Ruthless (1948)

After he runs away from home, a young boy (Robert J. Anderson) is taken in by a family who treat him as one of their own. But as a young man (Zachary Scott), his ambitions lead him to use anyone who will help him in his climb up the ladder to financial success and then abandon them when they're no longer useful. His victims include his his first love (Diana Lynn), his best friend (Louis Hayward), a socialite (Martha Vickers) and a utilities magnate (Sydney Greenstreet) and his young wife (Lucille Bremer, MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS). Director Edgar G. Ulmer's reputation rests on his ability to transform low budget genre pieces that might have remained schlock in lesser hands into often vital and creative cinema. While his fame rests principally with two films, DETOUR and THE BLACK CAT, his filmography is relatively unexplored. The aptly titled RUTHLESS is an engrossing look at the rise of a callous and aggressive machine in the form of a man who's burned his bridges once too often. The most interesting aspect of the film though is not Scott's character. It's the relationship between the old tycoon (Greenstreet) who adores his young wife (Bremer) unconditionally while she resents being married to an old man and longs to break away and lead a life of her own. Bremer is surprisingly good here, good enough to suggest that perhaps Hollywood wrote her off too early. With Raymond Burr, Claire Carleton and Ann Carter (CURSE OF THE CAT PEOPLE).