The Shrike

The gross miscasting of lovable June Allyson as a manipulative woman sets this drama on its ear. A shrike is an innocuous-looking bird that sometimes impales its prey on thorns. The hit play adopted this image for its female lead character, a vicious person who manipulated her kowtowing husband to such a degree that he winds up in an insane asylum. Here the situation is soft-pedaled, so that Ferrer, as the husband, eventually does go into a mental ward, but more as a result of his own doing than because of Allyson's cruelty. In the picture's contrived happy end, Ferrer and Allyson get back together in the hope of making their marriage work. Ferrer, who starred in t...