I love this movie so much

Fantastic!

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

With a long camera closeup lingering on her, you know that sweet looking Joan Fontaine is truly trouble. With the soap opera sounding name of Christabel Kane, Fontaine could be the aunt that Erica Kane of "All My Children" picked up a thing or two from. In fact, the whole plot line has a soap opera plot set up: distant relative Fontaine showing up at the home of Joan Leslie's, expected a day later, and passive aggressively setting up her scheming from the moment Leslie finds her sitting in her living room.Between the two women and three men (Robert Ryan, Zachary Scott and Mel Ferrer), there's enough soapy plot to fill an entire afternoon. Fontaine had played vixens before, but no one like Christabelle. Her murderess in "Ivy" was a period femme fatale, basically the American version of a Margaret Lockwood character, so in modern dress, she gets to be openly a modern women, basically a sort of Eve Harrington type schemer breaking into society rather than theater.The anti-hero bad boy, Robert Ryan, sees through her from the start, but is intrigued by her two sides. But if homewrecker has a picture in the dictionary, Fontaine's likeness in character should be there as she sets her eyes on Leslie's fiancée (Zachary Scott), with a painting by Mel Ferrer opening his eyes about her, and not taken in by her lady like facade. This goes for the gold as a camp classic, quite over the top, especially when Ryan refers to her painting as a cross between Lucretia Borgia and Peg o my heart.As for Leslie, she has a major makeup call as she's brought to life by the revelation of who this dangerous vixen really is and how she became the hand that not only rocked the cradle, but cracked it as well. Psychological darkness of the soul even opens the eyes of the amoral men, making this one of the few film noir where no crime is committed. Like the same named Erica Kane of daytime legend, God help any woman who gets any more male attention than her.

Taking her 1940's films into consideration the only thing Joan Fontaine might have been born to be was a mouse or, as she was portrayed in 1939's "The Women", a deer but as Joan got older Joan got bolder and by 1950 she was "Born to be Bad" and was holding the likes of Robert Ryan, Zachary Scott and Mel Ferrer in thrall. The director of this 'woman's picture' was Nicholas Ray who brought a steely edge to proceedings. Actually I've always thought Joan was born to play a bitch; that patrician air of hers was never suited to being simply 'nice' and it was to her credit that she could slip so easily between darkness and light, Here, though, she's almost too good to be true and I'm surprised no-one, other than good girl Joan Leslie, saw through her scheming earlier. Performances throughout are uniformly good; even Ferrer is first-rate here, (he hadn't yet developed that stiffness that marred his later work). Interestingly his character is probably meant to be gay but you really have to read between the lines and use a lot of imagination to get that. From a novel called "All Kneeling" by Ann Parrish.

Not a Typical Movie from the Big Studios, RKO Delivers, once again an Atypical Attraction of the Human condition in very Flawed People. It would be a Stretch to call this Film-Noir but some may do so. Let us call it that only in the most Liberal Confines. Even Scholars have been Uneasy about a Definitive Definition that has been Extremely Elusive.The Story is Sudsy to say the least and has been a Literary Lexicon forever. Movies, on the other hand, use to Tread Softly on this kind of Sultry, Seductive, and Immoral Behavior. After the War things did begin to Change, but Slowly and not without Careful Consideration. The word "Sex" in an Amorous sense, as in We have a "Sexual" Attraction in common, is used here, for example. That just wasn't said and You would be Hard Pressed to find it used that way during this Era, and from Unmarried People no less.The Film has quite a few Witty Quips and it is Better Verbally than Visually. As so, it can be Entertaining in a Romance Novel kind of way and probably Enjoyed more by Women.

The film's title typifies Joan Fontaine's character Christabel who does not have a sincere bone in her body and does whatever it takes to get what she wants and then once she has it, turns cold and conniving as she continues to be driven by what she wants without regard for what she has. Set in San Francisco, Christabel shows up at her cousin Donna's (Joan Leslie) apartment and in a series of great scenes where she meets Donna's wealthy fiancée Curtis (Zachary Scott) and practically immediately sets out to win him and his money (which is what she really wants) for herself. She seeks to be accepted into this well off and sophisticated crowd which includes Robert Ryan as an intellectual and writer as well as Mel Ferrer as a painter. Normally a jilted woman would be distraught but Joan Leslie as Donna takes it for what it is and flies off to work in London, leaving Scott with Fontaine and Fontaine with Ryan. The marriage is classic and director Nicholas Ray hits some great moments between Scott and Fontaine as she keeps him at arm's length giving him just enough affection to appease him but saving the best for Ryan. When it unravels for Fontaine she, like Joan Leslie's Donna, never loses her cool.