THE SIGN OF THE RAM (1948)

After being paralyzed by a shotgun in a hunting accident, fast-rising M-G-M ingenue Susan Peters was off-screen for three years before returning, just the once, in this modern Gothic thriller from Columbia Pictures.  Playing from a wheelchair, she’s Alexander Knox’s young second wife, a seemingly well-adjusted anchor to a brood of grown step-kids (she’d injured herself saving one of them) and lady of his grand castle/estate on the seacoast.  Life is good; she’s even a noted poet of sentimental verse which doesn’t reflect her personality at all.  Then again, neither does the cultivated persona she puts on when meeting new live-in assistant Phyllis Thaxter.  Hardly a source of comfort & light to her family, Peters stealthily works to poison any budding relationship, characteristically telling her step-son’s new fiancée to renounce her engagement since insanity runs in the girl’s background.  Yikes!  Only gossipy Dame May Whitty, a busybody neighbor everyone tries to avoid, stays out of her sights.  Surrounded by cliffs, flooding cave chambers & dense fog on treacherous paths, somebody’s sure to come to grief.  Or will if this controlling invalid isn’t found out in time.  An odd role for a handicapped actress to choose, certainly not the Pollyanna pity party audiences probably were looking for.  Three years back, cult B-director Joseph L. Lewis found just the atmosphere needed here in another modern little Columbia Gothic, MY NAME IS JULIA ROSS/’45.  (Matte paintings & sets from that film repurposed here?)  Alas, director John Sturges still an apprentice and not especially suited to give this material the sick psychological ‘swing’ it needs to give us the creeps.  Fun watch, though.

DOUBLE-BILL: As mentioned, MY NAME IS JULIA ROSS, which not only looks a lot like this, but also makes nice use of Dame May Whitty.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: With its overwrought story beats and outrageously false revelations (why does no one question Peters?), this material might be best suited for drag performer Charles Busch to riff on.  Or did he already do that in his satirical pastiche DIE, MOMMY, DIE/’03?