Popular reviews

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  Review by noir1946 ★★★★ 4

  In Edwardian London, ambitious Ivy Lexton (Joan Fontaine) finds herself saddled with feckless husband Jervis (Richard Ney) while resisting the advances of old flame Dr. Roger Gretorex (Patric Knowles) and not resisting those of the very wealthy Miles Rushworth (Herbert Marshall). Then she spots a bottle of poison on the shelf at Gretorex’s surgery. You don’t think. She wouldn’t dare. Well, if she doesn’t, we’re not going to have much of a film.

  The one previous time I saw Ivy, with a screenplay by former Hitchcock collaborator Charles Bennett (The 39 Steps, Foreign Correspondent), I just thought it an overheated melodrama. This time, I fell for it. The Criterion Channel is showing Ivy as part of its Gaslight Noir month,…

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  Review by Karl ★★★½ 6

  Joan Fontaine is a pleasure to watch as the cold and calculating Ivy. She's juggling three men. Her boyish husband, an obsessed doctor, and a wealthy older man targeted for his wealth. Watching her scheme her way out of situations and plan murder is truly a delight. Why is she called Ivy? Well isn't it obvious? That girl is poison!

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  Review by sakana1 ★★★ 3

  According to TCM, Ivy was the film that broke Joan Fontaine out of the prison of 'good girl' roles to which she'd previously been confined, something which is more than enough reason to celebrate it. While I think it would have been far better had Fontaine's character, Edwardian social climber Ivy Lexton, more fully embraced the qualities that mean she must be punished by the film's end, bad girl Fontaine is always fun to watch, and the scenes of Ivy frantically scrambling to play helpless are endlessly gratifying.

  Having married the spry young Jervis (Richard Ney, whose eyebrows have more personality than he does) with what must have been a lot of hope for the future, in no time and…

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  Review by Gentry ★★★½

  “I saw misfortune. Terrible influences are gathering.”

  Herbert Marshall is especially marbled-mouthed and jowl-faced in this fin de siècle noir from the same guy that made your red state grandma’s favorite movie. It's another one of those Edwardian murder melodramas with a “problem” that could have been avoided if a) the careless doctors of the period kept their deadly poison bottles behind locked cabinet doors, and b) maids weren’t so deathly afraid of retaliation by their employer for telling the truth.

  I’ve watched quite a few of these “gaslight noirs” by this point, and this is one of the most sumptuous, with beautifully soft closeups of Joan Fontaine going through all the emotions, and a haunting score by Daniele Amfitheatrof,…

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  Review by Avirup

  Wasn't feeling it for an hour or so but gets surprisingly engaging in the final half hour. Sam Wood's direction isn't exciting which takes some fun away from this but the gothic atmosphere is good. Joan Fontaine is brilliant , she could give me poison and I'd happily take it.

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  Review by AntoniusBlock7 ★★★

  This is quite a showcase for Joan Fontaine, and she’s at her seductive, scheming best, playing a woman with a stone cold heart beneath flirting eyes. She’s wonderful from the beginning, when we see the close-ups of her and a fortune-teller (Una O’Connor). Ivy (Fontaine) is married but is unhappy with her husband’s lack of success; she has a lover too, but is tired of him and his clinginess. Enter a third man, (Herbert Marshall), whose accomplishments and money are an aphrodisiac to her.

  As Marshall was 57 and Fontaine just 30, they hardly seem like a couple, but her motivation makes the pairing a little more sensible. The trouble is, while he feels an attraction, he’s less inclined to…

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  Review by JulesLarson ★★★

  Liked Joan Fontaine in for example The Bigamist more but she's not the issue here. It's her taste in some bland men! Can't bring myself to really care about them. Not for me, but I'll say when this fully blends Edwardian + noir there's some very cool images.

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  Review by Kerry Maxwell ★★★★ 3

  Wonderfully stylized gothic noir, with a strange and claustrophobic atmosphere. There's a harpsichord-like theme introduced early in the film that is repeated throughout and reminds me of a giallo motif. Joan Fontaine is introduced as an adulterer in the opening sequence so we know things won't end well for her, and Fontaine is convincingly oblivious to her fate. Ivy shares some themes with So Evil My Love, but we don't really get much insight into the psychology of Fontaine's Ivy the way we do with Ann Todd's Olivia, her pathology is simply attributed to an aversion to poverty, and she never appears to have any pangs of conscience. But it's still entertaining to watch her transparent scheming that assures her Hays Office approved demise. There's a number of welcome character actor appearances, and a delightful Una O'Connor role as a fortune teller.

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  Review by Lydia Roberts ★★★ 1

  Had no clue that Edwardian noir melodramas were a thing but I'm really hoping I can find some more
  also convinced Russell Metty is responsible for the greatest closeups in the 50s

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  Review by Sally Jane Black

  Positively vicious noir.

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  Review by Jim Dooley ★★★★

  Okay, so I shouldn't give a pot-boiler like IVY 4-stars. I mean if it had been updated to the 1980's or 1990's, the story would have fit right in as a nighttime soap opera on par with DALLAS or DYNASTY. But, the miserable thing was just so much fun.

  Of course, I shouldn't have been surprised when I saw that it was based on a novel by Marie Belloc Lowndes who also wrote "The Lodger" (about a household that thinks it may be renting rooms to Jack the Ripper). IVY certainly deserves a place in the Lowndes crime thriller stories!

  I'm also trying to think of another film I've seen that featured Joan Fontaine in such a reprehensible role. She…

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  Review by Karina Oliveira 2

  Trying to maintain some variety for Noirvember, so bring on - Edwardian noir!? 🤷‍♀️

  Joan Fontaine, the titular Poison Ivy (ha, ha), has a taste for pretty things and sets her sights on wealthy Herbert Marshall. Hitch? - she’s already saddled with a husband AND a lover (so annoying). What’s a girl to do?

  The story plays out pretty expectedly (we are very much in Code times), but the influence of famed art director-turned-producer William Cameron Menzies elevates the material. It’s beautifully stylized with great use of close-ups and painterly shadows. And Joan does get to positively purr with amorality:

  - “All this stupid expense of doctors and nonsense, you must hate me for it.”
  - “No, I don't hate you. I sometimes wish I weren't so fond of you.”

  Postscript - Lilian Fontaine (Lady Flora) was Joan (and sis Olivia De Havilland)'s mother.