... he was just the lit match that set the kindling afire. This is the most messed up family ever. Christine Mannon has always hated her husband Ezra Mannon, a general in the Union army at the time of the Civil War. Outside of casualties the Mannons have nothing to fear from the war since they are safely in New England, far from the actual fighting. But they actually have their own civil war brewing. On top of Christine hating her husband since she married him, begging the question WHY did she marry him, Christine has a much younger lover, sea captain Adam Brant (Leo Genn). Apparently the daughter in the family, Lavinia (Rosalind Russell) fancied Brant at one time herself, so she could hate her mom because she is betraying her father, or she could just be jealous that a woman in late middle age beat her out of a beau.Brant began just toying with Christine because he wanted revenge for something the Mannons did to his mother years ago, although the toying turned to love. Plus it turns out Brant is a Mannon himself, but it is a part of himself that he despises. But Christine knows about the shunned relative angle and is still not dissuaded.Then dad and son return from war, and it turns out that there is something pretty weird about the father/daughter and the mother/son love dynamic going on here. It doesn't look paternal and it does not look platonic. Christine switches Adam's heart pills with poison and kills him so she can be free to be with Brant. However, Lavinia discovers her scheme and the poison pills. Rather than turn her mother over to the authorities for murder, she convinces her brother (Michael Redgrave as reluctant war hero and mama's boy Orin) to mete out their own brand of personal justice rather than send mom to the gallows. The problem is, Lavinia is more like her mother than she would ever admit, Orin is a very unstable partner in her scheme, and Christine does not think that Lavinia's idea of justice is all that it is cracked up to be.Add in Lavinia's rather naïve yet devoted suitor with high moral standards, played by a - believe it or not - sixth billed Kirk Douglas, and you have a recipe for disaster.If this sounds like a Greek tragedy, actually it is. But you know what, I was glued to to the screen taking it all in. I felt like a voyeur invading this family's most personal crazy secrets. It was just like when the brother and sister were on the boat looking down, like voyeurs, into the galley and seeing their mother in the arms of her adulterous lover. The movie grabs your attention and keeps it for 2 1/2 hours.Highly recommended especially for Michael Redgrave and Rosalind Russell who, though she was just shy of 40, did not look too old for the part. Michael Redgrave takes a wild ride of emotions and has you believing every one of them. Oh, and Kirk, run! Run far away from these people! No scrape that Burt Lancaster or the Duke ever got you into was as dangerous as these Mannons!

The writing, direction and acting have joined forces into creating one of the most ludicrous concoctions I have ever witnessed. I love classic films and theatre and the acting greats involved usually do a fine jobs in other films,but this is their exception. Rosalind Russell who is an exceptional pro winds up being a prototype for Carol Burnett's Norma Desmond creation with Redgrave playing wide eyed mad as well! The Greek actress playing the mother Christine greedily chews the scenery and her moaning is a hoot ("Mother, don't moan.")! Even young Kirk Douglas tries to rise above the material, but soon is weighted down by the "melo-hammy" play, He does look quite relieved to leave his final scene. I was half expecting to see the wonderful Henry Hull turn to the camera and say,"You folks are lucky-you can leave..I have to stay here." If you want to have some real unintended laughs then I suggest this creaking groaner!

America's greatest 20th century playwright, Eugene O'Neill, never transferred well to screen. Not enough car chases and gun fire perhaps over the healthy running time ( two hours and beyond) usually accorded his works which uncoiled at a challenging but well metered pace suited for theatre. Watching a live actor treading the boards, slowly disintegrating before our eyes can make for a powerfully emotional experience, but on film the dynamic changes and it is left up to the director to breathe life and give form in the transfer. In Mourning Becomes Electra director Dudley Nichols plays it safe and sorry with over top stagy performances and filmed backdrops that have a look of canvas. Bereft of its immediacy and natural state Nichols fails to capitalize with the cinematic tools he has to counter balance and Mourning becomes one big moan.Lavinia Manon makes no bones about the love she feels for her father returning home after the Civil War. General Manon is a taciturn mover and shaker in the sea side community and though cold and remote with his wife he seeks to re-establish the love they felt for each other before the marriage. Wife Christine, however, has taken up with a sea captain that Lavinia had a brief fling with and still carries a torch for. When the General dies from a coronary (enabled by Christine's halfhearted attempt to get his medication) Lavinia turns her rage against mom and the sea captain with homicidal intent. Enlisting her weak, probably shell shocked brother Orin to exact revenge she ultimately destroys what was once the noble house of Manon before shuttering herself inside the barren cold museum.Rosalind Russell is a bit long in the tooth and over the top as the incestuous Lavinia, screeching center stage through most of the film. Russell has the chops to get at Lavinia's emotional center and she does in moments that are once again better suited for the stage, far from close-ups in natural form and in real time. Ray Massey as the patriarch is glacial and unapproachable while Katina Paxinou is an ill fit in her hysteria as Christina. MIchael Redgrave's Orin suffers from the same malady as Roz's erratic Lavinia in form and content. Revealingly it is Kirk Douglas in a supporting role as Lavinia's suffering suitor that comes across the most natural and suited for the camera.Were it possible I would be more than willing to shell out good money to see Russell and Redgrave repeat these performances in the arena they were tailored for, the stage. The power and intensity of these fine actors in these roles would no doubt make for compelling theatre, but this filmed version is as flat as the screen it's projected on.

Eugene O'Neil or not, this 1947 film is pure junk.Rosalind Russell was favored to win the Oscar for playing the horrid Lavinia. The picture was so lousy, that's what did her in.A story of love and continuous death, people literally die off like flies in this one, is depressing. The cinematography may also be described this way.Former Oscar winner, Katina Paxinou overacts. She literally screams her part. Michael Redgrave, who was also Oscar nominated here, is really vacuous here.Rosalind Russell was a superior actress who was given an inferior script. Had I been her, I would have headed to the exits right after this film was made.A pure a-one stinker.