The Strange Woman

Plot synopsis:
In Bangor, Maine in 1824, a cruel young girl named Jenny Hager (Hedy Lamarr) pushes a terrified Ephraim Poster (Louis Hayward) into a river knowing he cannot swim. She is prepared to let him drown until Judge Saladine (Alan Napier) happens by, at which point Jenny jumps into the water and takes credit for saving the boy's life.
About ten years later, Jenny has grown up to be a beautiful but equally heartless and manipulative young woman. Her father, a drunken widower, whips Jenny after learning of her flirtation with a sailor. She secretly schemes to wed the richest man in town, the much older timber baron Isaiah Poster (Gene Lockhart), while his son Ephraim is away to college at Cambridge.
Poster is unkind to his mild-mannered son upon Ephraim's return. He is unaware that the boy and Jenny were once sweethearts and that Jenny is again flirting with Ephraim behind her husband's back. Poster is more concerned about the lawlessness in town, lumberjacks drunkenly pillaging the town, manhandling the women and killing the judge, confirming Poster's long-held belief that Bangor must organize a police force.
Jenny secretly hopes that her husband will die after he falls ill. When he recovers, Poster must make a trip to his lumber camps. Jenny appeals to Ephraim to arrange his father's death, saying, "I want you to return alone." In the rapids, both men fall from an overturned canoe and Poster drowns. His son, still deathly afraid of water, is unable or unwilling to save him.
To his shock, Ephraim returns to Jenny telling him, "You can't come into this house, you wretched coward...You've killed your father." He becomes a hopeless drunk, hating her and speaking freely about her deceitful ways. Poster's superintendent in the timber business, John Evered (George Sanders), goes to confront Ephraim but isn't sure whether to believe the harsh words he hears about Jenny.
Jenny proceeds to seduce Evered, who is engaged to marry her best friend, Meg Saladine (Hillary Brooke), the judge's daughter. Lust overtakes them during a thunderstorm. After their wedding, Evered is eager to have children, but Jenny learns she cannot bear any.
A traveling evangelist, Lincoln Pettridge (Edward Biby), preaches fire and brimstone that results in Jenny's confession to her husband that everything Ephraim said about her was true. Evered goes off to be by himself at a lumber camp, where Meg comes to persuade Evered to go back to his wife. Jenny, however, discovers them together, violently whips her horse and tries to run them down with her carriage. It careers off a cliff and she is killed.

Tags: melodrama

Review:
With a rich and older husband with a weak and easily led son, you can see where this is going, and with people like George Sanders and Louis Hayward supporting her in the cast, Hedy shines in the title role.A beautifully shot, tightly written film which may have been low budget but has a definite sheen of polish..
She gets the son and throws him over (a bit improbably) for Gweorge Sanders, wearing mutton chop sideburns here.It's not Ulmer'best -- that might be his "Hamlet"pdate "Strange Illusion." But it is very good and it is one of the best performances ever given by Ms. Lamarr..
An obscure film which, because of surprising creative touches in directing, acting and editing, should be shown more often: more than a potboiler, more than a "women's picture" that did not happen to star Bette Davis or Joan Crawford, it offers an engaging story, characters of substance and - except for a convenient and contrived ending - an honest portrayal of people caught in a web of circumstances and emotions they cannot control.
Strange woman, indeed.Leave it to B-movie genius, Edgar Ulmar, to wring every ounce of perversion and sleaze from a drama given by definition to plenty of inherent heat.The set up is a familiar one to film noir fans  a very pretty girl (Hedy Lamarr), given some tough knocks by life (in this case a drunken, violent father), grows into a stunning sexual predator reaping men like a scythe through summer corn.
But in Ulmer's hands, this injured woman, and this film, is something else again.First and foremost, this is a great performance by Hedy Lamarr.
Perhaps it took a director like Ulmar, a man completely unimpressed with simple beauty, to bring out the artist in Lamarr.Favorite scenes: Lamarr being beaten by her father as a young woman.
She is, in fact, twisted and perverse, somehow horribly self-aware of her own evil.One more little tidbit.In a fit of conscience, Jenny Hagar, now married to a rich man, donates $1,000 to the church.
It stars Hedy Lamarr, George Sanders, Louis Hayward, Gene Lockhart, Hilary Brooke, Rhys Williams and June Storey.
