The Other Woman (1954 film)

Plot

After aspiring actress Sherry Stewart auditions for director Walter Darman but doesn't get the part, she decides to blackmail him.

Sherry and her boyfriend Ronnie cook up a scheme, drugging Darman's drink, lying to him later that he and Sherry had become intimate, then threatening to tell his wife unless Darman comes up with $50,000.

Darman decides to confront Sherry directly, but tempers flare and he strangles her to death. His wife Lucille chooses an inopportune time to confront the actress herself, finding the body. A police inspector suspects the truth and Darman's guilty conscience eventually forces him to confess.

Cast

Critical response

Film critic Dennis Schwartz dismissed the film as "...a dull film noir, suffering from an unconvincing plot, and dry acting." Cinema scholar Milan Hein is much more sympathetic to the film. "The Other Woman is Haas' most ambitious film, with many themes and motifs mirroring his own career: life in exile characterized by disillusionment and entrapment, loss of one's identity and social status, hopeless struggle with the Hollywood machinery, and the impossibility of fully realizing one's artistic visions."