Leslie Sands' stilted play "Deadlock" becomes a poor-choice vehicle for Bette Davis and Gary Merrill, following their joint-success in "All About Eve". After killing her spouse, a scheming woman is visited by her husband's best friend, who passes himself off as her husband once other people begin dropping by. Irving Rapper, one of Bette's best directors from her peak years, is sadly unable to elevate this ridiculous material, in which Davis is curiously aloof and restrained until the outrageous finale (where she thankfully pulls out all the stops). Production and supporting cast second-rate. Mainly for Bette Davis completists. ** from ****

This movie resembles very much a live play... All the action takes place basically in one or two rooms of the same house.Davis is a detective novelist whose long estranged shady husband suddenly reappears--on the lam from a botched bank robbery. He wants Davis to help him escape. Instead, Davis murders him with poison (medicine for her horse)..The action starts when the husband's cohort in the bank robbery (Merrill) appears. Will he help Davis get rid of the body; will she help him or fall for him??? All these things swirl around in the plot.Of note Davis and Merrill were married in real life at this time.I have 2 overriding criteria for movies...do they entertain?...and (death for my reviews) do they have an excessive amount of PC or some social message etc...?==with the director holding up sign boards on how we are supposed to feel or think about situations.Cinematography and directing acting and everything else is mentioned as needed.This film passes both primary tests. The only flaw in it is the ending which I was not anticipating but which was gimmicky none the less--thank heavens it was short. The denouement where the body is discovered due to Merril's accident was also too pat and unbelievable---the part about the hat---what were the writers thinking a red herring?? Davis later said that after she and Merrill started the film there were lots of problems with the script that were never adequately addressed by rewrites.Davis at 43 is showing her age.... a bit unbelievable that she would be a seductress of a much younger man...but Davis was meant to play these twisted roles. In any case she is a murderess and the plot moves fast enough with enough twists that you don't anticipate most of it.Yes, it is entertaining. It is a formula plot that has been used several times Christopher Reeves and Michael Caine in Death Trap...etc.. This is the best version.

I awarded this film 6/10 and you can see how Bette Davis is gradually moving to her later horror style which she reached her apogee in "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?".It is so obviously a filmed stage play with 95% of the action filmed in Betty's Yorkshire country house but there are a few token scenes of her and her co-male actors riding over the Yorkshire moors however.An irritating continuity problem is when actors open and come through the front door seemingly without keys and suddenly appear inside your living room this still happens in stupid "soaps" like "Eastenders" especially when the home-help has not started her duties!I only saw this film because someone uploaded it onto "Youtube.com".Gary Merrill plays a less sympathetic character than he played in "All About Eve".A slightly above average film.

In New Yorkshimore, the adulterous writer of mystery novels Janet Frobisher (Bette Davis) is surprised by the stranger George Bates (Gary Merrill) that is waiting for her inside her isolated house nearby a lake seeking out her husband George Preston. Bates tells Janet that her husband and he had robbed a bank; however her husband panicked in the heist and shot a guard. Janet tells that she is alone and surprisingly reveals that she had poisoned her husband and shows his body in the office. Out of the blue, her nosy next door neighbor Dr. Henderson (Emlyn Williams) pays a visit to her and George introduces himself as Janet's estranged husband that was traveling in Himalaya. Then they decide to dump the body in the lake, but Janet's secretary Chris Dale (Barbara Murray) and her fiancé and Janet's lover Larry Steven (Anthony Steel) arrive for the weekend and George dispose the corpse alone. Along the next days, the situation becomes tense with the quartet while Dr. Henderson snoops the house. When George kills Janet's horse Fury, the cynical writer plots a plan to gets rid of the inconvenient George. "Another Man's Poison" is a theatrical film shot practically in one location with a plot about murder and adultery that is indeed a witty mouse-and-cat game. The fantastic Bette Davis plays the role of a devilish selfish woman that only loves her horse Fury. Emlyn Williams performs an irritating character and only in the end there is an explanation for his annoying attitude. The conclusion is ironic and the black-humor is moralist in a certain viewpoint. My vote is seven.Title (Brazil): "Mulher Maldita" ("Damned Woman")