She's now "the richest woman in New England." Little does she know, tragedy lies just around the corner..
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