The Strange Love of Martha Ivers

Returning to the town you grew up in. Where it all started. Chances are, you won't just accidentally stumble through it like Sam Masterson (Van Heflin) does. I'd be well aware, if I were heading towards the town I grew up in, but in fiction it never hits a protagonist before they see a sign - and for Sam it's Iverstown. Home to a tumultuous childhood for all of the characters in The Strange Love of Martha Ivers - a film with a title that is such a great head-scratcher. I take it the source novel's title of "Love Lies Bleeding" was too icky-sounding for studio heads and distributors, because otherwise it sounds like the perfect title for this. The titular Martha Ivers is played by Barbara Stanwyck - who can play poisonous, and as such is perfect for the role of a woman spiritually contorted by guilt, grief, wealth, greed and a loveless marriage. Before Van Heflin and Stanwyck take up their roles however, the action is set up with a prologue set during their characters' childhood days.

Martha (Janis Wilson) and young Sam Masterson (Darryl Hickman) are running - from the law, their relatives and their respective fates it seems. Stealing away like hobos on a train out of Iverstown, it's not long before they're spotted, and Martha caught. Sam manages to get away. When Martha is dragged back home we learn that she lives with her ultra-wealthy aunt and a tutor by the name of Walter O'Neil Sr (Roman Bohnen) - who has a son Martha confides in, snivelly sycophant Walter O'Neil Jnr (Mickey Kuhn). When Sam makes his way back to the place, and organises another escape with Martha, her aunt happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time - during a blackout. Martha clocks her one on the head with a cane, whereupon her aunt falls to the foot of the staircase, dead. The crime is to be blamed on an intruder, and as such Martha will inherit her vast wealth. Once O'Neil Snr dies, it's assumed only three people know the truth - Martha, Sam and Walter.

From there we're transported to the present day with adult Sam driving into Iverstown (he has a young Blake Edwards as a passenger - playing a hitchhiking sailor), and meeting sensual flame Antonia "Toni" Marachek (Lizabeth Scott) after stranding himself by wrecking his car in a moment of sheer stupidity. It sets up a love story within a more toxic love story for Sam, for it's not long before he finds out that Martha ended up marrying Walter O'Neil Jnr (Kirk Douglas, in his feature film debut), and that the latter ended up becoming Iverstown's district attorney. O'Neil has become an alcoholic as well, and his suspicions reckon that Sam has come to town to blackmail Martha and himself about the murder years before. In the meantime, when Martha encounters her old friend from all of those years ago, she finds that it's like a fire has been relit inside of her - and she yearns for the life she could have had. With Antonia on probation, Walter paranoid, Martha scheming and Sam in the middle the volatile mixture won't do anything but explode.

Just try explaining this film's plot in quick-time - it's far from unfathomable, but there are many chess pieces all making their specific moves once the game has been carefully set up. You could almost say that Toni's (Antonia's) part in everything is extraneous, but she fits in well when you consider the power O'Neil has over her, and thus the way that translates to power over Sam. O'Neil is one of the more fascinating characters in this because he's the most jittery, uncertain district attorneys I've ever seen. It helps that Kirk Douglas is playing him - and that makes it so interesting, because I've never seen Douglas portraying such a character before. It wouldn't be too long before he found his niche in tougher, capable, headstrong roles - so getting a glimpse of him starting his career in this way is a definite reason to watch The Strange Love of Martha Ivers. You could almost say he lays it on a little too thick - but it's forgivable, and he does play a great drunk in any event.

All four performances are strong - Barbara Stanwyck, not long after her stellar performance in Double Indemnity as femme fatale Phyllis Dietrichson (in that wig), just oozes cyanide, strychnine, nicotine and sickly sweet honey. Just looking at her is enough to send O'Neil fleeing for a bottle of scotch. Sam is the "man" in this noir-type drama, his confidence more than enough to meet any challenge at all - no matter how deadly or consequential. Lizabeth Scott is a picture of perfection, and not anything like a real lady on probation and having troubles with the law would look like in a million years. I mean, her fashion sense, make-up, general health, hair - she looks like a wealthy, healthy, steady woman with a good income and much means. Movies from this era weren't all that interested in making their characters look realistic - they had to look fabulous. Douglas is pale and shaky, but still handsome with a good physique. This is a film that lives or dies on it's four major characters, and the story that plays out.

As a story, the movie really pits wealth and corruption up against honor, truthfulness, and most importantly inner strength and conviction. Money really is the root of all evil in many of these films, and as such it's no surprise that the wealthy Martha Ivers of Iverstown is something akin to Medusa. There's a marked difference between the childhood Martha we see in the prologue, and what she has become later in the film - a shock that money has corrupted her so thoroughly, and that the guilt over what happened seems to have slid right off her back and onto the very soul of Walter, who walks around as if a hangman's noose is around his neck the entire time. The whole concoction really feels like a mix of noir and melodrama - the mysterious component protagonist Sam, who Walter identifies as a gambler and ex-soldier. Walter always gets out of every fix he gets into as only a man of extraordinary experience can. Wealth has made Martha and Walter less quick-minded, smart and adaptable than Sam, who is used to using his mind and exercising it in pursuit of his freewheeling existence.

There's a sense in The Strange Love of Martha Ivers that the easy life has stunted the growth of the likes of Walter, and choosing expediency over the life she wanted to live has poisoned Martha's soul. All of this is exposed by the return of Sam to Iverstown, where it's as if Martha and Walter have advanced but lived their lives in stasis while he was away. The old class system which involves the inheritance of wealth is squarely in this film's eyes - Martha and Walter should have been made to earn the positions they have been granted within society, and that's the most interesting aspect of the film. The way it favours Sam's choice of getting out into the world and truly experiencing it - whereas it seems Martha and Walter have been stuck in this one town their whole lives. His accidental return seems to have been foreordained, and his life the path best chosen. Wealth can trap you, and power in the face of truth an illusion uncovered by someone willing to just be themselves without ulterior motive. At the very least for Martha and Walter - for whom it seems love no longer enters the equation.

Overall this is a film that doesn't do much to excite or thrill, but one that nonetheless is interesting enough in it's characters and story that it's compelling to watch. The cast of first-rate actors give it enough power to be worthwhile watching for fans of this genre and films made during this period. Especially significant for being the film that provided Kirk Douglas his big break.