The Second Woman

A better-than-average psychological thriller, The Second Woman blends aspects of Rebecca and Gaslight into a savvy, neo-Gothic style (there's even an ultramodern, Manderley-like pile of memories high above the crashing ocean; it, too, ends in conflagration).

Robert Young plays a young architect who can't wriggle out from under a jinx. The night before their wedding, a car crash claimed the life of his fiancée, for whom he'd built the cantilevered "house with wings." Now it's a mausoleum where he broods to the Tchaikovsky on the sound track. Lapses of memory and moody episodes undermine his work. His horse, his dog, even his prize rosebush die mysteriously. He's sinking, an object of pity and, increasingly, apprehension.

Into this slough of despond comes a guardian angel (Betsy Drake), an intelligent and independent insurance investigator who falls for him, as he for her. (She's something of an anomaly in film noir, where all the brains and spunk usually go to the wicked women.) She supplies Young with the resolve to solve the puzzle when he ceases to care.

There are weak points as well. The suicide attempt that opens the movie makes scant sense when it's later explained; the character set up as a villain emerges, at least partly, as a red herring; and the formidable Florence Bates disappears into a bland "also-starring" role. And constantly referring to past events in a low-key, almost abstract way lays poor preparation for the ending, where they prove central. Still, The Second Woman keeps you puzzled, and the Gothic trappings work their spell. Less film noir than mystery, it's nonetheless a good, old-fashioned one.