Whisked away to make this murder-mystery with her newly hitched fourth husband Gary Merrill in Britain, a follow-up of her “all-time best performance” in Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s ALL ABOUT EVE (1950), Ms. Davis recruits the director of NOW, VOYAGER (1942), Irving Rapper to take the helm, but overall, the final product is a secondary offering in every aspect.

ANOTHER MAN’S POISON, takes place in a Podunk Northern England town, mostly, sets in an isolated, but gorgeous and impressive mansion inhabited by mystery novelist Janet Frobisher (Davis), who has no qualms about poisoning her long-absent husband when the latter gets rough, and soon is pressed into playing wife and husband with George Bates (Merrill), her husband’s bank-robbing accomplice, on the contingency to cover for her crime and grant George a haven to stay, one stone two birds? Hardly so.

The imposter game is played out with barbs and ploys duly leveling at each other, while Merrill is surely fierce enough to be alternately menacing, callous and even wanton, winning an upper hand for him is a forlorn hope from the very start in the face of Davis’ characteristic wide-eyed fearlessness and insidious fickleness. Firing on all cylinders, her madness and vile calculation completely overshadows the danger befalling on a woman mired in a precarious situation, thus not for one second, audience dreads for Janet’s safety, which makes her a less all-around character for the sake of characterization. Janet is no man’s fortune and all man’s poison, yet, she still enjoys a last laugh before ironically hoisted by her own petard.

Also enmeshed in the fix (though unwittingly) is Janet’s secretary Chris Dale (a comely Murray, calmly nerves herself to confront Davis in a poorly designed role) and her fiancé Larry (a blandly handsome Steel), who actually is Janet’s paramour for almost a year. While the bloom is clearly off the rose, Davis (at the age of 43) pluckily knuckles down the cougar town and as this reviewer sees it, takes more visible pleasure in the scenes where a youthful Chris concedes defeat to her and implores her to give Larry back, lines like “you are a charming woman who can have any man you want.” appear many time to reassure Davis that her appeal still prevail (over her much younger competitors), but in hindsight, a self-defeating whiff of deep-rooted insecurity is all one can sniff.

British actor Emlyn Williams, third-billed as the nosey-parker, smart-aleck veterinarian-turned-amateur-sleuth Dr. Henderson, has never bedded in felicitously in his somewhat vexing and often unaccountable blow-ins, only if a better script would offer more coherence, but one thing is for sure, this film-noir does pull out all its stops to suffix poetic justice in its cockamamie plot.

referential entries: Rapper’s NOW, VOYAGER (1942, 8.7/10); Stuart Heisler’s THE STAR (1952, 6.0/10); William Wyler’s THE LETTER (1940, 8.0/10).

戴維斯女士帶著她新婚的第四任丈夫加里·梅里爾離開英國，使這起謀殺案成為一個謎，這是她在約瑟夫·L·曼凱維奇《關(guān)于夏娃的一切》(1950年)中“有史以來最好的表演”的后續(xù)，戴維斯女士聘請歐文·拉帕爾《航海家》(1942年)的導(dǎo)演來掌舵，但總的來說，最終產(chǎn)品在各個方面都是次要產(chǎn)品。 《另一個男人的毒藥》發(fā)生在英格蘭北部的一個小鎮(zhèn)上，大部分場景都是在一座與世隔絕但又美麗動人的宅邸里，住著神秘小說家珍妮特·弗羅比舍(戴維斯飾)，當(dāng)她久違的丈夫變得粗暴時，她毫不猶豫地毒死了丈夫，很快就被迫與丈夫的搶銀行幫兇喬治·貝茨(美林飾)扮演夫妻，以防萬一，掩蓋她的罪行，給喬治一個棲身之所，一舉兩得？很難說。 冒名頂替者的游戲是用互相攻擊的諷刺和策略來進行的，而美林無疑足夠兇猛，可以交替威脅、冷酷甚至肆意妄為，面對戴維斯特有的睜大眼睛的無畏和陰險的多變，從一開始就為他贏得上風(fēng)是一個渺茫的希望。全力以赴，她的瘋狂和卑鄙的算計完全掩蓋了一個陷入危險境地的女人所面臨的危險，因此觀眾一秒鐘也不擔(dān)心珍妮特的安全，這使得她在刻畫人物時不那么全面。珍妮特不是男人的財富，而是所有男人的毒藥，然而，諷刺的是，在她被自己的佩塔德舉起之前，她仍然享受著最后的笑聲。 珍妮特的秘書克里斯·戴爾(一個清秀的默里，鎮(zhèn)定自若地面對設(shè)計拙劣的戴維斯)和她的未婚夫拉里(一個溫和英俊的鋼鐵人)也陷入了困境(盡管不知情)，后者實際上是珍妮特近一年的情婦。當(dāng)花開的時候，戴維斯(43歲)勇敢地指節(jié)在美洲獅鎮(zhèn)，正如這位評論家所看到的，在年輕的克里斯向她承認(rèn)失敗并懇求她把拉里還給她的場景中，他獲得了更多明顯的快樂，比如“你是一個迷人的女人，可以擁有任何你想要的男人?！彼坪醵啻蜗虼骶S斯保證，她的吸引力仍然占優(yōu)勢(超過她年輕得多的競爭對手)，但事后看來，一股弄巧成拙的根深蒂固的不安全感是所有人都能聞到的。 英國演員埃姆林·威廉姆斯，第三次被宣傳為愛管閑事的帕克，自作聰明的獸醫(yī)變成業(yè)余偵探亨德森博士，從來沒有恰當(dāng)?shù)夭迦胨行┝钊藷狼页３Ｄ涿畹呐険?，除非一個更好的劇本能提供更多的連貫性，但有一點是肯定的，這部黑色電影確實竭盡全力在它繁瑣的情節(jié)中加入了詩意的正義。 參考條目:Rapper's NOW，VOYAGER (1942，8.7/10)；史都華·海斯勒的《星星》(1952年，6.0/10)；威廉·惠勒的信(1940，8.0/10)。