Bob Aldrich was best known for his tough guy action films but he also made a number of melodramas with women in the lead. This was the first and is a vehicle for camp favourite Joan Crawford who is a lonely typist who falls for a younger man - Cliff Robertson, in an impressive early turn (he impressed from the beginning, did Robertson, but never became a star). She finds him attractive - Robertson walks around without his shirt a lot - but worries about their age difference. Robertson insists they make a go of it and they get married; they are happy for a time but it soon becomes apparent Robertson lies a lot about his past, is mentally unstable and has a former wife (Vera Miles).
Crawford gets to go through a lot of hand-wringing and eye popping acting as she wonders about her husband - who in one scene slaps her around and smashes her hand. But she forgives him. It's not his fault - it's because Vera Miles had an affair with Lorne Greene, Robertson's father (which is a nice twist). She goes to see one of the 50s movie psychiatrists with grey wavy hair who smokes and says her husband has problems and has ideas how to fix him. She's reluctant to do so because he mightn't love her anymore. But after Robertson sobs away one night Crawford gives in and Robertson goes off to a sanitarium where after some electro shock therapy he's cured. She worries that he won't love her any more and will be keen on a hot nurse but nope, he wants her.
Yep, that's right - this is a film about a middle aged woman who falls for a younger man who is a schizophrenic liar that smacks her around and cries like a baby.... but he's actually a goodie. Maybe that's my 2014 sensitivities talking, but I do feel it would have been a better movie had Robertson wound up a complete psycho who tried to kill Crawford - it would have been more exciting. As it is the film does feel as though the Lorne Greene-Vera Miles subplot is left hanging and unresolved.
Crawford is in fine middle aged form, Robertson a good foil, Greene and Miles ideal creepy quasi villains, Robert Aldrich's handling is brisk. It's a bit yuck and very very dodgy but that is part of its appeal.
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