• Source: The Woman in White (1948 film)

The Woman in White is a 1948 American historical mystery drama film directed by Peter Godfrey and starring Alexis Smith, Eleanor Parker, Sydney Greenstreet, and Gig Young. It was produced and distributed by the Hollywood studio Warner Brothers. The screenplay is based on Wilkie Collins' 1860 novel The Woman in White and is set in Victorian England.




Plot


Walking late at night from the train station to Limmeridge House, where he has been hired to teach drawing, Walter Hartright (Gig Young) meets a mysterious woman in white who vanishes when a carriage approaches. A man in the carriage says they are searching for a woman recently escaped from a nearby asylum. As the carriage drives by, Walter glimpses another man inside. Walter reaches Limmeridge House and meets Marian Halcombe (Alexis Smith), cousin and companion to Miss Laura Fairlie (Eleanor Parker). She tells him of the other occupants, an elderly nurse Mrs. Vesey (Emma Dunn) and Laura's invalid uncle, Frederick (John Abbott). He also meets a guest who has just arrived, Count Alesandro Fosco (Sydney Greenstreet), the other occupant of the carriage.

The next morning, he meets the wealthy Laura and is stunned to see a strong resemblance to the woman in white, so much that he mistakes her for the other woman. At the breakfast table, Laura tells Marian, Mrs. Vesey and Fosco of Walter's encounter. Mrs. Vesey helps Laura recall a visit from a similar person when they were both girls. Determined to investigate, Marian discovers an old letter written by Laura's mother about a distant cousin, Anne Catherick, who looked much like Laura and came to visit one summer. Having furtively discussed Anne's appearance with Frederick, Fosco steals this letter. Discovering the theft, Walter tells Marian of his suspicions of Fosco.
Although Laura is engaged to Sir Percival Glyde (John Emery), she and Walter begin to fall in love. Glyde arrives, hoping to move up the wedding in his eagerness to acquire Laura's fortune.
That evening Walter finds the woman in white, Anne, crying in the garden. She says she wants to warn Laura about something but refuses to enter the house and suddenly disappears. In front of both Laura and Marian, Walter confronts Fosco and Glyde with what Anne told him – that they are forcing Frederick to allow Glyde to marry Laura for her fortune. Laura flees the room, Fosco and Glyde deny the charges and Marian doesn't believe him. Walter leaves Limmeridge House.
Despite telling him she does not love him, Laura marries Glyde. A few months later, Marian comes back to Limmeridge House only to find all the old servants gone and new servants employed. Fosco and his wife, Countess Fosco (Agnes Moorehead) have moved in. Returning from her wedding trip, Laura admits to Marian that she is miserable with Glyde, who cares only for money and will inherit her entire fortune if she dies.
Anne slips into Limmeridge House to warn Laura against Fosco and Glyde, hiding in a secret room with the assistance of the countess. Anne enters Laura's room to talk with her, is confronted by Fosco and Glyde, and suddenly dies in front of Laura and the countess. The men announce that it is Laura who has died. But when Walter attends the funeral, he realizes at once that the woman in the coffin is Anne. He believes Laura is locked in the same asylum where Anne had been. Fosco has hypnotized Laura to believe she is Anne and he is her father. Resisting Fosco's influence, Laura escapes from the asylum. She encounters Glyde, but Walter saves her, and Glyde is killed in the scuffle.
In the meantime Marian has returned to Limmeridge House to try and get Fosco to let Laura go. She offers him a bargain: if he signs a confession and releases Laura from her fraudulent confinement, Marian will leave the country with him. Fosco tells Marian the truth; his wife, the countess, is Fredrick's sister who bore Anne out of wedlock. Fosco helped cover it up and married her soon after. A year later Laura was born, daughter of Fredrick's brother and first cousin of Anne.
Fosco gives Marian an emerald and diamond necklace he had promised to the countess, who is listening in. When she hears that he is leaving with Marian, the countess retrieves a long dagger and stabs him to death. The police arrive just as Fosco dies, and the countess retrieves the necklace. Walter narrates the ending with his marriage to Marian and the birth of a daughter. They are living at Limmeridge House with Laura and her son by Glyde. The Countess Fosco, Anne's mother, is living in the renovated asylum, happily showing off her emerald necklace.




Cast


Alexis Smith as Marian Halcombe
Eleanor Parker as Laura Fairlie/Anne Catherick
Sydney Greenstreet as Count Fosco
Gig Young as Walter Hartright
Agnes Moorehead as Countess Fosco
John Abbott as Frederick Fairlie
John Emery as Sir Percival Glyde
Curt Bois as Louis
Emma Dunn as Mrs. Vesey
Matthew Boulton as Doctor Nevin
Anita Sharp-Bolster as Mrs. Todd
Clifford Brooke as Jepson
Barry Bernard as Dimmock
Creighton Hale as Underservant (uncredited)




See also


The Woman in White – (1912)
The Woman in White – (1929 - directed by Herbert Wilcox)




References






External links



The Woman in White at the AFI Catalog of Feature Films
The Woman in White at IMDb
The Woman in White at AllMovie
The Woman in White at the TCM Movie Database

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