Anne Baxter is at the top of her game here imbuing her “Evelyn” character with quite a bit of toxicity. She’s not a well woman and so is kindly invited to live with her boyfriend doctor “Dan” (Scott McKay) and his family. These folks are broadly welcoming of their new arrival, but it soon becomes quite clear that she’s not a very nice person and is at her most contented when she is playing with other people’s emotions. Firstly, she starts to make a move on his married brother “Douglas” (Ralph Bellamy) and is soon manoeuvring herself into his affections whilst simultaneously destroying the fabric of the others in this household. Fortunately, the sagely aunt “Martha” (Aline MacMahon) has been to the Judith Anderson school of careful counter-plotting and decides that it might be time for their young visitor to get her comeuppance. From around twenty minutes in, director John Brahm starts to builds a drama that’s cleverly enough crafted, eerily intrusively photographed and that uses Werner Janssen’s tense and crescendoing score to good effect as Baxter’s machinations unfold before us. The gents fare a little less well, but that’s as much to do with their parts being very much supportive to the roles for Baxter and MacMahon as to their lacklustre acting. This is definitely a film that showcases strong women with parts (and co-stars) they can sink their teeth into and though there are plenty of eyebrow-raising moments in a story that isn’t always the most plausible, there’s still enough to keep this interesting. Ornithophobics amongst us might want to beware, too!