MovieChat Forums > The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946) Discussion > to know her (biblically) is to love her

to know her (biblically) is to love her


I've seen matches symbolize a spark of romance, and I've seen untended campfires symbolize the passion of bygone youth, but I've never in all my years seen the Gideon Bible symbolize sexuality!! I'm still not sure how that was accomplished, but it was.

This movie does a brilliant job of talking about sex without talking about it - I guess we have censors to thank for this kind of subtlety in writing, nowadays if a writer wants his characters to say "let's sleep together" or "we had sex when we were kids" he's expected just to come out and say it. Thank you puritanical Hollywood censorship!

Everything about this movie was so complex and subtle, I am amazed there aren't more discussions about it here, especially given the volume of reviews on the main page - obviously people have seen it and like it well enough to speak their piece.

reply

That stood out to me as well, the subtlety with which the physical passions are suggested. Yet there's no doubt as to what the characters are driving at.

reply

The subtleties were fantastic between Martha and Sam. It made their sexual tension more electrifying to watch.

"I'd rather be hated for who I am, than loved for who I am not".

reply

[deleted]

[deleted]

spot on. that's partly what's so great about old movies, you get the coolest things because they have to work around what today would be just blasting out vulgarity, sometimes when i watch modern entertainment i'm like "why don't they just make adult movies" or "i hope no one walks in while i'm watching this...", and where i live you can hear any word or discussion on daytime tv, it's embarrassing. the translated subtitles is using words that would no way pass in a movie of this age, hearing the holiday halloween in a movie of this age sounds weird to someone in a country where it just recently began being celebrated, in small towns it's still not, also i've never seen a movie with such fast paced opening credits, i guess that's why i missed kirk douglas was in it until he appeared about half an hour in, also unusual is the running time almost two hours, another unusual sight was the woman holding onto the kid during thunder since she looked like a grown up as hadn't been introduced yet, the candle looked out of place, this movie is revolving around bad weather a lot, notice the thunder at one point sounds like a gun shot and as he jumps out of bed during⚡️the curtain looks funny as well, some of the picture outside is filmed too dark, the cabdriver has the most recognisable face though i can't spot from where, the woman's line "i was so lonesome i could die", now what does that remind us of? the song, don't you remember? hank williams used to sing it, "that reminds me, why ain't you a singin' star instead of a lush". a lot of neat zoom in of the actors faces like in the twilight zone, listening to commentary tracks moviemakers used to love that, today it's like the opposite, mostly in europe even the news has started zooming out newsreaders until it becomes unintentionally funny as you only see a spot of someone talking.



🎥📽🎞




left me alone,
in the square of home,
lost and longing for you,
radio silence in empty room,
hard to grasp,
you wont be back.

reply

Knowing Lizabeth Scott from other movies, I expected the Bible to burst into flames when she touched it.

reply