THE UNFAITHFUL (1947)

Interesting reworking of the 1940 Bette Davis classic THE LETTER. Ann Sheridan is the wife of an architect (Zachery Scott) who is rebuilding his business after returning from duty overseas during the war. The night before her husband comes back from a business trip, Sheridan is surprised by an intruder; after a violent struggle, she kills him with a knife and claims self-defense. But there's more to the case than meets the eye: it turns out that the intruder was an artist with whom Sheridan had carried on an affair while Scott was away in the war. Sheridan doesn't tell the police or her attorney friend (Lew Ayers) about this until a sexy bust that the artist made of Sheridan crops up and an art dealer (Steve Geray) and the artist's widow (Marta Mitrovich) try to blackmail her; after all the facts come out, Sheridan winds up on trial for murder. In the 1940 version, Davis is a conniving bitch; here, Sheridan is a misunderstood war wife who married in a hurry, then didn't see her husband for years, and the murder actually *is* done in self-defense, which allows Sheridan to escape Davis's punishment. Sheridan is at her best, discarding the rather wooden mannerisms that mar some of her earlier performances; Scott, whom I've never thought much of, is also quite good. Eve Arden provides great fun, as usual, in the supporting part of a gossipy friend of the family who starts out as unsympathetic but winds up being a voice of reason. The power of malicious gossip briefly becomes a thematic element, but not much is done with it. Though the plotting is a bit loose, there is some amusing dialogue. My favorite exchange comes when one gossiping society lady says, "If I came home to a strange man in my house, I just don't know what I'd do," and another lady replies, "You'd give him 48 hours to leave." Other cast members, all of whom do good work, include John Hoyt as a cop, Jerome Cowan as the prosecuting attorney, and Jane Harker as a friend of Arden's. Not as steamy or atmospheric as the 1940 movie, but it does manage to stand alone in its own right and is well worth watching. [TCM]