The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946) is a delectable noir melodrama. Adapted from Jack Patrick's story Love Lies Bleeding, it perfectly renders an improbable intersection of tawdry lives and broken dreams.Sam Masterson (Van Heflin) returns to his childhood home of Iverstown after years as an itinerant gambler. He reconnects with his old friends Martha Ivers (Barbara Stanwyck), a headstrong heiress, and Walter O'Neill (Kirk Douglas), serving as district attorney. He also befriends Toni (Lizabeth Scott), an ex-con struggling to go straight. But Martha nurses unrequited affection for Sam, while Walter fears he'll expose a shared secret from their past.
Martha Ivers shows commendable delicacy in Robert Rossen's storytelling and characterizations. Martha uses their mutual affection to tease and manipulate Sam, yet she's more driven by insecurity than maliciousness: she chafes at her rich background, asserting her shaky independence. Walter is a boozy crook, quietly abusing his power while posing as a crimefighter. Sam's a criminal, yet his motives seem purer, more understandable, while hard-luck Toni's most sympathetic of all. To paraphrase our favorite film, there's honor among thieves but none in politicians.
Director Lewis Milestone does his best work since All Quiet on the Western Front: Victor Milner's photography lays on smoldering atmosphere, finding the seedy evil in its small town setting. He draws out characters in an excellent opening, with teenaged Martha running away from her domineering aunt (Judith Anderson) and the violent denouement. The movie offers some fights and verbal sparring but mostly builds through one-upsmanship: Martha seems to hold the cards but grows too cocky for own her own good. The result can only be tragedy.
Barbara Stanwyck does excellent work, making Martha more confused anti-heroine than evil femme fatale. Van Heflin's rectitude provides a fine match. In his film debut, Kirk Douglas plays markedly against his future type: his character's a neurotic wimp, his villainy more petty than heinous. Lizabeth Scott gets the thinnest part, yet manages to win our respect and sympathy.
An interesting concoction, The Strange Love of Martha Ivers takes some reflection to truly digest. Like the best noirs, it probes respectable society's rotten underbelly, yet fleshes its characters out beyond mere archetypes. Such a human touch is welcome in a genre instinctively slanted towards cynicism.
