User Reviews

This film noir has an interesting setup. Well-known pianist Claudette Colbert is preparing to marry Robert Ryan and on their wedding day is confronted by evidence that she has married another man. There are a bunch of witnesses who can attest to this fact, including Justice of the Peace Percy Helton and cheap hotel maid Vivian Vance. Colbert ends up in a mental institution where she is treated by psychiatrist Elisabeth risdon while her aunt Jane Cowl and Ryan try to discover the truth.

Slow pace is both an aid and a hindrance in making this a memorable film, and as the secrets are revealed and the culprit revealed, it becomes more intriguing. Advance has particularly effective as the plain talking chambermaid who pays dearly for going against the perpetrators of this scheme to drive Colbert mad. Having appeared in many dramatic films and even a thriller ("Sleep My Love"), Colbert proves herself to be more than just a life comedian, but her character is depressing. She's effective in her mad scenes but it's not one of her most uplifting films. Still, it's a difficult film to dislike because it is intriguing and is one of those films that will have you drawn in spite of its faults.

I'm not going to regurgitate the plot. I agree with the other reviewers who were a little disappointed in the ending. I sure did not guess who was gas lighting her or why. I also found it a little unbelievable that the sweet old justice of the peace and his wife and housekeeper would be in on the plot. They should have made another appearance where their motivations and lies were exposed. How did the Vivian Vance character get Claudette's pin? How was Lucian Randall shot if Claudette didn't do it? I admit I may have missed some of the exposition.

I didn't know what this film was about, but I watched it because I really enjoy Claudette Colbert. For the first few minutes I thought it was a comedy. The bridegroom can't get into the house because he doesn't look the part. Then, when the wedding party is asked, "If anyone here knows of any reason why this couple should not be wed...", and someone stands up and objects. Very quickly, however, it becomes clear it's not a comedy, and for the first third of the film we wonder what is going on here? Could the Colbert character really already have a husband and was about to commit bigamy? Not so far off a typical soap opera-ish 1940s drama. But then, suddenly, at the "jazz house", it becomes clear this is a 1950s film, and a very different tone emerges as it appears that Colbert has shot her first, secret husband. It becomes nearly film noir. And, the ending is a humdinger! Colbert is superb here, but this is not the Colbert you're used to seeing. Insane? She's in an asylum! Nervous breakdown? She's hysterical! A bravura performance.

I don't typically like Robert Ryan, but in this film he's very good.

This is a very solid mystery, not to be missed by Colbert fans.

**SPOILERS** At their big wedding ceremony just as both the groom David McLean, Robert Ryan, and the bride Ellen Ewing, Claudtte Colbert, are about to say "I Do" this party, or wedding, crasher pops up out of nowhere. The crasher then announces that Ellen is already married and that he should know since he was the best man at her wedding. Giving out some information about what he knows about Ellen and her husband a Mr. Lucian Randell, David Barbour, the crasher takes off like a house on fire never to be heard or seen again. Thats until very late in he film when his reasons for putting on this strange surprising spectacle become very evident.

The priest is reluctant to continue with the marriage ceremony when what the crasher said checks out after a quick phone call by the town of Riverview's District Attorney Eric Lowell,Paul Kelly, where the supposed wedding took place. It turns out from the towns record department that it's a fact that a Ellen Ewing and Lucian Randell were indeed married there on March 21 just as the wedding gate crasher said before he took off!

Left high and dry on their wedding day both David and Ellen decide to travel to Riverview and get to the bottom of this mystery so they can get on with their lives as a happily married couple. At Riverview it turns out that not only do the records check out that Ellen is married to a Mr. Randell but that everyone there recognizes her as being married to him! Staying at the Shallman Hotel Ellen is even more shocked when the maid Leah, Vivian Vance, not only recognizes her as staying there, in fact in the very same room that she's now in with David, with Lucian Randell on their wedding night but also has a gold pin, that belonged to Ellen's late mother, that Ellen supposedly gave her as a tip!

