Movie - The Strange love of Martha Ivers

Movie – The Strange love of Martha Ivers

Score : 5/10 (provisional) 

Year : 1946

Director:  Lewis Milestone ; Byron Haskin & Hal B. Wallis (both uncredited) 

Country: USA

Language: English

Duration: 1h56

Writers: Robert Rossen (screenplay) ; Robert Riskin (uncredited) ; John Patrick (story) 

13 year old Martha tries to run away from her domineering Aunt, and plans on escaping with her friend Sam. Caught, Martha is brought back to her ill-tempered aunt.
I have to caution at this point that there is a disturbing scene in which this aunt is supposedly attacking Martha's cat with a stick. It's quite obvious the cat isn't there anymore, as the camera tilts upward but the suggested violence is nonetheless disturbing.

During this incident, the aunt dies, and from this point on, the lives of Martha, her tutor and his son, and of her friend Sam are inextricably linked, and this is where the editing confused me at first, because at some point the movie ''jumps'' over many years (17?) and introduces new characters and it's only after you hear the names that things become clearer ; specifically, that time has passed and that some people have come back and through the new characters, the story intertwines several currents before becoming one whole story.

This editing can therefore be seen either as clever, or just confusing... or a bit of both.

The Strange love of Martha Ivers isn't a great movie, let's be frank : the off-screen tensions between three directors, each working on different segments of the movie with no apparent coordination nor real cooperation has created discordant flow, and possibly that confusing editing I just mentioned.

It's musical score is quite underwhelming and at times annoying. That, however, isn't new for the 1940's, but there are much better scores even during that period.

The acting is overall good and I can see a certain resemblance in the actors and actresses playing the adult versions of the teen characters they portray, which is positive. 

The dialogues at times are dull, uninspired or badly chosen. At other moments, they are much better but never soar to high levels of other 1940's movies, and pale to higher standards set in other movies.

The fur isn't present throughout, luckily, but the are some really disgusting scenes with it, and the costuming doesn't ever really shine, in my opinion.

Unfortunately, everything but the acting and casting remains underwhelming in this movie, including the cinematography ; however, my appreciation may be biased by the horrendous ''quality'' in image transfer to the cheap dvd I had bought for a mere euro...

I note of caution, although not graphic, this movie is for adults because of the serious topics of certain depravity and murder/s to name but a couple... 

Let me repeat that there is a scene in which a character holds a stick and supposed to be hitting a cat to try to kill it ; no cat is actually hurt as far as I can tell, but the psychological effect is disturbing, and one praises the death of this character..

Because this movie is so uneven in many points and shines through the acting and casting, I don't understand the medium 7.5 score on imdb. I give it a more neutral 5/10, which may be raised slightly if I find a dvd with an improved image quality and notice the cinematography is actually good...

Cast : Barbara Stanwyck, Van Heflin, Lizabeth Scott, Roman Bohnen, Judith Anderson, Janis Wilson, Darryl Hickman, Mickey Kuhn and Kirk Douglas' screen debut.