The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946) on Netflix
NR19461h 56mDramaFilm-NoirRomance
Martha Ivers is caught running off from her wealthy aunt with her friend Sam Masterson. Years later Sam returns to Iverstown, where district attorney Walter O'Neil, her husband, fears blackmail.
- Netflix3.4/5
- IMDb7.4/1012,544 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes100%
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Plot summary
In 1928 in the factory town of Iverstown, Pennsylvania, thirteen-year-old Martha Ivers is caught in another attempt to leave the home of her guardian, Mrs. Ivers, and is brought back. During a power failure that night her friend Sam Masterson comes for her. When her aunt raises a cane against Martha's kitten, Martha grabs the cane and strikes her, and the aunt falls down the stairs to her death. Martha blames an intruder, and Walter O'Neil, the tutor's son who watched, backs her story. Sam leaves town. Years later Walter is district attorney and Martha's husband, and Sam, a gambler whose car has broken down, meets Toni Marachek while it is repaired.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Kirk Douglas made his screen debut in the film after Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall recommended him to producer Hal B. Wallis; the couple told Wallis to see a play starring Bacall's old drama school classmate, Issur Demsky, who later took the name Kirk Douglas.
- Director Lewis Milestone left the film for several days in sympathy with a set decorators' strike that was going on at the time, and in his absence Byron Haskin directed it without receiving screen credit.
- Barbara Stanwyck warned Van Heflin not to roll the coin his gambler character had learned, at Milestone's suggestion, during any of her important lines, because she had a bit of business that would upstage him; she then raised her skirt high and adjusted her garter.
- Six months after release, director Lewis Milestone said he would never work for producer Hal B. Wallis again, because Wallis wanted re-shoots to get more closeups of Lizabeth Scott; Milestone refused and told Wallis to shoot them himself, which, according to the director, Wallis did.
- The Strange Love of Martha Ivers entered the public domain in the United States in 1974 after the claimants failed to renew its copyright registration in the 28th year after publication, and that status brought it numerous home media releases in various formats.