Story deals with Jenny Hagar (Lamarr), a strong and scheming woman who in 1840s Bangor in Maine, uses men for her own gains whilst exuding a double persona that shunts her into the upper echelons of the town's standings.
But, as we become privy to Jenny's back story and psychological make-up, you can feel that cloud of pessimism closing in.There will always be arguments put forward about if the likes of The Strange Woman should be classed as noir or not, but with Ulmer and Andriot cloaking the tale with claustrophobic shadows and low lights, the blacks and whites atmospherically used, thus the visuals are in place to marry up with the story, and what a story.
Propelled by powerful performances, a good script and strong cinematography, The Strange Woman explores the life of a beautiful, headstrong, passive aggressive femme fatale in Bangor, Maine, during the early 19th century.
Throughout her life before and after this marriage, she quietly and subtly plotted and schemed to get where, what and who she wanted, while keeping up the appearance of a good, honest country lady.The film focuses almost exclusively on Jenny and her romantic entanglements, but is also satisfying as a rather odd example of an anachronistic film noir.
The Strange Woman may be the best piece of directing accomplished by the very prolific B film-maker Edgar Ulmer (Detour).
Theirs was a contentious partnership but the result was one of Hedy's best performances.If you can put aside the fact that the lead character has a Viennese accent and her father an Irish one when they are both lifelong natives of Bangor, Maine then there is much to enjoy.
Hedy, stunningly beautiful as always, plays a deeply conflicted woman well and though the film veers wildly from morality tale to lurid melodrama it is certainly more fun than a lot of more highly thought of films..
Between the three played by Hedy Lamar, Gene Lockhart, and Louis Hayward, I'd say best actor award would go to Lockhart, the husband, whose part gets tougher as the film goes on.
Having George Sanders enter later seems a bit much, as the story was piping along with Hayward eyeing Lamar and Lamar playing him along while the town's economy goes along with the loggers who come in a make a mess every pay day.
Whenever I see a 1940s film which shows characters breaking the 10 commandments, I say "Here we go again, the villain(ess) will get their comeuppance before the film's end.It may seem perverse but I sometimes wish they could succeed with their aims, particularly when there is good in the character like here.A case in point is the character of Jenny Hager (Hedy Lamarr) who has a drunken father who beats her.Modern psychologists would have a field day with that one to explain adult motivation and her mental/sexual relationships with men.The transition from a young Jenny's face reflected in the local pond to a mature woman was effective.Unfortunately there is no getting away with her Bangor Maine accent and I was surprised Hedy got the lead role.She was obviously not a recently arrived immigrant from Austria as her father feigned a Scottish accent.I much prefer Hedy naturally playing herself in films with a believable cover story.One of my favourites is "Come Live With Me" (1941) co-starring with James Stewart where she plays a Viennese visitor who has overstayed on her passport.George Sanders is likewise too sophisticated to play a man who we are told prefers to work in a logging camp.He was likewise better cast in "Rebecca" and "The Portrait of Dorian Gray".On the plus side, Hedy is given a chance to act instead of standing still and looking stupid.Gene Lockhart acts with his British born wife Kathleen, playing Hedy's first husband.These two appeared together in Hedy's first U.S. film "Algiers" (1938) in which she co-starred with Charles Boyer.In the latter film Gene played an informer who gets shot but in "Strange Woman" is given a slightly more sympathetic role as the town's richest man.On balance I did not think Hedy deserved her cruel, fatal accident but she was trying to run down her new husband George Sanders and his ex-fiancé!!If you like costume drama (1820s), you will enjoy this DVD which can be easily purchased..
A tedious but interesting tale of a beautiful woman (Hedy Lamar) stalking man after man in the lumber country of Bangor, Maine circa 1820.
Always enjoyed the great acting of Hedy Lamarr, (Jenny Hager) who plays a woman who has a very cruel and mean streak in her mind and soul.
As Jenny grew older and turned into a pretty young girl, she decided to marry a man named Isiah Poster, (Gene Lockhart) much older than she was only because he had lots of money and that was what she really wanted out of life.
George Sanders and Louis Hayward gave great supporting roles in this story that deals with a very evil woman..
The film was one which stayed with me for several days because of the 'strangeness' of Jenny, the beauty of Hedy LaMarr, and the ending.
Jenny stated: "I gave the money because I hate grog shops and what they do to people", obviously thinking of her alcoholic father.My interest in catching this movie was spurred by the fact the book of the same title, by Ben Ames Williams (which answers Gearhart of Iowa's question, which is probably no longer a question) has been on my bookshelf for 50 years.
