Harry could have rescued Charlotte much sooner. **SPOILER!**

***SPOILER ALERT*** I find it not entirely believable that Harry chose to honor Jewel’s wishes and not open the letter before her death. It seemed clear enough that he already smelled a dirty rat and suspected Charlotte was not John’s killer. And he obviously had no reservations about poking his nose into people’s affairs. So why wouldn’t he have followed his hunches, gone ahead and opened the letter, learned the truth, and revealed Jewel, Miriam and Drew as the real villains? In so doing, he could have prevented Charlotte from committing murder and winding up in a sanitarium, on trial, or wherever she was being hauled off to.

But alas, they didn't ask me to write the screenplay, ha-ha. And granted, such a change in plot would have torpedoed the rest of the movie. But i'm just saying! :-)

But enough about that — I really enjoyed this movie. A Crawford-Davis reunion and all its oozing venom would have been a sinful treat to watch, but I think De Havilland was admirably despicable as Crawford’s replacement. It also was cool to see Bruce Dern and George Kennedy in early movie roles. Some combinations of actors are just really interesting — throw a bunch of names in a hat, pull two out, and see what happens. Bette Davis and George Kennedy in the same scene? Yep, there they were on the big screen together.

Fun film!