Another Man's Poison is a 1951 British drama film

Drama film

A drama film is a film genre that depends mostly on in-depth development of realistic characters dealing with emotional themes. Dramatic themes such as alcoholism, drug addiction, infidelity, moral dilemmas, racial prejudice, religious intolerance, poverty, class divisions, violence against women...

 directed by Irving Rapper

Irving Rapper

Irving Rapper was a British film director. His most successful body of work is 10 films he made while under contract with Warner Brothers....

. The screenplay

Screenplay

A screenplay or script is a written work that is made especially for a film or television program. Screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of writing. In them, the movement, actions, expression, and dialogues of the characters are also narrated...

 by Val Guest

Val Guest

Val Guest was a British film director, best known for his science-fiction films for Hammer Film Productions in the 1950s, but who also enjoyed a long, varied and active career in the film industry from the early 1930s up until the early 1980s.-Early life and career:He was born Valmond Maurice...

 is based on the play Intent to Murder by Leslie Sands

Leslie Sands

Leslie Sands was a British actor and writer of TV and film. Born in Bradford, Yorkshire, Sands usually specialized in dour types in authority, often policemen....

.

Plot

Successful mystery

Mystery fiction

Mystery fiction is a loosely-defined term.1.It is often used as a synonym for detective fiction or crime fiction— in other words a novel or short story in which a detective investigates and solves a crime mystery. Sometimes mystery books are nonfiction...

 novel

Novel

A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....

ist Janet Frobisher, who has been separated for years from her husband, a man with a criminal past, lives in an isolated home in England. Her nearest neighbor is nosy veterinarian

Veterinarian

A veterinary physician, colloquially called a vet, shortened from veterinarian or veterinary surgeon , is a professional who treats disease, disorder and injury in animals....

 Dr. Henderson. Janet falls in love and occasionally dabbles with her secretary

Secretary

A secretary, or administrative assistant, is a person whose work consists of supporting management, including executives, using a variety of project management, communication & organizational skills. These functions may be entirely carried out to assist one other employee or may be for the benefit...

 Chris' fiancé Larry, who is years younger than she. When her estranged husband unexpectedly appears, Janet poison

Poison

In the context of biology, poisons are substances that can cause disturbances to organisms, usually by chemical reaction or other activity on the molecular scale, when a sufficient quantity is absorbed by an organism....

s him by administering horse medication given to her by her neighbor. One of the deceased man's criminal cohorts arrives as she's preparing to dispose of the body in the local lake. When Frobisher's secretary and Larry arrive at the secluded house, the mysterious man, who has assisted her with her scheme, impersonates the long-absent spouse of Janet, who plots to get rid of her unplanned accomplice, as well.

Production notes

Of the project, star Bette Davis

Bette Davis

Ruth Elizabeth "Bette" Davis was an American actress of film, television and theater. Noted for her willingness to play unsympathetic characters, she was highly regarded for her performances in a range of film genres, from contemporary crime melodramas to historical and period films and occasional...

 recalled, "We had nothing but script trouble. Gary [Merrill] and I often wondered why we agreed to make this film after we got started working on it. Emlyn [Williams] rewrote many scenes for us, which gave it some plausibility, but we never cured the basic ills of the story."

This was the second on-screen pairing of then-married couple Davis and Gary Merrill

Gary Merrill

Gary Fred Merrill was an American film and television character actor whose credits included more than fifty feature films, a half-dozen mostly short-lived TV series, and dozens of television guest appearances....

, following All About Eve

All About Eve

All About Eve is a 1950 American drama film written and directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, based on the 1946 short story "The Wisdom of Eve", by Mary Orr.The film stars Bette Davis as Margo Channing, a highly regarded but aging Broadway star...

the previous year.

Rapper, who was selected by Davis to helm the film, had directed her in Now, Voyager

Now, Voyager

Now, Voyager is a 1942 American drama film starring Bette Davis, Paul Henreid, and Claude Rains, and directed by Irving Rapper. The screenplay by Casey Robinson is based on the 1941 novel of the same name by Olive Higgins Prouty....

ten years earlier.

Co-star and script doctor Emlyn Williams

Emlyn Williams

George Emlyn Williams, CBE , known as Emlyn Williams, was a Welsh dramatist and actor.-Biography:He was born into a Welsh-speaking, working class family in Mostyn, Flintshire....

 wrote the original play on which Davis' 1945 film The Corn Is Green

The Corn Is Green (1945 film)

The Corn Is Green is a 1945 drama film starring Bette Davis as a schoolteacher determined to bring education to a Welsh coal mining town, despite great opposition...

was based.

Exteriors of the United Artists

United Artists

United Artists Corporation is an American film studio. The original studio of that name was founded in 1919 by D. W. Griffith, Charles Chaplin, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks....

 release were filmed on location in Malham

Malham

Malham is a village and civil parish in the Craven district of North Yorkshire, England. Situated in the Yorkshire Dales with a population of approximately 150. The surrounding countryside is well known for its limestone pavements and other examples of limestone scenery...

, North Yorkshire

North Yorkshire

North Yorkshire is a non-metropolitan or shire county located in the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England, and a ceremonial county primarily in that region but partly in North East England. Created in 1974 by the Local Government Act 1972 it covers an area of , making it the largest...

