Vintage Pulp | Mar 3 2024 |
You're evil. I'm a little lazy. I think our relationship works because we accept each other's flaws.
Looking at the promo poster for the Ray Milland/Ann Todd thriller So Evil My Love, we expected a standard 1940s crime drama, but we didn't look closely enough. The clothes reveal, if we'd used our eyes, that this is a period piece set in the late Victorian era. Milland plays a man sailing from Jamaica to England who picks up a case of malaria and is nursed back to health by recently widowed missionary Todd. Later, in Liverpool, he looks her up and moves into her boarding house. Milland is a painter, but he's more lucratively an art thief and forger. His real crime, and the reason he was leaving Jamaica, is a murder he committed. Trouble is soon to follow.
Once ensconced in Todd's rambling residence, Milland does the romantic full press, manipulating, flattering, and even dominating her until she falls in love with him. From that point it doesn't take much time or effort for Milland to draw poor, lonely Todd into his criminal schemes. Some viewers might become frustrated with her pliability and helplessness, but that's the 1890s for you. She eventually manages to act of her own volition, and her evolution into a woman who embraces power is what the movie is about. We thought it was good, for its type. It premiered in London today in 1948.
Vintage Pulp | Apr 23 2009 |
Hitchcock means terror in any language.
We mentioned a while back how frequently we run across foreign language Hitchcock posters, so here are a bunch for your enjoyment, including yet another version of Vertigo. FYI, Il Sipario Strappato is Torn Curtain and Ptáci is The Birds.
ItalyJapanFranceThe BirdsDie VogelPtáciThe Paradine CaseLe Procés ParadineRebeccaSpellboundLa Maison du Docteur EdwardesVertigoTorn CurtainIl Sipario StrappatoAlfred HitchcockJames StewartKim NovakPaul NewmanJulie AndrewsIngrid BergmanLaurence OlivierJoan FontaineRod TaylorJessica TandyGregory PeckAnn Toddposter artcinema