Whirlpool

Whirlpool is a 1949 film noir thriller directed by Otto Preminger and written by Ben Hecht and Andrew Solt, adapted from Guy Endore's novel Methinks the Lady. The film stars Gene Tierney, Richard Conte, José Ferrer and Charles Bickford, and features Constance Collier in her final film role. Due to anti-British statements Hecht had recently made regarding their involvement in Israel, UK prints of the film replaced his credit with a pseudonym, Lester Barstow. The drama combines crime drama with psychological thriller (the heroine is controlled by a murderous hypnotist) and melodrama, as the central character's marriage is threatened. Four years later, Conte starred in The Blue Gardenia, which has a strikingly similar plot, but replaces the psycho-analysis angle with a more straight-forward procedural storyline.