, and interiors were shot at the Nettlefold Studios

Nettlefold Studios

Nettlefold Studios were located in what is now Hepworth Way, Walton-on-Thames. Cecil Hepworth began film making there in 1899, but the name derives from the subsequent owner, Archibald Nettlefold, who rebuilt the studios on the original site. During the late fifties the studio changed its name to...

 in Walton-on-Thames

Walton-on-Thames

Walton-on-Thames is a town in the Elmbridge borough of Surrey in South East England. The town is located south west of Charing Cross and is between the towns of Weybridge and Molesey. It is situated on the River Thames between Sunbury Lock and Shepperton Lock.- History :The name "Walton" is...

, Surrey

Surrey

Surrey is a county in the South East of England and is one of the Home Counties. The county borders Greater London, Kent, East Sussex, West Sussex, Hampshire and Berkshire. The historic county town is Guildford. Surrey County Council sits at Kingston upon Thames, although this has been part of...

.

Principal cast

• Bette Davis ..... Janet Frobisher
• Gary Merrill ..... George Bates
• Emlyn Williams ..... Dr. Henderson
• Anthony Steel ..... Larry Stevens
• Barbara Murray
  Barbara Murray
  Barbara Ann Murray is an English actress. She was married to the actor John Justin and had three daughters, but they divorced in 1964....
  
   ..... Chris Dale
• Reginald Beckwith
  Reginald Beckwith
  Reginald Beckwith was a British film and television actor, who made almost one hundred film and television appearances in his career.-Filmography:* Freedom Radio * Scott of the Antarctic...
  
   ..... Mr. Bigley
• Edna Morris ..... Mrs. Bunting

Principal production credits

• Producer
  Film producer
  A film producer oversees and delivers a film project to all relevant parties while preserving the integrity, voice and vision of the film. They will also often take on some financial risk by using their own money, especially during the pre-production period, before a film is fully financed.The...
  
   ..... Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.
  Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.
  Douglas Elton Fairbanks, Jr. KBE was an American actor and a highly decorated naval officer of World War II.-Early life:...
  
  , Daniel M. Angel
  Daniel M. Angel
  Daniel M. Angel was a leading British film producer who wasresponsible for several notable British films during the 1950s, such as Another Man's Poison , The Sea Shall Not Have Them , Reach for the Sky , and Carve Her Name with Pride .He was married to Betty van Damm, the daughter of Vivian van...
  
  
• Original Music
  Film score
  A film score is original music written specifically to accompany a film, forming part of the film's soundtrack, which also usually includes dialogue and sound effects...
  
   ..... John Greenwood
  John D. H. Greenwood
  John Danforth Herman Greenwood , film composer, was the son of a New Zealander, Alfred Greenwood and his English-born wife Ottilie Rose Minna née Schweitzer...
  
   (UK release), Paul Sawtell
  Paul Sawtell
  Paul Sawtell was a Polish-born film score composer in the United States.Sawtell began his career with RKO, and eventually joined Universal Pictures. Sawtell worked on many western and horror films, and also scored the Sherlock Holmes films The Pearl of Death and The Scarlet Claw. In the late...
  
   (US release)
• Cinematography
  Cinematography
  Cinematography is the making of lighting and camera choices when recording photographic images for cinema. It is closely related to the art of still photography...
  
   ..... Robert Krasker
  Robert Krasker
  Robert Krasker, A.S.C. was a cinematographer, who worked on more than fifty films in his career.He was born in Perth, Australia andtravelled to England in 1932 via photographic studios in Paris and Dresden...
  
  
• Art Direction
  Art director
  The art director is a person who supervise the creative process of a design.The term 'art director' is a blanket title for a variety of similar job functions in advertising, publishing, film and television, the Internet, and video games....
  
   ..... Cedric Dawe
• Costume Design
  Costume design
  Costume design is the fabrication of apparel for the overall appearance of a character or performer. This usually involves researching, designing and building the actual items from conception. Costumes may be for a theater or cinema performance but may not be limited to such...
  
   ..... Julie Harris
  Julie Harris (costume designer)
  Julie Harris is a British costume designer.Born in London, Harris began her career in 1947 at Gainsborough Pictures with Holiday Camp, the forerunner of the Huggett family film series...
  
  

Critical reception

The New York Times described the film as "a garrulous but occasionally interesting excursion into murder and unrequited love . . . the script . . . is basically a static affair that rarely escapes from its sets or the scenarist's verbosity. Suspense is only fitfully generated and then quickly dissipated . . . Gary Merrill contributes a thoroughly seasoned and convincing portrayal . . . Emlyn Williams adds a professionally polished characterization . . . and Anthony Steel and Barbara Murray are adequate . . . However, Another Man's Poison is strictly Bette Davis' meat. She is permitted a wide latitude of histrionics in delineating the designing neurotic who is as flinty a killer as any we've seen in the recent past."

In his review in New Statesman and Nation, Frank Hauser wrote, "No one has ever accused Bette Davis of failing to rise to a good script; what this film shows is how far she can go to meet a bad one."

External links

• Another Man's Poison at the Internet Movie Database