Otto Preminger had a penchant for original far-fetched themes and stories that offered the challenge of being difficult to handle, and he made a sport of making them come out well after being handled thoroughly. This is a typical example. It is a psychological thriller of a most unusual kind, someone holding a small town with all its leading characters hostage by poisoned anonymous letters, pointing out the leading doctor at the hospital (Michael Rennie) as having improper affairs with his patients, one of them being Linda Darnell, who in this film is not as beautiful and captivating as the other doctor's young wife, Charles Boyer as far too old a husband for his adorable wife (Constance Smith in her first role). The mystery of these anonymous letters amount to a public scandal as one of them leads to a suicide. There will be more.
Otto Preminger handles the story with its intriguing settings at Quebec with subtle psychological expertise, the delicacy of the problem keeps steadily increasing to an unavoidable breaking point, which would take everyone by surprise. The acting is superb all the way. Charles Boyer is always perfect, but here Michael Rennie actually transcends him as a most gentlemanly London doctor having left his successful career as a gynaecologist after his wife's suicide after having betrayed him, while he is facing new and other challenges in Quebec, which he handles as well as Otto Preminger does. This is the kind of film that has to end up in the limbo of misunderstood undervaluation for its very intricate and difficult psychological finesse.
Otto Preminger handles the story with its intriguing settings at Quebec with subtle psychological expertise, the delicacy of the problem keeps steadily increasing to an unavoidable breaking point, which would take everyone by surprise. The acting is superb all the way. Charles Boyer is always perfect, but here Michael Rennie actually transcends him as a most gentlemanly London doctor having left his successful career as a gynaecologist after his wife's suicide after having betrayed him, while he is facing new and other challenges in Quebec, which he handles as well as Otto Preminger does. This is the kind of film that has to end up in the limbo of misunderstood undervaluation for its very intricate and difficult psychological finesse.