A young writer goes to Paris. He meets in the train a young woman forced to marry a wealthy casino manager in Monte Carlo. His true love for the girl is about to direct him to Monte Carlo and to turn himself into a compulsive gambler. He'll lose his money, his integrity and his principles to save this girl from her future while fighting the demon of gambling with the most powerful weapon a man can have love.
This is commonly known as Jean Renoir's first American film (1941), although Renoir scholar Alexander Sesonske has established that Renoir's creative role in the project was severely hampered by producer Darryl F. Zanuck and that he didn't regard much of the film as his own. (The ending, for instance, was written by Zanuck and directed by Irving Pichel.) Nevertheless, the film has certain beauties and pleasures. Part of it was shot in Georgia's Okefenokee swamp, and the treatment of the small community living ~Censored~ is often pungent and distinctive.
Charles Dexter Ward's wife enlists the help of a private detective to find out what her husband is up to in a remote cabin owned by his family for centuries. The husband is a chemical engineer and the smells from his experiments (and the delivery of what appear to be human remains at all hours) are beginning to arouse the attention of neighbors and local law enforcement officials. When the detective and wife find a diary of the husband's ancestor from 1771 and reports of gruesome murders in the area begin to surface they begin to suspect that some very unnatural experiments are being conducted in the old house. Based on an H.P. Lovecraft
一个年轻的拿破仑军官追踪一个神秘的女人而来到一个年迈男爵的城堡,在那里他发现这个女人是听命于一个老巫婆,其最终目的是迫使男爵自杀…… Roger directed for two days on a set left over from a previous production, and without a proper script. He hired Francis Coppola to write a script and finish the picture. After five weeks of shooting, Roger fired Francis, and hired me to finish the picture. Jack Hill was hired to write a new script with me. A lot of what Francis shot was thrown out, except for the stuff with the witch from WIZARD OF OZ. (Dorothy Newman), and I finished the picture in five days of shooting. All of the interiors are Roger's (with the exception of Francis's witch's lair), and most of the exteriors are mine. To the best of my recollection, and contrary to legend, Jack Nicholson did not direct any of the film.