John Chard

May 9, 2014

6.5

The Dark Recesses of the Female Mind. Another Man's Poison is directed by Irving Rapper and adapted to screenplay by Val Guest from the play "Deadlock" written by Leslie Sands. It stars Bette Davis, Gary Merrill, Emlyn Williams, Anthony Steel and Barbara Murray. Music is by John Greenwood and Paul Sawtell and cinematography by Robert Krasker. A whole bunch of fun if expectation levels are correctly set. Another Man's Poison is essentially a one set piece (confirming its stage origins), with primary focus on just five people and a horse. It's a tale of murder, deception and carnal desires, the latter of which is wrung out via Janet Frobisher's (Davis) affair with a much younger man who happens to be the intended of her secretary. Frobisher is quite frankly a bitch, something which Davis attacks with relish and no little amount of histrionic camp. She's the fulcrum of the story, but all the other key characters here are either stupid, ignorant, devious or all three in one go! Oh yes, this is a regular hot-bed of people you really wouldn't want to be hanging around with for too long. It's these characterisations that along with Krasker's photography just about earns the pic its film noir badge. The script isn't up to much - where stories about changes being made by Williams and that Davis and Merrill (husband and wife at the time) being unhappy – are common place, but it never outstays its welcome by being boring, and ultimately Bette being batty is always good entertainment. 6.5/10