Dishonored Lady (1947)

A fashion editor (Hedy Lamarr) for a magazine leads two lives. A professional by day but a playgirl with a reputation living life in the fast lane at night. Unhappy with the way her life is going, she attempts suicide but a psychiatrist (Morris Carnovsky) urges her to rethink her life. She leaves her job and takes on a new identity to start a new life but her past will come back to haunt her. Directed by Robert Stevenson (MARY POPPINS) and based on a 1930 play by Margaret Ayer Barnes and Edward Sheldon with Katharine Cornell playing the title role. The film version has been "cleaned up" considerably from the play to appease the 1947 censors and what we're left with is a routine potboiler. The transfer I saw had been cut by about five minutes and I suppose those five minutes could have provided a more consistent narrative rather than the choppy edit I saw but I doubt it would have made for a better film. Lamarr is breathtakingly gorgeous but her acting isn't strong enough (at least not here) to make us care much about her character's fate. With Dennis O'Keefe, William Lundigan, John Loder, Margaret Hamilton and Natalie Schafer.