Kirk Douglas

The Strange Love of Martha Ivers

by
Kirk Douglas and Barbara Stanwyck

What exactly is so strange about the love of Martha Ivers in The Strange Love of Martha Ivers? Unfortunate, maybe? Random, perhaps? Convenient, possibly? Strange – not so much. But then that is this noirish, gothic 1946 melodrama all over, promising much and not quite delivering. It’s largely remembered these days as the film debut of Kirk Douglas, who plays the husband of Barbara Stanwyck’s Martha Ivers, whose birth name was Smith, by the way, and whose married name is O’Neil, and so isn’t really an Ivers at all. But before all of that, first a preamble brilliantly setting the scene for what’s to follow. A young Martha (played winningly by Janis Wilson) is … Read more

Out of the Past

by
Jeff and Kathie

You can run but you cannot hide is the sentiment driving Out of the Past, Jacques Tourneur’s bleak film noir masterclass from 1947. Just when you think you’ve got clear of something, so the story goes, up it comes from your history and bites you in the ass. Robert Mitchum plays Jeff, a private detective hired by a big “operator” to go and find the woman who’s run off with his $40,000. What Whit (Kirk Douglas) really wants back is the woman rather than the money, and when Jeff tracks her down in Acapulco he discovers why. Jeff, instantly smitten, does the thing a private eye shouldn’t do and, after trading dialogue that’s … Read more