The Strange Woman

Actress Hedy Lamarr developed and produced this independently made 1946 drama about a fiery, impoverished girl named Jenny living in turn-of-the-century Bangor, ME, who draws on her looks and feminine wiles to marry into a fortune. Jenny destroys the men she uses during her climb, including aging lumber baron and merchant Isaiah (Gene Lockhart) and his son, Ephraim (Louis Hayward), before setting her sights on the soft-spoken but iron-willed John (George Sanders), her best friend's beau. Lamarr brought in legendary B-movie director Edgar Ulmer, who guides Lamarr in her best American performance as the passionate and contradictory Jenny, a ruthlessly ambitious yet also generously philanthropic woman, haunted by her own hardscrabble childhood. Ulmer keeps the canvas small and intimate, making the port boomtown of Bangor something of an absent character, discussed constantly but always just out of frame (most likely due to the film's low budget). Although not quite a classic of American cinema, this is a solid film, handsomely designed and beautifully shot, that features a fine cast. Nicely remastered from an archival 35mm print, this will be a welcome discovery for fans of golden-age Hollywood. Recommended. (S. Axmaker)