Reviews & Ratings for
The Strange Woman More at IMDbPro »

Filter:

Best Chronological Prolific Authors Loved It Hated It Hide Spoilers:

Page 1 of 3:

[1] [2] [3]

Index

29 reviews in total

---

27 out of 31 people found the following review useful:
Should be better remembered, 21 July 2001
Author: jaykay-10

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. Aside from the glitter and sweep, it has more similarities to than differences from "Gone With the Wind."

This may be Hedy Lamarr's most challenging role, and she acquits herself quite well. George Sanders appears infrequently as a sympathetic character, but even he is victimized by the Scarlett O'Hara-like wiles of Hedy. That both of these performers have accents that are not suggestive of born-and-bred Maine residents should not constitute more than a minor annoyance. The picture has more than enough offsetting merits.

---

24 out of 27 people found the following review useful:
The Complex Woman, 29 December 2006

Author: beyondtheforest from United States

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

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. Her character, in the film, is not necessarily psychotic, but deeply troubled and complex. There is a sense that she is not always in control of her actions. She is good and evil at the same time. She simultaneously gives to the poor, helps others, and yet plots the ruin and murder of others, as she stalks after certain men. There are similarities between Jenny Hager and Scarlett O'Hara, but Jenny's intentions and the root of her flaws are much darker and more mysterious.

Perhaps the reason Jenny Hager is such a disturbing character is because she has a conscience. So often in films, femme fatales are portrayed to have no conscience, no sense of compassion for others, and yet Jenny does. The most disturbing suggestion made throughout the film is that we can be aware of doing evil things and yet we still do them, and that some of us have no control over the dark forces which cause us to purposely hurt others.

As another reviewer wrote, Jenny probably did not deserve her tragic fate at the end of the film. Her husband and best friend had both forgiven her for her cruelties, and her husband was coming back to her because he loved her. Jenny's offers the memorable line, "Maybe love has made Jenny the good person people always thought she was." And we hope this is true. 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. The final closeup was her most stirring. Edgar G. Ulmer's direction was revolutionary. The photography, costumes, and set design were still fresh after all these years, and if you ever get the opportunity, take a look at the glorious original poster art and read the poetic tag-lines for the film, some of the most creative and creepy advertising ever.

---

36 out of 51 people found the following review useful:
More fun than most modern, more flamboyant film efforts!, 11 July 2002

Author: Wiley Danforth from Lone Pine, CA

For a generation hooked on special effects, and mostly shoddy updates of very old film cliches, 'Strange Woman' must seem like a very dated movie. Of course, that largely depends on generational film tastes. A good story; good if sometimes uneven performances, and of course Hedy Lamarr; one of Hollywood's best kept secrets. Poor Hedy usually got the short end of the stick, as most of the critical acclaim went to very over-rated actresses, who were not nearly as beautiful as Hedy. Critics could never get past her phenomenal beauty, and more often rewarded Bergman, Turner, Davis, and Crawford, because they looked like ordinary everyday people. Oh! the simple minded, one-dimensional critics who imposed their bland tastes on a public, that just craved good entertainment. Hedy as Jenny Hager represents a daring stretch for Hedy; and she delivers a somewhat hammy, but nevertheless engaging performance. George Sanders is excellent as usual, in one of his lesser roles, and the cinematography is first rate. This is a melodramatic melodrama folks! It represents a bygone era in movie-making; when movies were made to entertain, sometimes most effectively in black and white, very often with modest budgets, and without mindboggling effects, extremely loud soundtracks. This movie deserves a 7/10.

---

20 out of 23 people found the following review useful:
Poverty Row Meets Major Stars In Tale of Incest, 21 September 2004

Author: David (Handlinghandel) from NY, NY

Hedy Lamarr and Egar G. Ulmer. OK. It really did happen, improbable as the pairing seems.

She is very convincing as the daughter of a drunk who wants to dominate men and the society that squashed her when she was a child. It seems to me that her father speaks with a Scottish burr and that she does very briefly. The story might better have been changed so that he was an immigrant whose accent would be more consistent with th4e luscious Ms. Lamarr's own.

Nevertheless, it is atmospheric and very troubling. She marries an older man and immediately starts out in pursuit of his son. 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.

---

14 out of 15 people found the following review useful:
unusual femme fatale film, 12 September 2007

Author: didi-5 from United Kingdom

Hedy Lamarr once said that the key to appearing beautiful is 'to stand still and look stupid', but here she proves she could act when required to. As the daughter of a drunk, Jenny has ambitions to rise in the world and become beautiful, using her wiles to subdue and bewitch men into doing her bidding. 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.

---

20 out of 27 people found the following review useful:
Hedy heats up the screen, 20 March 2002
Author: bruno-32 from United States

What a story and well acted. Hedy as a teenager and then into a grown woman. She was fantastic looking and fantastic in it. I thought George Sanders, whom I admired as an actor was miscast though. Louis Hayward was excellent as the weak son. In fact everyone in it was well cast. Too bad it wasn't in color, or done by a major studio. I could of sworn the little girl that portrays Hedy as a child was also fantastic for her age. She even looked like Hedy may of looked like at that age. Definitely worth watching.

---

13 out of 14 people found the following review useful:
A beautiful woman tries to control men and becomes a victim of her own vices., 1 October 2006

Author: classic_erin from United States

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Set in 1820's Bangor, Maine; The Strange Woman is the tale of beautiful Jenny Hager. After her drunkard father dies, she marries the wealthy, but significantly older, Isaiah Poster; who also happens to be the father of her childhood sweetheart, Ephraim.