It just get's too much for David and Ellen with everyone that they talk to in town remembering Ellen and Mr. Randell being married there and finally decide to see this Randell for themselves. Finding out that Randell hangs out at this local jazz club both Ellen and David go to see him and get to the bottom of this mess once in for all. At the club Randell comes up the a shocked and befuddled Ellen, to the annoyance of David, and chats with her as if he and her were married to each other. He then invites Ellen to go into a private room to talk things over as David is left behind paralyzed with his jaw almost dropping to the floor. A moment later behind closed doors a shot rings out and when the musicians and David rush in they find Randall dead from a bullet wound and Ellen standing there in a state of shock with a gun that belongs to her, the murder weapon, at her feet!

Arrested for her "husbands" murder Ellen goes into a deep depression that has her institutionalized but all the psychological and medical tests on her shows that Ellen is total incapable of committing a violent act! If this is true who was in the room with her and Randell to gun Randell down? Was it Ellen or did Randall who seemed so happy and gay at the time, commit suicide? Why if anyone did murder Randell why didn't Ellen see it?

The movie "The Secret Fury" gets more and more stranger as it goes along and as Ellen slowly loses her mind and grip on reality. David goes back to Riverview to find out the truth about his future wife and circumstances of Randell's death and the truth turns out to be even stranger then fiction or what we were lead to believe that it was up until then!

The mind is not only a terrible thing to waste but even more a terrible thing to play around with and manipulate. This is what happens in "The Secret Fury" with poor Ellen being driven insane and into a mental institution hopefully, in the mind of the person who's driving Ellen mad, for the rest of her life. The real murderous psychotic in the movie is someone who no one, especially Ellen, would ever suspect and his reasons for doing these terrible things to Ellen are even more insane that he is!

The killer made one big mistake in his subconscious and innocent quirks that are at first totally overlooked by everyone, including Ellen, in the film. It just happened that as Ellen became more and more psychotic, or paranoid, her subconscious mind picked up these quirks and putting two and two together she soon realized who the person is.

Getting the jump on Ellen the killer ,who also picked up Ellen picking up his very unusual mannerisms, quickly goes into attack mode revealing the real reason for his actions, cold blooded and naked revenge, but not for what she but her late father did to him. This sets off the final nail-biting scene where David comes to Ellen's rescue without knowing what exactly is going on and who exactly is trying to murder her until the very last, and most exciting, moment in the movie.

A couple is getting married; but a guy comes forward to say that the bride is already someone's wife. What's the deal? Well, David (Robert Ryan) and Ellen (Claudet Colbert) are going to find out.

Ominously, no one in the house staff seems to know David when he arrives at the wedding mansion. Ellen's aunt Claire (Jane Cowl) jokes a bit with her that she was supposed to have married Eric (Paul Kelly). Then we meet Ellen's guardian, Gregory (Philip Ober). Time for the ceremony.

She was married to Lucien (Dave Barbour) says the interloper. It checks out. She wasn't where she was supposed to have been that day; in fact she was in the town where the previous ceremony took place. But she claims to not even know Lucien. Now we get the backstory from Claire that Ellen had been close to a breakdown.

Sure enough, It's her signature on the marriage documents with Lucien. When they go to see the officiant at the Lucien/Ellen wedding, everyone recognizes her. Now even Claire and Eric start to doubt her. The consensus is they've got to find this Lucien to find out what's going on.

We find Ellen alone, thinking back: a flashback. Her on the beach, by a swanky house, with a guy. When she gets away from the memory, Ellen immediately phones David. She claims that she's cleared up the whole mess. The hotel maid recalls her honeymoon though, with Lucien, that is. "Nice seeing you again." The maid pops back in just as David arrives.

Her memory that ends with her holding a seashell doesn't mean much; she was with a guy. Later, they go to see Lucien, who's with a bunch of musicians. Lucien approaches her, calls her his wife. She is taken aback: how does he know her? It becomes stranger when a shot is heard from the closed room. He's been shot dead.

