Ruthless

Despite its noirish title and the presence of cult-director Edgar G. Ulmer (DETOUR), RUTHLESS is not a film noir but a compelling gothic melodrama that charts in flashback the life and career of a hard-hearted tycoon, played to the hilt by perennial screen-heel Zachary Scott.

Vic Lambdin (Louis Hayward) brings his fiancee Mallory Flagg (Diana Lynn) to the home of Vic's former friend and business partner, the multi-millionaire Horace Vendig (Zachary Scott), for a charity benefit. When Vic introduces Mallory to Horace, he's struck by her uncanny resemblance to a woman named Martha whom he used to know. Horace recounts how, as a boy, he had saved Martha's life when...