The Two Mrs. Carrolls (1947) **

Release Date: March 4, 1947

Running Time: 99 minutes

Starring: Humphrey Bogart, Barbara Stanwyck, Alexis Smith, Nigel Bruce, and Ann Carter

Directed by: Peter Godfrey

An artist with a sadistic secret, a trusting wife who begins to suspect her husband is trying to kill her, and a rich woman who is trying her hand at home wrecker. All of this sounds like a typical season on a uninspired soap opera. For a daytime drama this might be passable but for an A-list motion picture starring some of the biggest actors and actresses of the day it is downright disappointing. 

Humphrey Bogart stars as Geoffrey Carroll, a painter who begins the film wooing Sally Morton (Barbara Stanwyck) while hiding from her that he is still married. When she finds out he lies and tells her that he is in the process of leaving his wife who, by his account, is an invalid. He also reveals that he has a daughter, Bea (Ann Carter). Sally wants nothing to do with all this and leaves him. Shortly thereafter Geoffrey’s wife dies from a mysterious illness and, soon after, Geoffrey and Sally get married.

Through a friend of Sally’s, Geoffrey is introduced to Cecile Latham (Alexis Smith), a wealthy woman who has set her eyes on him under the pretense of commissioning him to paint her portrait. What she really has in mind in to get between the couple and take Geoffrey for her own. Geoffrey is hesitant at first but eventually agrees to the job. Shortly thereafter, Sally starts getting sick much the same way the original Mrs. Carroll did. 

Reportedly Bogart didn’t want to be here at that time making this film. During the production he and Lauren Bacall tied the knot, even shutting down the filming while they went off on their honeymoon. Whether this event effected his performance or not can be debated but he does come across as not totally committed to the role. There are times where he looks like he would rather be somewhere else than on this set. Even when the moment calls for him to portray intensity he is not very convincing here. While some of his most intense performances were still in the future, most notably The Treasure of the Sierra Madre the following year, he had demonstrated in the past that he was capable of playing things dark and charming. 

Not all of the blame for this film falls on Bogart’s shoulders though. Barbara Stanwyck is equally poor in a role she allegedly took out of sheer boredom. In the early scenes she is entirely too chipper. Later on, as her suspicions of her husband deepen, she descends onto overacting and some of the most outrageously hilarious voice over ever put on screen. Whether you blame her for this or shift that blame to Peter Godfrey, the director, for staging it that way as well as not reigning in his actors, it amounts to the same, an over-the-top performance that is disjointed and laughable.

The rest of the cast is game, yet amount to mere caricatures. Nigel Bruce is perhaps the worst of these as Dr. Tuttle, an alcoholic physician whose boisterousness is only eclipsed by his ineptitude. Alexis Smith is a generic gold digger with the only distinction being she is the one with the gold. The only true standout amongst the secondary cast is young Ann Carreras the daughter Beatrice Carroll. Ann made a career out of playing characters like this and she is fantastic here, livening up every scene she is in.

This was never going to be a great film. It’s roots are as generic and cliché as the final product. The greatest performers would struggle to make this even a good film and, as mentioned above, it had some of the greatest performers in it. It’s a B film filled with A-list actors and actresses and as such it cannot possible escape that trapping. At best it is a somewhat generic thriller. At worst, it is a completely forgettable film best swept under the rug.