She doesn't appear to be too affected and irritating, but I don't think she was going to get an Oscar.At the beginning of the film, young Jenny Hager (Kay from "Mildred Pierce") says that when she is older, she will have whatever she wants because she's going to be beautiful.
1840s Bangor, Maine is the setting for THE STRANGE WOMAN, by the author Ben Ames Williams, who also set his modern story of a jealous woman in the same sort of Maine setting for "Leave Her To Heaven".This one does not have the production values of the Fox film, is directed by a less distinguished director, Edgar G.Ulmer, but gives HEDY LAMARR a stronger role than usual while at the same time permitting her to be her beautiful self.
As Jenny, she's really the stock heroine of the sort of novels Williams wrote, centering around jealous women who destroy the men in their lives by their shallow nature.Hedy first marries a wealthy man (GENE LOCKHART) for his money, then latches onto his weak son (LOUIS HAYWARD) whom she convinces to kill her husband during a boating accident, then sets her cap for a man she puts in charge of her husband's business (GEORGE SANDERS), never minding that he's already got a sweetheart (HILLARY BROOKE), and eventually coming between them in a less than subtle way.In fact, all of Hedy's machinations are less than subtle, accompanied by some dramatic background music by Carmen Dragon, and enhanced by close-ups of the star flaring her nostrils and posing provocatively in shadow or light, never once looking less than rapturously beautiful.
GEORGE SANDERS has a rather nondescript role for an actor of his brittle charm, obviously so enamored of Jenny that he overlooks all the puzzling elements that go into making her "a strange woman".DENNIS HOEY is excellent as Jenny's drunken father in the early scenes and ALAN NAPIER is effective in a brief supporting role.
Production values are less than luxurious despite the detailed sets and the B&W photography suffers from the under-lit lighting, not helped by the fact that the print itself being shown on TCM is not high quality and sometimes gives the film a harsh look rather than Gothic grandeur.For Lamarr's fans, it's one of her better vehicles at a time when she was free-lancing away from MGM.
It is a good old Victorian melodrama in the tradition of "Maria of the Red Barn" and, with its stirring scenes of passion and thrilling action sequences, still excellent fare for those who love a good tale well told.Hedy Lamarr plays a woman who can be extremely wicked and devilishly devious, but she is not thoroughly evil like the entirely despicable female played by Margaret Lockwood in the "Wicked Lady", but rather a mixture of good and evil like all of us.
Gene Lockhart's kind of Irish/Canadian is quite plausible in that location (Bangor, Maine), and even Dennis Hooey's broad drunken Scots is credible especially so close to Nova Scotia, but both George Sander's and Louis Hayward's (close friend of plum-in-the-mouth Noel Coward) dulcet tones would be more likely to be heard in an Oxbridge tutorial than a logging town.
Furthermore, and above all, there is the incongruity of the main character Jenny's accent, which mutates from standard girl-next-door American when young (played by Jo Marlowe), to the Viennese English of Sigmund Freud when Hedy takes over the rôle.
Anyway, it is an interesting cast, down to Hayward as the weakling Ephraim and little Jo Ann Marlowe as the meanest girl since Patty McCormack's Bad Seed (1956).I don't know if the film resulted in the kind of career break Lamarr was likely looking for, but it remains an entertaining morality tale, despite a spotty script and stage-bound settings..
Heddy Lamarr plays a young woman who people think is sweet and innocent, but it's mostly a conniving act in order to get what she wants out of life.
She plots his downfall, his son Ephraim's (Louis Hayward) downfall and that of her friend Meg (Hillary Brooke) by stealing her boyfriend John (George Sanders).
However, she is good in the lead role and is both funny and convincing as a wicked woman, eg, the scene where she arrives at Isaiah's house after getting a beating from her father which she seems to have enjoyed.
Watch how she pulls down the back of her dress to reveal her bruising to the housekeeper whilst looking seductively over her bare shoulder at Isaiah in order to gain his interest sexually.The film has some stand-out funny moments that centre around Jenny's behaviour but I felt let-down by the ending.
