Gaslighting melodramas always work - the husband trying to kill the wife, driving her man, with malevolent intentions. It's all solid stuff.
But it's odd why Eagle Lion wanted to film this especially as it had been done in Britain in 1937. Maybe they wanted a vehicle for a British star - they didn't get one. Unless you count Aussie Ann Richards, who is nice, as Sylvia Sidney's friend, but barely in the film. Indeed, she could be cut out. John Howard, as Sidney's whiny ex, does all the worrying about Sidney stuff.
John Hodiak is the charming psycho husband.
The story lacks a twist. Naive Sidney marries dashing Hodiak. Everyyone thinks he's bad, eventually she does too, he is bad. Richards and/or Howard needed to be in cahoots with him.
Eagle Lion provided a decent budget, it's a period tale with costumes and houses by the coast. But it was money wasted. Why not set it in present day America? Differentiate it from the original? You could still make it so no one had a photo of the guy.
Sometimes films like this can be saved by A list actors but the collection here is B list - everyone can act, mind, but they don't have charisma.
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