ANOTHER MAN’S POISON. Eros Films, UK, 1951. United Artists, US, 1952. Bette Davis, Gary Merrill, Emlyn Williams, Anthony, Barbara Murray. Screenplay by Val Guest, based on the play “Deadlock” by Leslie Sands. Director: Irving Rapper.

   There is a funny story I’d like to tell you about regarding this movie. Well, it’s funny to me, not laugh-out-loud funny, but just a little bizarre kind of funny. The first time I tried to watch this movie, it was on a videotape I’d made fro TCM, and about ten minutes from the end, either the movie had run long, or the tape had run short. What can be worse than missing the last ten minutes of a rattling good murder mystery movie?

   Then a couple of nights ago, I spotted the movie again on Amazon Prime Video, a freebie, no less. Finally, I thought, here’s my chance to see the ending. And of course I decided to watch it all the way through from the beginning. It had been too long. I’d forgotten most of the story line.

   So I settled in for the evening. Ha! You guessed it. Ten minutes before the ending, the picture froze. I had to shut everything down and work my way back to where I’d left off. Took me fifteen minutes. Twice now.

   Three times is the charm.

   I might not have done this for just any old movie, but to my mind, this one’s a good one, and well worth the trouble. Bette Davis can do little wrong, as far as I’m concerned, and she’s at her bitchy best in this one. .(There’s no other word I can use.)

   I don’t recall if the story begins on a dark rainy night or not – but for sure that comes later. She’s a mystery writer who lives almost alone in an well-isolated manor house with a deep dark tarn in the back and facing an empty stretch of moor on the other. She has two visitors. The first is her estranged husband, then after she disposes of him, another man shows up – her husband’s partner in a bank robbery, looking for shelter.

   When I said disposed of, I meant it. The man is dead. Poisoned. Her second arrival grabs the chance when he can get it. He dumps the body in the tarn, and forces the newly minted widow to let him pose as her husband.

   It’s an audacious plot, and they might have gotten away with it, if not for a live-in secretary, her fiancé (who the lady in charge has Bette Davis eyes) for, and an extremely nosy veterinarian who lives in the estate next door.

   I apologize for running on like this, but this is just the setup. You’ll have to use your imagination for what goes on in the remaining hour or so, but with a setup like this, the possibilities are many, and it all comes off like clockwork. Well worth the long intermission(s) for me.