Everything seems to be going according to plan for Jenny. She lives well and uses her husband's money to gain the respect and love of the townspeople through extravagant church donations and gratuitous care of a poor sick woman, and a childhood friend who has become a prostitute. Additionally, she amuses herself and fulfills her need to be desired by seducing (or re-seducing) Ephraim, now that he has returned from college.

When the beau of Jenny's friend Meg catches Jenny's eye, this comes as little surprise to us. It was heavily foreshadowed earlier in the film when Meg explains that her beau, John, has not proposed to her yet, and Jenny makes a cryptic comment to the effect that she would know exactly how to make the man propose to her.

A very telling scene occurs where John and Meg share a moment alone in the parlor, and Isaiah, while waiting for the housemaid to bring him one of his multiple medications, is oblivious to Jenny's anxious jealousy and jokes to her to "leave the young lovebirds alone". This scene highlights the age gap between Jenny and her aging husband, and you can almost feel her frustration as he unwittingly includes her in his peer group, and excludes her from the youthful group that she yearns to be a part of.

When the opportunity presents itself, Jenny meets Ephraim alone and convinces him to kill his father. This scene is well done and in perfect film noir tradition. Jenny dramatically outs 2 of the 3 the candles with her fingers (foreshadowing perhaps, for the coming deaths of Isaiah and Ephram, and the remaining light representing John), leaving herself and Ephraim in near darkness, alluding to the evil plans she has in mind.

Although Ephraim carries out her wishes, she casts him out and viciously hurts her friend Meg by marrying John. Ephraim tries to warn John that Jenny is evil, but John falls in love with Jenny anyway.

Now that Jenny has lived a life of sin, all that's left is to punish her. After numerous discussions with her husband about children and how ardently he wants to have them, Jenny discovers that she is infertile, and always will be. Then, a traveling priest or some such man, speaks to the congregation about the evils of "the strange woman". He seems to be speaking directly to Jenny, and all of his condemnations directly reflect the sinful actions she has taken in her life. Her guilty conscience leads her to confess to John that Ephraim was telling the truth all along, and she is a terrible woman. When John becomes upset, she tries to recant, but he doesn't believe her and storms out of the house.

John is up at the logging grounds, and Meg is speaking to him about his troubles. John decides to return to Jenny, and Meg is glad of his decision because she believes he has made Jenny a better person, the two walk outside to return to town and find Jenny. Ironically, at that moment, Jenny is rushing up the hill. When she sees them, she jumps to conclusions and flies into a rage. She attempts to run them over, but loses control and flies out of the carriage herself. She admits to John that she was trying to kill him, and then dies, a victim of her own jealousy. She assumed that Meg was as unscrupulous a woman as she, and was trying to steal her husband. Jenny's evil mindset has finally brought her to her own demise: a fitting ending for the film noir tradition.

---

10 out of 12 people found the following review useful:
An Edgar Ulmar masterpiece, 17 February 2008

Author: mykal-3 from United States

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. It is the kind of part Joan Crawford or Barbara Stanwick specialized in with much better known films (Mildred Pierce and The Strange Loves of Martha Ivers for example). 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. It is a shame she was not called upon to act more often, as she certainly was capable, as this film proves, of Oscar-caliber work. Lamarr was one of the most beautiful actresses to ever stand in front of a camera. There are near legendary stories about stage hands, actors, directors, forgetting the business at hand, lost in a simple stare. But more, her beauty was combined with pure sexual allure (a very rare combination – many actress have one or the other, seldom both). With these traits, acting skills were barely required. 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. The father screaming "This is one beating you'll NOT like!" Lamarr smiles as her father undoes his belt and begins the whipping, smiles and smiles with each lashing, until finally her expression is a combination of pain and joy.

Lamarr approaching her much older husband's son, turning out lamps and blowing out candles as she approaches, her eyes glittering in the growing darkness. "Shall I light your way?" she asks.

Lamar approaching the fiancée of her best friend in the dark of night as lightening strikes behind her and a burning, split tree light their embrace.

Lamarr, older now, screaming at newest husband "Hell! Hell is opening up under our feet!" In other notable noirs, actresses like the aforementioned Stanyck and Crawford were always misunderstood or somehow justified in their hardness (and that's the worst that could be said of them – they were just tough, wisecracking gals who had perhaps made an understandable mistake). Here, however, the Lamarr character, Jenny Hagar, never cracks wise once, nor does she ever imagine what she has done is justifiable. She purrs destruction or flames hot with regret and self loathing. She is NOT an okay gal beneath it all. 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. Upon leaving the church, the reverend comments on her good work, saying she must always give such service to the church. "Haven't her lips given you enough service for one day?" snaps the rich, much older husband.

My oh my, good old Edgar Ulmar. –Mykal Banta

---

15 out of 23 people found the following review useful:
What a woman wants...a woman gets., 24 August 2002

Author: Michael O'Keefe from Muskogee OK

Typical modest budget black and white film from director Edgar G. Ulmer. A tedious but interesting tale of a beautiful woman (Hedy Lamar) stalking man after man in the lumber country of Bangor, Maine circa 1820. Love 'em and leave 'em. The ravishing Lamar dominates her scenes. She is drop dead gorgeous and her lips are sweeter than wine. She is also alluring and fickle as hell. George Sanders is solid as they come. Gene Lockhart and Louis Hayward are hammy; while Morini Olsen is powerful as the brimstone preaching Reverend Thatcher. If you like costume dramas, you will enjoy this tale of love and lust.

---

9 out of 12 people found the following review useful:
The 1940 Hays Code Morality Clause Kicks in Again, 13 November 2007

Author: (howardmorley@aol.com) from United Kingdom

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.

---

---

Page 1 of 3:

[1] [2] [3]

Add another review

---

Related Links

Plot summary	Ratings	External reviews
Plot keywords	Main details	Your user reviews
Your vote history