A Woman's Vengeance (1948)

A Woman's Vengeance was adapted for the screen by Aldous Huxley from his own short story The Gioconda Smile (which he later turned into a successful stage play). The movie, directed by Zoltan Korda, was released by Universal International in 1948.

Henry Maurier (Charles Boyer) is married, and very unhappily. His wife Emily (Rachel Kempson) is an invalid who claims that the only thing that keeps her alive is her joy in making her husband’s life a misery.

Janet Spence (Jessica Tandy) is a friend of the family although it’s fairly obvious that there was at some stage some kind of romantic attachment between Emily and Henry. We surmise that Janet is still in love with Henry.

Henry has a charming young mistress, Doris Mead (Ann Blyth).

Unfortunately he also has a brother-in-law, Robert Lester (Hugh French). Robert is a worthless layabout and sponger who lives off his sister, Emily Maurier. Even more unfortunately Robert finds out about Henry’s little affair with Doris and turns to blackmail.

Emily dies of a heart attack, which given her state of health is not all that great a shock.

Then we get an amazingly impressive scene, played out in a darkened room with an electrical storm raging outside the window. Janet is exultant. She assumes that Henry shares her joy. After all they can now be married. At which point Henry drops a bombshell. He’s just come back from Cornwall where he married Doris.

Then Emily’s nurse goes to the police, accusing Henry of murdering his wife. Unfortunately there’s a mountain of circumstantial evidence against him and he is charged with the murder. We don’t believe for one moment that he did it and in fact I think it’s a certainty that the viewer will have figured out the identity of the actual murderer. I’m not going to reveal it of course but I suspect that both Huxley and Korda assume that the viewer knows who the murderer is. In fact I’m sure that they want us to know since that knowledge adds a delightfully twisted edge to what follows.

Huxley and Korda are not really interested in the mystery plot. What interests them is the psychological drama, the suspense as time is running out for Henry, and some philosophical musings about life and death and accepting reality. Huxley was no crime writer, this is in fact his only crime story and I don’t think he ever had visions of becoming a master of the art of detective story writing.

He was however a penetrating student of human psychology and the movie works a treat as a psychological thriller.

Korda, having given us that magnificent declaration of unrequited love in a storm scene earlier will later offer us another equally impressive visual tour-de-force, the extraordinary prison visit scene.

Charles Boyer is very solid here, Ann Blyth is good and Cedric Hardwicke as the family doctor who is convinced of Henry’s innocence is excellent. But this movie belongs to Jessica Tandy. It’s a powerhouse performance of emotional intensity and emotional derangement.

Universal’s Region 2 DVD is barebones but offers an excellent transfer (the movie is in black-and-white and in the 1.37:1 aspect ratio) of a movie that had slipped into undeserved obscurity.

If you approach A Woman's Vengeance as a psychological study of revenge, guilt, love and death rather than as a mystery you’ll find it extremely rewarding. Don’t worry about the plot, just sit back and enjoy the very impressive visuals and that incredible performance by Jessica Tandy. An unconventional crime film but still highly recommended.