Another Man’s Poison **½ (1951, Bette Davis, Gary Merrill, Emlyn Williams, Anthony Steel, Barbara Murray) – Classic Movie Review 10,345

‘She Had Everything You Could Give A Woman To Torment A Man!’

Bette Davis (fresh from her All About Eve triumph) and her Hollywood director Irving Rapper came to England to try their luck with the 1951 barnstorming crime thriller Another Man’s Poison about a lady mystery writer novelist called Janet Frobisher (Davis) who is having a fling with her illicit lover, her secretary Chris (Barbara Murray)’s young fiancé Larry Stevens (Anthony Steel), at her dark English country house on the Yorkshire moors.

Janet is forced to poison her escaped convict husband when he unexpectedly appears – and then his partner-in-crime George Bates (Gary Merrill) arrives on the scene, insinuating himself into her life, and she must take care of him too.

Relishing her evil turn, Davis gives a treasurably overwrought performance, presumably on the principle that, as there is no credibility, there must be camp pleasure. She and Emlyn Williams (as Janet’s meddling, nosy veterinarian neighbour, Dr Henderson) make the film worth watching in its entertainingly bad way, but even they have a job disguising how absurd Val Guest’s hard-breathing, talky screenplay is.

Davis’s then real-life new husband Merrill plays the blackmailing convict on the run, though he is the weakest of the principals.

Guest’s screenplay is based on the 1948 play Deadlock by the actor Leslie Sands, who wrote a number of plays, including Intent to Murder (filmed in 1974).

Filming took place from April to June 1951 on location in Malham, North Yorkshire, and in the studio at Nettlefold Studios, Walton-on-Thames, Surrey.

Davis and Merrill were married from 28 July 1950 to 6 July 1960 (divorced, with two children). It is their second film together, following All About Eve. They next made Phone Call from a Stranger together. Davis chose Rapper, who directed her in Now, Voyager.

Merrill writes in his memoirs that he and Davis did not particularly like the script, but wanted to work together in England for the large fees offered. Davis was pleased that the cast included Emlyn Williams, who wrote the play on which her 1945 film The Corn Is Green is based. Davis recalled: ‘We had nothing but script trouble. Gary (Merrill) and I often wondered why we agreed to make this film after we got started working on it. Emlyn (Williams) rewrote many scenes for us, which gave it some plausibility, but we never cured the basic ills of the story.’

Also in the cast are Reginald Beckwith as Mr Bigley and Edna Morris as Mrs Bunting.

Another Man’s Poison is directed by Irving Rapper, runs 90 minutes, is made by Angel Productions, is released by Eros Films and United Artists, is written by Val Guest, based on the play Deadlock by Leslie Sands,, is shot in black and white by Robert Krasker, is produced by Douglas Fairbanks Jr and Daniel M Angel, is scored by Paul Sawtell and John Greenwood, and designed by Cedric Dawe.

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 10,345

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