The title comes from the bible (see the incredible scene of the preacher) and is no misnomer since the heroine is some kind of female Tartuffe :she is a great pretender ,she gives money to extend the church,she cares for the others ,she seems to do everything out of the goodness of her heart.A hypocrite femme fatale.But we know she is evil from the start:when she was a nasty little girl who grew into a go-getter ,in search of a rich man.In its second part,the movie becomes a Phaedra situation: the heroine is married to his former whipping boy's dad and thus has become his stepmother .This story lacks focus ,coherence,and the riot scenes in Bangor town come at the most awkward moment.Even for a melodrama,sometimes,enough is enough.Stahl's "leave her to Heaven" or Vidor's "beyond the forest" ,which dealt with similar subjects had stronger screenplays.Hedy Lamarr is eye candy:she resembles Vivien Leigh but she is not as talented as her as an actress..
This is one pretty girl who later becomes a beautiful woman, but is as ruthless and evil in getting what she wants.What she wants is to get out of Hoey's home and influence so she sets her cap for rich logging merchant Gene Lockhart.
That man could and did play all kinds of roles and was never afraid of being a villain.Except for an incredibly contrived cop out ending which ruined the film, The Strange Woman will make for some interesting viewing..
The main character of this melodrama is Jenny Hager, a beautiful but heartless young woman living in the New England of the 1830s or 40s.
The film follows Jenny's tangled relationships with the three men who fall in love with her- Isaiah, his son Ephraim and Isaiah's foreman John Evered.
Evered is the man whom Jenny really wants, even though he is originally engaged to her best friend Meg.Modern period dramas are normally given the full "heritage cinema" treatment with opulent sets and costumes, but in the forties films like this tended to be made on a more modest scale; like "Dragonwyck", another Victorian melodrama set in the American North-East from the same year, "The Strange Woman" was not even made in colour.
There is, however, nothing in the script which would rule out the possibility of Evered being a recent immigrant from Britain, whereas we know that Jenny was born and bred in Bangor, Maine, not Vienna.Despite her unexplained foreign accent, however, Hedy is actually quite good here, certainly better than she was in some films from this period such as "Samson and Delilah".
At the same time, Hedy's looks were so stunning that it becomes quite understandable why so many men should fall for such an unpleasant woman.This film can be seen as an American equivalent of the Gainsborough melodramas being made in Britain at around the same time.
Hedy Lamarr stars as the town beauty from the wrong side of the tracks in this classic noir from the, some would say, under rated and very talented director Edgar G.
She is the equivalent to 'the raven haired temptress from below stairs' in period dramas, but instead lives in a shack but knows she wants riches, and will do anything to get them and that she can get men to do anything for her.It is a classic tale as she scurrilously lures the richest man in town, he is loaded, but she also has a thing for his young and sensitive son.
What I find most fascinating about Jenny Hager (Hedy Lamarr's character) in THE STRANGE WOMAN, is the sympathy with which she is portrayed.
Hedy Lamarr's performance was brilliant; in her hands, the character is not completely evil, but possesses a humanity and vulnerability which makes her a puzzle of complexities, contradictions, and (as another reviewer described her) fickleness.Jenny Hager is an extremely fascinating character.
Jenny was sorry for her actions, felt remorse about them, and yet her death was her own doing; again propelled to commit evil beyond her control, which ended in her own demise.Hedy Lamarr was magnificent.
Set in 1820's Bangor, Maine; The Strange Woman is the tale of beautiful Jenny Hager.
And before long, when she meets Ephraim Poster (Louis Hayward), Isaiah's son who is her age, you can see Jenny knows that money with youth will be more fun than money with age.
The hypocrisy that oozes like spoiled milk from this movie makes only one point: A woman who uses her sexuality and her smarts must be up to no good, even if the men in her life are drunks, boors, weaklings and prigs.
Harvey Korman portrays a character in that film named Hedley Lamarr, and spends a good portion of his time correcting virtually everyone who calls him Hedy.
While this is a pretty good Ulmer melodrama, they simply could not film the original novel which includes sociopath Jenny's deliberately seductive behavior toward her own father from early childhood, her sadomasochism, her pleasure in manipulation and cruelty toward men and her own sons.
Ulmer -- the giant of Poverty Row best known for his ability to write, produce, and direct a full-fledged movie on a budget of two cents -- has Hedy Lamarr as a scheming, poor, young wanton in 19th-century Bangor, Maine.
Taking on the type of role that the equally exotic Margaret Lockwood played in exciting melodramas such as "The Wicked Lady" and "The Man in Grey", Hedy Lamarr gives one of her more interesting performances.
Dull Boring Film - Nothing Strange About Her. Hedy Lamarr is fine, she a beautiful woman with talent.