Of course she's the one and only suspect. She insists that not only did she not kill Lucien, she'd never met him before. No prints on the gun, anyway. It was Claire's gun. Actually, Eric, who's the D.A., had been Ellen's jilted boyfriend (also the loudmouth at the wedding). David is so upset he slugs the D.A.

Later, David comes to Gregory's office with maybe some good news. It seems that Lucien was a blackmailer; that's no good, though, as that gives Ellen more of a motive. A former lover of Lucien's related that he thought that Ellen was dangerous. With Ellen on the stand, Eric implies that she'd been blackmailing Lucien.

Gregory objects in that Eric is not only defaming her, but his personal interest in the case means his intrinsically biased. She starts to lose it; Gregory changes her plea to "guilty by reason of insanity." She's being evaluated at an institution for diagnostic purposes; no "unconscious aggression" detected.

David talks to Claire--she pretty much thinks that Ellen's lost. Nonetheless, he goes to the institution; the doctor says Ellen's living in an "opaque" world. He goes through her things, and finds the tell-tale seashell. Maybe more clues at the beach? Hmm, back to the county records office to check up on the clerk's memory of Ellen.

That guy remembers a scar on her hand. Next stop is the hotel where Ellen stayed recently. Now the maid doesn't remember "the Randall's". He plans to meet her at her room later; looks like a set-up. Very noirish atmosphere: sure enough, amid shadows and lights, she gets strangled before David gets there. So, he finds the body, and the murder weapon.

Wisely, he leaves. Some creepy possibilities; like a guy lurking in his backseat set to strangle him. It's the interloper from the wedding, a friend of Lucien's. Screeching to a halt, David runs away from the car--pretty soon they're fighting. David wins. Yeah, the guy framed Ellen. The judge and make were paid to act their parts in this plot. He killed the maid--but Lucien?

Leave that problem for the cops. On the way there, though, Eric manages to hurl himself out of the car. Is he dead too? Back at the institution, Ellen's playing away at the piano. David and Gregory come by to fill her in. She seems catatonic. "We have proof that you never married (Lucien) Randle." And she could have killed him either.

She comes to life, but then freaks out. What's going on with her now? At her family home, she, David, Claire, Eric and Gregory get together-"she's not insane, she never was" says David. Really? She pulls a gun on Claire and Gregory." To Gregory: "You had me locked up like an animal!" Aha! It's Gregory who's the bad guy; he'd likewise been put-away by her father years before.

It's literally kill or be killed. She has the gun. She knows, that, given her history, she'll never see the light of day if she pulls the trigger. Fortunately, David intervenes: but she looks like the nut, ranting and raving, holding a gun on Gregory. Pleading with David, Eric shows his hand, so to speak, by wielding an ax. David manages to push him back; a falling hunk of debris finishes him off. The end.

The last half hour or so is very good noir; the rest is a decent mystery. That's ok, but there's a substantial change in tone and atmosphere. It's like half a Hitchcock movie. The ending leaves some loose ends, but the revelation that the trusted Gregory is the bad guy is enough to let things fall into place.

The main problem is Eric's unseemly presence in the courtroom. There's just no way that he would've been an appropriate choice as prosecutor. I see that it was Gregory's strategy to allow this, dingbat Ellen wouldn't walk away. And, again in half-Hitchcock style, the nutty, ax-wielding Gregory is sort of conjured out of thin air from his previous avuncular role. It's an interesting subplot, but it's just too much of a switch, too abruptly.

Almost as contrived is Ellen's "sickness." I understand that mental states can be episodic, but she seems to lose it as if on cue. A breakdown in a courtroom doesn't equate to a total breakdown, it's a reaction to stress.

There's enough good stuff here to entertain us; but it's a bit disappointing, nonetheless.

Just saw it on TMC. The contents of the movie slowly aims at the aunt being the villain, with the motive of getting Ellen out of the way in order to gain an inheritance. I believe that for some unknown reason the writers came up with the implausible ending.

