Columbia Pictures Corporation
Starring: Joan Bennett, James Mason, Geraldine Brooks, Henry O’Neill
Directed by: Max Ophüls

Cat Out of the Bag Alert!  This review contains some spoilers for this film.

Synopsis: Lucia Harper (Joan Bennett) finds herself in a sticky situation when she tries to discourage the advances of a sleazy slicker, Tom Harper (Henry O’Neill) towards her teen-aged daughter, Bea (Geraldine Brooks).  When Tom shows up to court the daughter, Bea rejects his advances and strikes him with a flashlight, leaving him to stumble over a railing.  The next morning Lucia finds Harper’s body and quickly takes it away, trying to cover up all traces of the incident in order to protect her daughter.  But things spiral even more out of control when a blackmailer (James Mason) shows up with love letters from Bea to Harper.

Purr Blur: When Lucia is walking down toward the dock a cat appears and starts to approach her.  But at that moment Lucia spots Harper’s body on the beach and hurries down to investigate while the cat simply wanders onto the dock.  It seems that the cat wasn’t meant to be in the film but just wandered into the shot.

Final Mewsings: If only she’d stopped to pet the cat, maybe she wouldn’t have found the body and things wouldn’t have gotten so out of hand.

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