Kind Lady Double Feature

Broadways Dramatic Thunderbolt! Topped the posters for both movie versions of Edward Chodorovs hit Broadway shocker based on a Hugh Walpole story. Lightning struck twice on the screen as well. The first screen version appeared soon after the plays sensational stage debut, with character great Aline MacMahon playing the lead role of wealthy spinster Mary Herries. Much younger than the stage version of Mary, Alines performance up against Basil Rathbones charming narcissist Henry Abbot crackles with psychosexual tension between it's leads before descending into true household horror that mixes the Brechtian and the bizarre. The 1951 version, under director John Sturges, returns Mary to her more advanced age with grande dame Ethel Barrymore making one of her final screen performances. Maurice Evans Henry is more cold-blooded, while Angela Lansbury and Keenan Wynn add menace, and it all builds to a Hitchcockian climax.