The Two Mrs. Carrolls

In Peter Godfrey’s The Two Mrs. Carrolls, painter Geoffrey Carroll (Humphrey Bogart) has a habit 0f slowly poisoning his wives. Two years after his first wife’s demise, Carroll finds himself re-married to Sally Morton (Barbara Stanwyck), whom he had been seeing behind his late wife’s back and who has taken a maternal instinct in Geoffrey’s young daughter Beatrice (Ann Carter). (The little girl has the demeanor of a 35-year-old.) Soon, Sally suspects Carroll has become interested in gorgeous American Cecily Latham (Alexis Smith), who wants him to paint her portrait, and begins to discover Carroll had been lying about the conditions of his first wife’s death, concluding he plans to get rid of her too. It may not be one of Stanwyck’s great performances, but it’s fun to watch a slimy Bogart become increasingly mad as the film progresses, ultimately turning into a creepy Gothic villain in an old dark house. While the film misses a few opportunities for suspense, Godfrey and cinematographer Marley ratchet up the atmospherics in the second half (the rainstorms are unceasing), the scene in which Sally and Bea discover Geoffrey’s “Angel of Death” painting in his attic studio a brilliant example of Gothic shock. Special attention should be paid to Anita Sharp-Bolster, who plays tough-as-nails housekeeper Christine to dark comedic effect.