I thought that the movie was pretty well done. I think the fight scene between Ryan and the killer was filmed in subdued lighting because of the use of a stand in for Ryan.

Even though Ryan's '49 Buick was pretty big, it seemed that Ryan took a long time to realize that there was someone in the back seat. Also, how come when the Buick crashed into the trash cans there was no damage to the right front. I guess Buick were built pretty strong back then.

At first I was interested in "the mystery" of this film. Had Ellen Ewing really married someone else? I assumed not, but was interested to see how it would be resolved. What ensued was just a load of nonsense and I found myself predicting what was next -- "he'll see the reflection of the boat in the water" and "well that's a precarious way to store a large mirror." Oh, and I forgot about the seashell in the pocket of her jacket. I could only imagine this all started with these clues and someone decided to write a movie script around them.

Claudette Colbert is way too good an actress for this, but her wide-eyed I-didn't-do-this-look wore on my last nerve about 30 minutes in. The other frustration was we go straight from a murder scene into prosecuting the case --which by the way was going to be handled by her jilted ex-lover (really?!), and the only clue we're provided with is that "the gun fell on the floor" and whoever did it was wearing gloves. And tough guy Robert Taylor was wasted on this. The best he was given to work with was trying to drown a guy under a spigot on the street.

Of course I deduced the actual villain, but assumed it was to get at Ellen's money. Instead, in the last five minutes the feeble motive was given that it was punishment for having been put in an asylum by Ellen's father, so if she killed him he would have his revenge of her being confined to an asylum too...or if she didn't, he'd kill HER. Why not just do that at the outset and spare us all 126 minutes of a story that doesn't hold together? I literally was laughing at the end at how ridiculous it was. Ugh!

The film is suspenseful enough, but when it's over, you begin to wonder how someone could have pulled off the ruse that had Ellen Ewing (Claudette Colbert) going temporarily insane. It would have taken her attorney Kent (Philip Ober) considerable resources in time and money to get so many people to identify Ellen as having been married four months earlier. Not to mention having someone commit murder to foil David McLean's (Robert Ryan) investigative effort to get to the bottom of the mystery. The closed room murder of Ellen's purported husband (Dave Barbour) also has to be questioned. What did the guy do to deserve getting killed to pull off a gaslight job like Gregory Kent intended? All those question marks pop up in the story after the fact of watching it, making the film somewhat questionable in terms of credibility. The one interesting casting decision here was that of Vivian Vance as the hotel housemaid. I think this is the only role I've ever seen her in where she's not Lucy's pal.

Claudette Colbert and Robert Ryan are both too old for this screwy tale of a wedding interrupted by the claim that the bride is already married. She looks far too matronly-sensible to be driven insane, as she is, by a lot of suborned witnesses (or actors) who, apparently, wait at home for Colbert and Ryan to come calling on them (and who somehow manage to ensure that they will be in a certain hotel room rather than any of the others). He is a far too interesting actor to waste on a script that has him either rushing around after clues or consoling Claudette. And why is she a successful concert pianist? We expect that, or at least her sensitivity to sounds and music, to have something to do with the story, but it is just a pointless detail.

So terrible is the writing that we never find out who killed the murdered man or how! (He was alone in a room with Claudette when he was suddenly shot dead. Did the instigator of the plot pay him so much that he was willing to kill himself?) And, if you are still suspending disbelief, the movie cuts it loose in the final scene, in which Claudette, who has been incarcerated in a high-security mental institution, has managed to escape, to travel at least several miles back to her home, and to acquire a loaded gun!

The movie aims to start on a cute note by showing Ryan walking into the house where he is to be married and being refused admission because he does not have an invitation. He meekly goes out and tries to get in the back way, but a security guard blocks him there too. Why on earth doesn't he say he is the groom and prove it with some ID? The writers may have been pleased with their supposedly humorous idea, but it's not funny because it doesn't make any sense. Who except Caspar Milquetoast would behave that way? Certainly not Robert Ryan!