Another Man's Poison

Janet Frobisher is a crime novelist living alone in the north of England. She is separated from her husband and involved with her secretary's fiancé. One night a man comes to the door: her husband's accomplice in a bank robbery. The husband is dead and the man wants to take his identity. Janet has a body to hide and he knows it. The two begin holding each other by blackmail. Irving Rapper directs. Bette Davis plays Janet and Gary Merrill plays the man. The source is a stage play. Davis and Merrill were married in life when they made it and their conduct on set was gossip at the time; the marriage ended a few years later. The structure is a single location, almost entirely inside the house; the theatrical source is not hidden. The idea is that neither can let the other go. Neither can inform on the other nor be rid of them, and the tension comes from that lock. Bette Davis plays a character with no sympathy at all here; Janet is manipulative, cold and unrepentant. One known scene involves a horse and is the hardest passage from here. It was made in England, at a point when Davis's American career was in a flat period. Who it is for: viewers who like classical melodrama thrillers and Bette Davis. Who it is not for: the production is small, the plot rests on coincidence, and the acting goes over the top in places.