VividSimon
Simply Perfect
InformationRap
This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.
Bob
This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.
kapelusznik18
****SPOILERS**** The 1st of 4 films that Howard Duff & his wife Ida Lupino were together in has to do with this spooky mansion that seems to be haunted by its former resident Jennifer Brown who vanished without a trace about a year ago. It's the place's new caretaker Agnes Langley, Ida Lupino,who ends up being victimized by the ghostly Jennifer in what her reasons are for her strange disappearance as well as what she had to do with a number of people including her former boss lawyer Irving Samson's untimely deaths. It's the fact of Samson killing himself when he found out that his clients money, that he kept in a wall safe, was stolen from right under his nose. Agnes suspected Jennifer stole it by finding a bank book hidden in the place with over $70,000.00 in it that was-she feels-the result of Samson paying her off in him being blackmailed by her.It's grocery store owner and live in tenant at the Brown Estate Jim Hollis, Howard Duff, who gets very friendly with Agnes in trying to keep her from cracking up in fear that Jennifer is or was a serial murderess who's still stalking the place and targeting her as her next victim. The local delivery boy Orlin Slade, Robert Nichols, doesn't help either feeding Agnas all these weird stories about Jennifer whom he feel is still in the house hiding in a closet or the basement and coming out at night terrorizing it's inhabitants.****SPOILERS**** Shock down to your socks final with Hollis revealing the truth about Jennifer that kept Agnes from flipping out and going stark raving mad. It's after Agnes recovered from her unfounded fears about Jennifer who as it turned went mad and ended up dying in a sanitarium that we see what seems to be Jennifer reappearing in shadow making Hollis' story about her death seem a bit phony. That's unless she's the ghost that Agnes always suspected that she is.
jarrodmcdonald-1
What I most love about this film is the way we are kept off-guard about who the title character is, and why she has this power over a meek caretaker named Agnes (played by Lupino). To say Jennifer is a ghost is only half-right. Maybe it is easer to say she is a living woman or a way of life that possesses the weak. But the story maintains its hold on the viewer as Lupino's character struggles to get to the bottom of things. It plays out in spots as an unhealthy obsession. And Howard Duff, Lupino's real-life husband, who appears as the love interest seems to have his own obsession where Agnes is concerned, wresting her away from Jennifer.If you get the chance to look at JENNIFER, and especially if you see JENNIFER twice or more, listen carefully as you hear the dialogue. The lines lead in multiple directions, and it is like the mystery only grows deeper about who and what is overtaking Lupino and Duff until they finally confront the truth about the life they live. Also, listen carefully to the music. There's a record that Lupino's character finds, that is replayed throughout the story. Plus during a nightclub scene, we are shown a man singing a tune called 'Angel Eyes,' while Duff holds Lupino close and looks into her eyes. It is clear to him, and to us the audience, that something has started unraveling.It's a profound film, infused with the type of atmospheric touches that can only come from smart cinematography that takes full advantage of on-location filming. And it is anchored with an extraordinary performance by its lead actress. Ida Lupino shined in so many classics over the years, but I think this one has to be her best.
kenjha
A woman is hired to look after a vacated old mansion that seems to be haunted by the spirit of the woman who previously had the job but disappeared. It sounds like a good, old-fashioned thriller and gets off to be pretty good start. Soon, however, it goes awry, turning into a dull drama. It becomes a drag despite the short running time of only 73 minutes. It was directed by some mysterious fellow named Joel Newton, who has no other film credit on his resume. Perhaps he is an earlier version of "Allen Smithee," the alias given to the director of films to which no director would attach his name. Lupino and off-screen husband Duff try their best but are given little to work with.
BILLYBOY-10
Ida Lupino hasn't "been well". She's just bundle of paranoid nerves quite frankly and arrives at the old empty mansion as caretaker. She immediately becomes obsessed with the prior caretaker, cousin Jennifer, who has disappeared. Ida hears noises..sounds..things that go bump in the night and then Howard Duff appears. He runs the village store selling scotch. Soon Ida's obsession with Jennifer gets spooky and all the time the background music with the high-pitched, Yoko Ono "wooo-wooo" screechy warbling and the record playing "vortex" doesn't help matters, but Duff perseveres and manages a smooch from Ida. Toss in the ever so slightly loony local college boy, Orin who fuels Ida's out-of-hand obsession and you have one flaky Ida. After much running in and out of the mansion, slamming doors, a terror in the basement boiler room, Duff calling for Ida, more annoying wooo-wooo soundtrack and a now fully hysterical Ida accusing Duff of murdering Jennifer, all thing come to a fully calm and serene ending except for the schmaltzy lingering shadow. Could that shadow be trying to tell us that even tho all's well that end's well, it isn't? Is Ida just as slightly if not more wacko-o than when she first arrived? This is a cheapo and you can tell, but what the heck---with nothing better to do, why not give it a shot?
