毒妇与恶汉

Whisked away to make this murder-mystery with her newly hitched fourth husband Gary Merrill in Britain, a follow-up of her “all-time best performance” in Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s ALL ABOUT EVE (1950), Ms. Davis recruits the director of NOW, VOYAGER (1942), Irving Rapper to take the helm, but overall, the final product is a secondary offering in every aspect.

ANOTHER MAN’S POISON, takes place in a Podunk Northern England town, mostly, sets in an isolated, but gorgeous and impressive mansion inhabited by mystery novelist Janet Frobisher (Davis), who has no qualms about poisoning her long-absent husband when the latter gets rough, and soon is pressed into playing wife and husband with George Bates (Merrill), her husband’s bank-robbing accomplice, on the contingency to cover for her crime and grant George a haven to stay, one stone two birds? Hardly so.

The imposter game is played out with barbs and ploys duly leveling at each other, while Merrill is surely fierce enough to be alternately menacing, callous and even wanton, winning an upper hand for him is a forlorn hope from the very start in the face of Davis’ characteristic wide-eyed fearlessness and insidious fickleness. Firing on all cylinders, her madness and vile calculation completely overshadows the danger befalling on a woman mired in a precarious situation, thus not for one second, audience dreads for Janet’s safety, which makes her a less all-around character for the sake of characterization. Janet is no man’s fortune and all man’s poison, yet, she still enjoys a last laugh before ironically hoisted by her own petard.

Also enmeshed in the fix (though unwittingly) is Janet’s secretary Chris Dale (a comely Murray, calmly nerves herself to confront Davis in a poorly designed role) and her fiancé Larry (a blandly handsome Steel), who actually is Janet’s paramour for almost a year. While the bloom is clearly off the rose, Davis (at the age of 43) pluckily knuckles down the cougar town and as this reviewer sees it, takes more visible pleasure in the scenes where a youthful Chris concedes defeat to her and implores her to give Larry back, lines like “you are a charming woman who can have any man you want.” appear many time to reassure Davis that her appeal still prevail (over her much younger competitors), but in hindsight, a self-defeating whiff of deep-rooted insecurity is all one can sniff.

British actor Emlyn Williams, third-billed as the nosey-parker, smart-aleck veterinarian-turned-amateur-sleuth Dr. Henderson, has never bedded in felicitously in his somewhat vexing and often unaccountable blow-ins, only if a better script would offer more coherence, but one thing is for sure, this film-noir does pull out all its stops to suffix poetic justice in its cockamamie plot.

referential entries: Rapper’s NOW, VOYAGER (1942, 8.7/10); Stuart Heisler’s THE STAR (1952, 6.0/10); William Wyler’s THE LETTER (1940, 8.0/10).

戴维斯女士带着她新婚的第四任丈夫加里·梅里尔离开英国，使这起谋杀案成为一个谜，这是她在约瑟夫·L·曼凯维奇《关于夏娃的一切》(1950年)中“有史以来最好的表演”的后续，戴维斯女士聘请欧文·拉帕尔《航海家》(1942年)的导演来掌舵，但总的来说，最终产品在各个方面都是次要产品。 《另一个男人的毒药》发生在英格兰北部的一个小镇上，大部分场景都是在一座与世隔绝但又美丽动人的宅邸里，住着神秘小说家珍妮特·弗罗比舍(戴维斯饰)，当她久违的丈夫变得粗暴时，她毫不犹豫地毒死了丈夫，很快就被迫与丈夫的抢银行帮凶乔治·贝茨(美林饰)扮演夫妻，以防万一，掩盖她的罪行，给乔治一个栖身之所，一举两得？很难说。 冒名顶替者的游戏是用互相攻击的讽刺和策略来进行的，而美林无疑足够凶猛，可以交替威胁、冷酷甚至肆意妄为，面对戴维斯特有的睁大眼睛的无畏和阴险的多变，从一开始就为他赢得上风是一个渺茫的希望。全力以赴，她的疯狂和卑鄙的算计完全掩盖了一个陷入危险境地的女人所面临的危险，因此观众一秒钟也不担心珍妮特的安全，这使得她在刻画人物时不那么全面。珍妮特不是男人的财富，而是所有男人的毒药，然而，讽刺的是，在她被自己的佩塔德举起之前，她仍然享受着最后的笑声。 珍妮特的秘书克里斯·戴尔(一个清秀的默里，镇定自若地面对设计拙劣的戴维斯)和她的未婚夫拉里(一个温和英俊的钢铁人)也陷入了困境(尽管不知情)，后者实际上是珍妮特近一年的情妇。当花开的时候，戴维斯(43岁)勇敢地指节在美洲狮镇，正如这位评论家所看到的，在年轻的克里斯向她承认失败并恳求她把拉里还给她的场景中，他获得了更多明显的快乐，比如“你是一个迷人的女人，可以拥有任何你想要的男人。”似乎多次向戴维斯保证，她的吸引力仍然占优势(超过她年轻得多的竞争对手)，但事后看来，一股弄巧成拙的根深蒂固的不安全感是所有人都能闻到的。 英国演员埃姆林·威廉姆斯，第三次被宣传为爱管闲事的帕克，自作聪明的兽医变成业余侦探亨德森博士，从来没有恰当地插入他有些令人烦恼且常常莫名其妙的抨击，除非一个更好的剧本能提供更多的连贯性，但有一点是肯定的，这部黑色电影确实竭尽全力在它繁琐的情节中加入了诗意的正义。 参考条目:Rapper's NOW，VOYAGER (1942，8.7/10)；史都华·海斯勒的《星星》(1952年，6.0/10)；威廉·惠勒的信(1940，8.0/10)。