It's amazing how lavish a film can look but still be so bad. The sets for this cheaply made exploitation movie are truly good considering that the camera work is so shoddy. It starts off fine with Beverly Garland planning a birthday party for her husband, Skip Homeier. She looks a little nervous, and you can see why. He's a total abuser, both verbally and physically, calling her a tramp one minute then making love to her the next then accusing her of sleeping with her boss-to-be then making love to her again then telling her that he's getting a divorce. Why doesn't she let him go? 'Cause she's woman, mind you, and the women in these films never let anything go without a fight. You might call her noble, some others might call her fool, but she just refuses to leave him alone even when it's clear to the entire audience that she's asking for nothing but trouble if she sticks around.
His boss tells her that he's on the verge of being fired for suddenly announcing he's taking a month long vacation if he doesn't show up for work the following day. She's out and about looking for him, ending up in seedy apartment buildings filled with drunks who try to rape her, a boarding house where the salty landlady declares that she's on the verge of shooting her own husband, and finally, with both her boss-to-be and a very persistent best friend, barely fighting off her boss's declaration of love and possibly getting a headache listening to her friend's extremely obnoxious declaration that all men are wife beaters which soon she is tossing at her boss even though his declarations of love seem totally sincere.
The final nadir in the coffin of this psychological drama (more psycho than logical) is her screaming at her estranged husband of everything she's discovered about him. Certainly, the husband is no gem, but any man would go bonkers having to listen to the wife he supposedly hates go off on him about everything she has discovered about him, basically ripping his whole self-image apart at the scenes, and guess what, it all comes back to his mama. Kenneth Tobey tries his best to add some dignity as the good-hearted older man who loves Garland with all his heart, but Hannah Stone goes over the top as her best friend who is way overboard in giving advice in a more than just demanding way. Garland's character is certainly understandable for most of the film as she is falling apart, but there seems to be something lacking in Homeier's brooding husband to make him understandable.
His boss tells her that he's on the verge of being fired for suddenly announcing he's taking a month long vacation if he doesn't show up for work the following day. She's out and about looking for him, ending up in seedy apartment buildings filled with drunks who try to rape her, a boarding house where the salty landlady declares that she's on the verge of shooting her own husband, and finally, with both her boss-to-be and a very persistent best friend, barely fighting off her boss's declaration of love and possibly getting a headache listening to her friend's extremely obnoxious declaration that all men are wife beaters which soon she is tossing at her boss even though his declarations of love seem totally sincere.
The final nadir in the coffin of this psychological drama (more psycho than logical) is her screaming at her estranged husband of everything she's discovered about him. Certainly, the husband is no gem, but any man would go bonkers having to listen to the wife he supposedly hates go off on him about everything she has discovered about him, basically ripping his whole self-image apart at the scenes, and guess what, it all comes back to his mama. Kenneth Tobey tries his best to add some dignity as the good-hearted older man who loves Garland with all his heart, but Hannah Stone goes over the top as her best friend who is way overboard in giving advice in a more than just demanding way. Garland's character is certainly understandable for most of the film as she is falling apart, but there seems to be something lacking in Homeier's brooding husband to make him understandable.