The Visit is a quiet little masterpiece of a revenge picture: kind of a cross between The Count of Monte Cristo and The Lottery with just a hint of one of those human vs. mob episodes of The Twilight Zone. It is the story of a fabulously wealthy woman who comes back to her hometown after having left it in disgrace some twenty years before. The town welcomes her with open arms, hoping she'll let bygones be bygones and fork over some much needed cash.

When just a girl of seventeen, Karla Zachanassian (Ingrid Bergman) had a love affair with a boy called Serge Miller (Anthony Quinn). When Karla became pregnant, not only did Serge desert her, he hired two jerks to testify at the paternity hearing that she had slept with them as well, thereby making her case impossible to prove. Branded a tramp, Karla was forced to give up her child (who later died) and was drummed out of town by all the respectable people. 

Serge, meanwhile, married a shopkeeper's daughter (Valentina Cortese) and got on with his life. Karla, with no other options, became a prostitute. While on the job she met and somehow married a millionaire, spending the time thereafter observing people and market forces and plotting her revenge.

The town itself, a vaguely Slavic berg, had fallen on hard times over the years. With the news of the now famously rich Karla's impending visit, they pull out all the stops. Everyone knows the backstory and people are worried that she will not have forgiven Serge. They tell him to be cool and maybe not bring his wife along, in case she's still holding a grudge.

But Karla arrives all smiles and sophistication, bedecked in furs, entourage in tow, several Asian chefs, assorted servants and a pet leopard, obviously. She confides in Serge that she has every intention of being generous, a fact he reveals at the town council meeting on whose board he sits. They think it'll be a few hundred thousand of their vaguely Slavic currency, which would have been swell, so imagine their delight when she announces at dinner that she intends to dish out a total of 2 million: one million to the town, and the other to be split evenly among its citizens.

On one condition: to collect, Serge must be put to death.

The town is shocked, SHOCKED at that proposal. Why, the death penalty is barbaric and was abolished ages ago! How could she even suggest such a thing? It's unthinkable! That is, until they start thinking about it. 

A handful of people start buying things on credit from Serge's store. Then more and more, until there's no more left to buy. His friends seem to be smiling a little too broadly at him lately. When all kinds of shiny new cars and luxury items are shipped into town and made available for no money down, Serge becomes so wigged out he tries to leave town, but is prevented by a mob of his "friends." It's creepy! Eventually, the council decides it's time to revisit their criminal code.

Because this picture is available streaming on Amazon, I am not going to tell you how the situation plays out. Suffice it to say that The Visit is a surprisingly effective expose of the collective conscience. As a co-production of France, German, Italy, and the United States, everybody in it -- English speakers included -- seems to have been heavily dubbed, but this is a fascinating political morality tale very well told with moments of great tension and not a little humor. 

Plus great clothes. 

Ingrid Bergman is even more luminous than usual in this picture. Maybe it's the embers of slow-burning hatred, maybe it's the leopard, I don't know, but I like vengeful Bergman very much indeed.

This post is my contribution to The Wonderful Ingrid Bergman Blogathon, hosted by The Wonderful World of Cinema. 

Please take a moment to peruse the other reviews and essays celebrating this lovely woman's life and career.

Let me just start by saying that I've never been a huge fan of Loretta Young. I know she had a hard time balancing romance and Faith throughout her life (see this disturbing story about her "love" child with Clark Gable), but Young's particular brand of star quality never quite clicked for me. Her performance in The Farmer's Daughter, for which she won the Academy Award, is charming in the Loretta Young way, but the real beauty and light in that picture is Ethel Barrymore's.  In less capable hands, the part of an aging political matriarch in a comedy could devolve into caricature, but Barrymore plays her like a real human being -- a quietly funny human being, but one you wouldn't want to mess with.

The Story
Young plays Katie Holstrom, the tirelessly cheerful daughter of a Swedish-American Midwestern farmer and sister to three strapping young men (two of whom turn out to be James Arness and Lex Barker). She cooks for all of them, cleans their clothes, helps their mother feed all the farmhands, and still finds time to milk cows and pitch in during harvest or whatever. The movie begins with Katie about to make an understandable break for it to Capitol City to start a comparatively less strenuous career in nursing.

Because Katie is a thrifty girl, she tries to save a few bucks on bus fare by accepting a ride to the City with a local sign painter called Adolph (Rhys Williams), a name which, in my opinion, should have been a big red flag in 1947. Along the way, Adolph gets drunk and cracks up the car, forcing them to spend the night at a motel (separate rooms, naturally) while the car gets repaired -- using up all of Katie's nursing school money. After Adolph strands her the next morning, resourceful Katie hitchhikes to Capitol City, tracks him down, and demands her money. He refuses, threatening to tell her family and the whole town that she spent the night with him at a motel* instead of getting on the bus like a good girl. Katie knows when she's licked and heads for the nearest employment office where she lands a job as a maid in the home of young Congressman Glenn Morley (Joseph Cotten) and his mother, political kingmaker, Agatha (Ethel Barrymore).

Katie soon becomes indispensable to the household, what with her hard working, girl-of-the-people, plainspoken wholesomeness and all. The butler, Clancy (Charles Bickford), sees a certain special something of a political nature in her and starts mentoring her in the ways of party politics. Glenn sees a certain something else about Katie and Agatha sees that Glenn sees a certain something about Katie too. She approves.

Meanwhile, the sudden death of a congressman in the Morley's party causes the local bosses to get together to pick a replacement. However, the person they pick, Anders Finley, is someone Katie dislikes. When she and Clancy attend Finley's rally, she gets up and asks him some difficult policy questions, which attracts the attention of the opposition leaders. Katie is then asked to run against Finley in the upcoming election, because she's pretty, smart, honest, foreign-ish (but not too foreign) and a lady: a shoo-in.

But she can't stay at the Morleys' anymore and Agatha, as the queen of the party, is going to have to pull out all the stops to win, no hard feelings. Glenn begins to help Katie with her campaign while Finley decides to play dirty. He finds nurse-money-thieving, drunken-lecher Adolf and pays him to spread the story about staying in that motel with Katie (if you know what I mean). Humiliated, Katie goes back to the farm where Glenn finds her, hoping to convince her to a) marry him and b) stay in the race and fight.

Speaking of fight, Agatha and Clancy dig up dirt of their own on Finley. Turns out he's a white supremacist and a bit of a drinker, so they liquor him up and get him to spill the beans not only about paying Adolf, but also cop to where he's hiding, whereupon Katie's three farm-fed brothers head right on over to beat the crap out of the painter. Happy that her son is finally going to marry Katie and not wanting to back a creep like Finley, Agatha throws her support behind her future daughter-in-law, who probably wins. We don't know; the picture's over.

The sweetest relationship in the film is Agatha and Clancy's, but don't take my word for it. Watch The Farmer's Daughter streaming here!

* ADOLF

This post is my contribution to the Barrymore Trilogy Blogathon, hosted by In the Good Old Days of Classic Hollywood. 

Happy 136th, Miss Ethel!