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There are amnesia movies and there are gaslighting movies. The Secret Fury is both, and, I'm sorry to say, it fails to hit two separate marks.
A bad bad lawyer and cadre of hired subordinates contrive to gaslight rich Ellen Ewing (Claudette Colbert) into believing that, while amnesiac, she killed a man. In any recognizable universe it would be impossible or at least extremely difficult to persuade a sensible, mature woman that she suffers from a loss of memory. Not in NoirThrillerMysteryLand, where amnesia is just about as ordinary as a case of summer sniffles. So Ellen takes the amnesia bait and gets herself consigned to a mental hospital until her boyfriend David McLean (Robert Ryan), who is not the swiftest, finally figures out what's going on, and after a frantic fistfight, rescues and vindicates his lady.
I myself was thoroughly confused by the multitude of loose ends in the plot. Who was it who strangled the hotel maid, played by Ethel Mertz aka Vivian Vance? And why?
Bosley Crowther of The New York Times, who hardly liked anything at all, was more-than-usually outraged by this film. He called it "wantonly unintelligible" and "cheap and lurid trash." I rarely agree with BC, but in this case he he went easy on The Secret Fury. I was equally infuriated — The Secret Fury is a film without a shred of integrity. But what's to be expected when a phony case of false induced amnesia is at the heart of the matter?
I feel for Philip Ober, who put his heart into playing the villain and was forced to mouth with a straight face some of the most ludicrous dialogue ever composed. I feel also for Jane Cowl, a graduate of Erasmus Hall High School, who played bland Aunt Clara. Jane Cowl had a long career and appeared in many respectable films. This one is an embarrassment.
So is the crowded, unartistic poster.
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